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Clip description
Agnes joins a group of 350 Aboriginal women from the central desert to rehearse and then perform the inma kungkarangkalpa at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
Curator’s notes
Agnes and the other central desert women display the strength of their cultural traditions and the continuity of their heritage, despite the impact of colonial oppression, as they perform an ‘inma’ at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games.
This clip also marks a change in white Australia’s attitude towards Aboriginal peoples and their cultures, over the past 100 years. At the beginning of the 20th century white Australia considered Aboriginal cultural practices as primitive and inferior. The showcasing of the depths of Aboriginal cultural traditions by white Australia during the Sydney Olympic Games was an important step.
