Wominjeka Festival

Wominjeka Passport

Meet the Artists

• Homelands - Maurial Spearim

  

  Maurial Spearim is a Gamilaraay, Kooma, Muruwari woman who draws strength from her connection to Country and People. A singer with fierce vocals and bold lyrics. Her music is thought-provoking and captivating – inspiring audiences to connect, engage and create change. 

  Maurial has played in venues around Narrm and across the nation wowing audiences with her unique powerhouse vocals, her last release Sardine Baby and Blak Woman paying homage to those who have fought and paved the way for this generation and the next. Maurial is working on her debut album. 

• Homelands - Robbie Bundle

  

  Through the looking glass of Black Australia, Yuin, Monaro, Ngarigo, Bidawal and Bidjura artist Robbie Bundle creates music that captures and endures with purposeful intent to weave everyday things that might seem mundane, into another perspective, another viewpoint, or find a different way of looking at the world around us in a Universal sense. 

  Robbie is the Co-CEO of Songlines, Victoria’s peak Aboriginal music body, a not-for-profit organisation that has supported and promoted Aboriginal musicians and cultural events since 1996 and continues to grow opportunities for First Nations artists and the broader community to connect through music and culture. 

• Homelands - Charlie Needs Braces

  

  The latest music project Charlie Needs Braces, comes from Naarm musician Charlie Woods. Charlie is a proud GuriNgai woman, a direct descendant of Bungaree and Matora. The lands running from the central coast of NSW along the mouth of the Hawkesbury river and into Northern Sydney.  

  Having played on stage with bands such as The Teskey Brothers ,The Seven Ups, WVR BABY, TEK TEK Ensemble, Charlie is venturing out alongside her sister Miri Woods to launch the project – Charlie Needs Braces. 

   

• Homelands - Nathan May

  

  Adelaide-based singer-songwriter and proud Arabana and Yawuru man Nathan May, has been developing his natural talent in music since a very young age, when he began playing and performing in church whilst growing up in Darwin. 

  A graduate of the acclaimed Adelaide University Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music and the Clontarf Academy in Darwin, Nathan was inspired to make music his full-time career after meeting President Barack Obama in 2011, who personally urged and motivated the young man to follow his heart, passion and dreams. 

  Nathan is an avid live performer and  committed composer, songwriter, and storyteller, who has written and produced his own creative works with numerous independent releases, and musical collaborations, including with James Gillard, Colin Buchanan, Luke O’Shea, Shanley Del, Kevin Bennett and more recently Rod McCormack who recorded and engineered the new album at his Music Cellar Studio. Stay tuned for Nathan’s new releases in 2022 and 2023. 

• Kalyani

  

  Kalyani is an idiosyncratic DJ with her finger firmly on the pulse of cutting-edgetunes from music scenes across the globe. Her unpredictable and versatile DJsets are always fun and dynamic, full of unexpected twists and turns. Sheconfidently mixes an eclectic set of genres – Turkish and Hindi Pop, Rap, Trap,Booty Bass, and modern global club sounds – tying together a tapestry ofmelodies with the craft of an experienced songwriter and blending rhythms withwisdom from years spent on dance floors.

• Yaraan Bundle

  

  Yaraan Bundle is Yuin and Gunditjmara. She is a proud mother of two boys.   

  Yaraan, along with her four sisters, has grown up immersed in learning and living her culture.  She is a passionate teacher and advocate in the continuing of our cultural knowledge and practices.  

  Yaraan has been participating in community events, programs and festivals since she was a young girl including Mallacoota Festival, Tarerer Festival, Rainbow Serpent Festival, and most recently an important ‘Calling Out Ceremony’ for the Possum Cloak Story at Light in Winter Festival at Federation Square in July 2016. 

  Yaraan is an artist, dancer, weaver, story teller, pyrographer and language teacher. Strong in her learnings,  her vibrant and compelling teachings will inspire deep appreciation and understanding of family and culture. 

  As an adult, she has been sharing her learnings through workshops; camps; festivals; presentations and sharing circles in community and the broader public arena. Some career highlights include:  

  • Peforming with the Gunditjmara Dance group at Yeperenye, Alice Springs 2001;   
  • Collaborative maker of the Djargurd Woorroong cloak for the 2006 Commonwealth Games Possum Cloak Project;  
  • ‘Biganga- keeping tradition’ with Vicki Couzens, Treahna Hamm, Lee Darroch, Jarrah Bundle, Marlee Bundle and Jamie Thomas,  exhibition at Melbourne Museum 2006;  
  • Contributor/author of Kooramook Thanambool story module in the ‘Garrigarrang’ exhibition at the Australia Museum, Sydney 2014.   
  • Artist co-ordinator/facilitator a Gunditjmara Language Story Arts Project with East Warrnambool Primary School and Merrivale Primary School students to produce two digital book publications ‘Seven Sisters’ and ‘The First Lakes’, 2015.   
  • Author of  Language documentaries on SBS and Mugu Kids series on NITV.   
  • Dance performances at the Statewide Marrang Education Forum and the Victorian Aboriginal Youth Advisory Council ‘Blackout’ event, dance performance, Wodonga 2016.  
  • Artist in Residence – ‘Mum is Medicine’ Residency program Footscray Community Arts Centre 2017-current 
  • WOW Womens Festival 2017, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Panel presentation and workshop 

• Yung Warriors

  

• Dj Kuku b2b Kuyu (IZY)