Barunga Festival

In its 27th year, the Barunga Sports and Cultural Festival remains a highly anticipated and celebrated Territory event offering up the region’s best in music, arts, culture and sport. Skinnyfish Music and Katherine Regional Arts joined forces, alongside Barunga festival community leaders and the festival organizing committee, to preserve the event this year as it verged on cancellation.

Kicking off on Friday 8th June with a Disco led by the Indigenous Hip Hop Group and supported by the Smith Family, the weekend was shaping up to be a colourful and energetic bevy of activity. Saturday featured an array of arts and cultural activities including traditional bungul, didgeridoo demonstrations, spear throwing, damper making and art displays, culminating in The Road Safety Song Competition and an evening of indigenous music performances including B2M, Blekbala Mujik, Warren H Williams, T-Lynx and Lonely Boys – to name a few!

The sport program highlighted the festival weekend with AFL football, basketball and softball, and Sunday’s football final encapsulated the spirit and enthusiasm of the community.

Yugul Mangi Festival, Ngukurr

Ngukurr’s community festival took place the following weekend 15th-17th June with the support of Yugul Mangi Aboriginal Corporation and Skinnyfish Music. Friday and Saturday showcased a myriad of activities for the community to take part in, including jumping castles and waterslides, dodgem cars, the girls basketball competition and AFL carnival, while Ngukurr Arts catered for all creative interests, providing craft activities for kids as well as painting demonstrations, beading and weaving workshops.

The Yugul Mangi festival is primarily a celebration of music for the community, encouraging local and regional talent. The music program ran over the first two nights commencing at sunset and lasting through the night, with an eager crowd dancing and singing throughout. The rock-fest lineup included Lonely Boys, Yugul Band, Broken English, Tribal Vision, T-Lynx, Bad T-Boyz and many others.

On Sunday morning the Ngukurr School organised mini gymkhana and horse rides which generated great excitement amongst the kids. The community then gathered for the enthralling Ngukurr Bulldogs home game, presenting the cup to the community by late afternoon. The festivities drew to a close that evening with a church service at sunset followed by a Skinnyfish presentation of local community-made short films and the feature film, Yolgnu Boy.