Digeridoo, dancers, in multi-cultural Platypus delight Tongan audiences [1]
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - 15:30. Updated on Sunday, December 15, 2013 - 15:41.
Platypus, a contemporary Australian music and dance group have given Tongans a flash of today's multi-cultural Australia with performances that presented anglo-celtic inspired music with aborginal in a unique blend.
The five-members group is made up of Paul Jarman, a wind instrumentalist, Adam Hill, who played the Didgeridoo, and Colin Offord who played the Great Island Mouthbow, an original instrument that he made himself and filled the Queen Salote Memorial Hall with haunting echoes of strings, wind and percussion.
The other two members of the group are the Aboriginal choreographer/dancer Bernadette Walong and Torres Strait Island dancer/singer Albert David.
The Platypus made three appearances on March 1, delighting over 700 students from Primary schools, secondary schools, and giving a public performance in the evening at the Queen Salote Memorial Hall. They also gave a special performance for members of the Royal family and diplomatic corps on Monday evening in the garden of the Australian High Commission, Nuku'alofa.
The group was joined by a singers and dancers from 'Atenisi Institute for their public performance.
The Platypus Tongan stop-over is the first part of a three-nation tour which will include Samoa and Fiji. The tour is funded by the Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and while the group was in Tonga it was supported by Westpac Bank of Tonga and the ANZ Bank.