As far as festivals go, to be culturally awoken, shaken and invigorated to the core are feelings that are rarely stirred in this digital day and age of synthetic values. What happens when you dare to dream and allow yourself to be swept into the cultural miasma of the Dreaming Festival? As Australia’s leading Indigenous festival spanning over three days and four nights, the Dreaming Festival is where lines blur between time and place, absorbed in exotic Indigenous cultures from all corners of the globe—but don’t expect the obvious.

Held on the traditional land of the Jinibara People, Woodford is the perfect backdrop to showcase elements of traditional and contemporary art forms in many different repertoires. My attendance at Dreaming was not all play, this was work and my work was to document the Iwantja Band who come from a community marked on the map as Indulkana (Iwantja) in the Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara Lands. This is a community in the most northern part of South Australia—a remote location indeed. So how did the Iwantja Band arrive at the Dreaming and who exactly are they?

Approximately two years ago, I interviewed an emerging band for a South Australian arts e-zine for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Handprints. Upon hearing their demo I was taken aback—this album was nothing like I expected—incredible guitar riffs, amazing blues originals, desert reggae and rock but mainly a heavy metal overtone that truly stood out. It wa…