In November 2022 the ethnomusicologist and linguist Myffany Turpin drove Richard Moyle on the 1700-kilometre round trip visit to Balgo from Alice Springs. Richard and his wife Linden had spent two years at Balgo between 1975 and 1982 documenting the community's very active musical life. The 2022 return, made at the community's request, was to repatriate some 300 hours of audio material, along with hundreds of photographs and field notes.
The video clips showed major change in the community over the past 45 years.
Richard made the ceremonial handover of materials at a men's camp away from the community itself, later screening portraits of the many men and women who contributed to the 1997 book "Balgo: the musical life of a desert community" (now available in digital format for free download).
The raw clips here record moments from the two-day visit.
For information: the two narrow tracks seen running along the road close to the Northern territory border were from a handcart being pushed by a solitary cloaked man in the general of Halls Creek, some 200 km away.
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