Fieldwork on Anzac Day
A Performance Analysis of the Dawn Service and Other Rituals, 25 April 2015
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.33145Keywords:
ANZAC, grief, Indigenous Australians, performance analysis, remembrance, state ritualAbstract
In this research, a cohort of Australian scholars document one particular example of the Australian sacred ritual of Anzac Day, and apply Gay McAuley’s model of performance analysis to this and other associated rituals. To analyse any performance, McAuley suggests that the observer investigate four distinct stages of the performative action: (1) the “material signifiers” in the performance space; (2) the “narrative content and/or performance segmentation”; (3) the “paradigmatic axis” of the performance; and (4) the “global statement” of the performance. In this article, Hartney examines the “material signifiers” that mark this pilgrimage the authors make to Canberra and the construction of the Anzac Day Dawn Service. Alderton examines the narrative content and performance segmentation by focusing on how the ostensibly “White” performance of the Dawn Service relies on a narrative that excludes Indigenous voices. She does this through her analysis of the subsequent Indigenous remembrance service held on the same day, and other unofficial protests for recognition of Australian frontier wars. Tower then examines the paradigmatic axis of the ritual through a strategy of examining light and vision in the ritual, how light is connected to remembrance, and the manner in which an analysis of light focuses attention on what Max Frisch calls the magnetic field between perception and imagination. All three authors address McAuley’s concept of the “global statement” that the performance seems to manufacture. They examine how this fits into the Australian national religious system. Finally, they assess the relevance of McAuley’s schema for understanding national sacred rituals.
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References
AAP News Service. 2015. ‘Malcolm Turnbull Denies Influence on SBS Sacking of Scott McIntyre Over Anzac Tweets’. Sydney Morning Herald, April.
ABC News. 2015. ‘Consultation over Indigenous Gargoyles at Australian War Memorial’, February 25. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-25/consultation-indigenous-gargoyles-war-memorial/6262140.
Alderton, Zoe. 2012. ‘Anzac and Awe: Religion, Violence, and the Media in Australia’. The Religious Studies Project. May 9. http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/zoe-alderton-anzac-and-awe-religion-violence-and-the-media-in-australia/.
———. 2014. ‘The Secular Sacred Gallery: Religion at Te Papa Tongarewa’. In Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, edited by Christopher Hartney, 251–72. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
———. 2015. The Spirit of Colin McCahon. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso.
Anonymous. 2015. ‘Anzac Day 2015: 100th Anniversay of the Gallipoli Landings (Dawn Service Program 25 April 2015)’. Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
‘Anzac Day’. 2015. Australian Army. Accessed May 12. http://www.army.gov.au/Our-history/Traditions/Anzac-Day.
Australia First Party. 2015. ‘Taxpayer Funded SBS Scott McIntyre Vilifies and Demeans ANZACs’, April 27. http://australiafirstparty.net/taxpayer-funded-sbs-scott-mcintyre-vilifies-and-demeans-anzacs/.
Bell, Avril. 2006. ‘Bifurcation or Entanglement? Settler Identity and Biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand’. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 20 (2): 253–68. doi:10.1080/10304310600641786.
Bellah, Robert N. 2005. ‘Civil Religion in America’. Daedalus 134 (4): 40–55. doi:10.1162/001152605774431464.
Bennett, James. 2014. ‘Lest We Forget Black Diggers: Recovering Aboriginal Anzacs on Television’. Journal of Australian Studies 38 (4): 457–75. doi:10.1080/14443058.2014.952762.
Bennett, Michael J. 2009. ‘Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 and the Advent of Vaccination in Colonial Australia’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83 (1): 37–62. doi:10.1353/bhm.0.0167.
Bexell, Oloph. 2012. The Meaning of Christian Liturgy: Recent Developments in the Church of Sweden. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
Brown, James. 2014. Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession. https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=7AEA0BF4-E260-4A86-BA3B-CFF654DE00CC.
Campbell, Judy. 2002. Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia, 1780-1880. Carlton South, VIC: Melbourne University Press.
Cavanaugh, William T. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford?; New York: Oxford University Press.
‘Commemorating Indigenous Diggers on Anzac Day’. 2009. Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal 33 (3): 10.
Commonweath of Australia Act. 1901. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s116.html.
Cornish, Ruby. 2015. ‘Revised Canberra Anzac Day Dawn Service Crowd Figures Prove Fatigue Claims Wrong, Organisers Say’. ABC News, April 27. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-27/canberra-anzac-dawn-service-crowd-figures-revised-up/6426080.
Crouter, Richard. 1990. ‘Beyond Bellah: American Civil Religion and the Australian Experience’. Australian Journal of Politics and History 36 (2): 154–65.
Ellinghaus, Katherine. 2009. ‘Biological Absorption and Genocide: A Comparison of Indigenous Assimilation Policies in the United States and Australia’. Genocide Studies and Prevention 4 (1): 59–79. doi:10.1353/gsp.0.0008.
Fenn, Richard K. 1995. The Persistence of Purgatory. Cambridge?; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Finzsch, Norbert. 2008. ‘“[…] Extirpate or Remove That vermine”:1 Genocide, Biological Warfare, and Settler Imperialism in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century’. Journal of Genocide Research 10 (2): 215–32. doi:10.1080/14623520802065446.
Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2007. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hartney, Christopher. 2014. ‘States of Ultimacy and the Cult of the Dead Soldier: The Anzac Tradition, the Secularisation Paradgim, the Charisma of Materilaity, and Civil Religion as It in Embodied in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra’. In Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, edited by Christopher Hartney, 214–50. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publ.
———. 2015. ‘Neither Civil nor Secular: The Religious Dimensions of Anzac’. St Mark’s Review 231 (1): 99–113.
Hayes, Carlton J. H. 1960. Nationalism: A Religion. Michigan: The Macmillan.
Inglis, Kenneth Stanley. 1999. Observing Australia: 1959 to 1999. Carlton South, Vic: Melbourne University Press.
Kimmorley, Sarah. 2015. ‘Here’s the Touching Speech Prime Minister Tony Abbott Gave at the Dawn Service in Gallipoli’. Business Insider Australia. April 25. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/heres-the-touching-speech-prime-minister-tony-abbott-gave-at-the-dawn-service-in-gallipoli-2015-4.
Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds, eds. 2010. What’s Wrong with ANZAC?: The Militarisation of Australian History. 1st ed. Sydney: University of NSW Press.
Lane, Belden C. 2001. Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality. Expanded edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Maloney, Dean. 2015. ‘Police Shut down Aboriginal ANZAC Day March’. Red Flag, April 26. https://redflag.org.au/node/4569.
McAuley, Gay. 1998. ‘Performance Analysis: Theory and Practice’. About Performance, no. 4: 1–12.
———. 2003. ‘Place in the Performance Experience’. Modern Drama 46 (4): 598–613.
———. 2007. ‘Local Acts: Site-Specific Performance Practice’. About Performance 7: 7–11.
———. 2009. ‘Unsettled Country: Coming to Terms with the Past’. About Performance 9: 45–65.
McIntyre, Scott. 2015. ‘Scott McIntyre @mcintinhos’. Twitter. April 25. https://twitter.com/mcintinhos.
Mock, Steven. 2011. Symbols of Defeat in the Construction of National Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Oakley, Gary. 2015. ‘Gallipoli - The Anzac Legend Has a Black Face’. Commemorative Address presented at the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commemorative Ceremony, Mount Ainslie, April 25.
O’Connell, Garth. 2015. ‘Welcome Address and Acknowledgement of Country’. Opening Address presented at the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commemorative Ceremony, Mount Ainslie, April 25.
Pilger, John. 2015. ‘Two Unsung Heroes Cut through in a Week of Propaganda’. The Sydney Morning Herald, April 28. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/two-unsung-heroes-cut-through-in-a-week-of-propaganda-20150427-1muqon.html.
Reynaud, Daniel. 2007. Celluloid Anzacs: The Great War Through Australian Cinema. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Rieff, David. 2011. Against Remembrance. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Ronaldson, Michael. 2014. ‘Media Release: Senator the Hon Michael Ronaldson, Minister for Veterans Affairs’. http://www.abc.net.au/compass/moral-compass-1/pdf/Ronaldson%20release%20-%20VA022%20-%20Gallipoli%20Anzac%20Day%202015%20ballot%20complete.pdf.
Seal, Graham. 2007. ‘ANZAC: The Sacred in the Secular’. Journal of Australian Studies 31 (91): 135–44. doi:10.1080/14443050709388135.
Seguy, Marie-Rose. 1977. The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet. London: Scholar Press Limited.
Short, Damien. 2010. ‘Australia: A Continuing Genocide?’ Journal of Genocide Research 12 (1–2): 45–68. doi:10.1080/14623528.2010.508647.
———. 2014. ‘Burying Genocide: Official Remembrance and Reconciliation in Australia’. In Remembering Genocide, edited by Nigel Eltringham and Pam Maclean, 176–99. Abingdon: Routledge.
Sovereign Union. 2015. ‘Police Cause Ugly Confrontation with Aboriginal People at Canberra ANZAC Commemoration’, April. http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/police-cause-ugly-confrontation-aboriginal-people-canberra-anzac-commemoration.
The New Zealand Herald. 2012. ‘Aboriginal Activists Warmly Received in Anzac Day March’, April 26.
‘The Right of Public Assembly in the A.C.T.’ 1985. Occasional Paper No. 8. Canberra, ACT: Government Printing Service.
Tillich, Paul. 2001. Dynamics of Faith. New York: Perennial.
Ubersfeld, Anne. 1981. L’Ecole Du Spectateur. Paris: Editions Sociales.
Weightman, Barbara A. 1996. ‘Sacred Landscapes and the Phenomenon of Light’. Geographical Review 86 (1): 59–71. doi:10.2307/215141.
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi, and Julia Iwersen. 2005. ‘Light and Darkness’. In Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay Jones, 2nd ed., 8:5450–55. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.
Wikström, Owe. 2014. ‘Liturgy as Experience - the Psychology of Worship. A Theoretical and Empirical Lacuna’. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 15 (0): 83–100.
Williams, David. 2007. ‘Aboriginal Servicemen in Separate Anzac Day March’. AAP General News Wire, April 24.
Worthy, Scott. 2004. ‘Communities of Remembrance: Making Auckland’s War Memorial Museum’. Journal of Contemporary History 39 (4): 599–618. doi:10.1177/0022009404046756.
ABC News. 2015. ‘Consultation over Indigenous Gargoyles at Australian War Memorial’, February 25. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-25/consultation-indigenous-gargoyles-war-memorial/6262140.
Alderton, Zoe. 2012. ‘Anzac and Awe: Religion, Violence, and the Media in Australia’. The Religious Studies Project. May 9. http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/zoe-alderton-anzac-and-awe-religion-violence-and-the-media-in-australia/.
———. 2014. ‘The Secular Sacred Gallery: Religion at Te Papa Tongarewa’. In Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, edited by Christopher Hartney, 251–72. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
———. 2015. The Spirit of Colin McCahon. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso.
Anonymous. 2015. ‘Anzac Day 2015: 100th Anniversay of the Gallipoli Landings (Dawn Service Program 25 April 2015)’. Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
‘Anzac Day’. 2015. Australian Army. Accessed May 12. http://www.army.gov.au/Our-history/Traditions/Anzac-Day.
Australia First Party. 2015. ‘Taxpayer Funded SBS Scott McIntyre Vilifies and Demeans ANZACs’, April 27. http://australiafirstparty.net/taxpayer-funded-sbs-scott-mcintyre-vilifies-and-demeans-anzacs/.
Bell, Avril. 2006. ‘Bifurcation or Entanglement? Settler Identity and Biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand’. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 20 (2): 253–68. doi:10.1080/10304310600641786.
Bellah, Robert N. 2005. ‘Civil Religion in America’. Daedalus 134 (4): 40–55. doi:10.1162/001152605774431464.
Bennett, James. 2014. ‘Lest We Forget Black Diggers: Recovering Aboriginal Anzacs on Television’. Journal of Australian Studies 38 (4): 457–75. doi:10.1080/14443058.2014.952762.
Bennett, Michael J. 2009. ‘Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 and the Advent of Vaccination in Colonial Australia’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83 (1): 37–62. doi:10.1353/bhm.0.0167.
Bexell, Oloph. 2012. The Meaning of Christian Liturgy: Recent Developments in the Church of Sweden. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
Brown, James. 2014. Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession. https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=7AEA0BF4-E260-4A86-BA3B-CFF654DE00CC.
Campbell, Judy. 2002. Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia, 1780-1880. Carlton South, VIC: Melbourne University Press.
Cavanaugh, William T. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford?; New York: Oxford University Press.
‘Commemorating Indigenous Diggers on Anzac Day’. 2009. Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal 33 (3): 10.
Commonweath of Australia Act. 1901. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s116.html.
Cornish, Ruby. 2015. ‘Revised Canberra Anzac Day Dawn Service Crowd Figures Prove Fatigue Claims Wrong, Organisers Say’. ABC News, April 27. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-27/canberra-anzac-dawn-service-crowd-figures-revised-up/6426080.
Crouter, Richard. 1990. ‘Beyond Bellah: American Civil Religion and the Australian Experience’. Australian Journal of Politics and History 36 (2): 154–65.
Ellinghaus, Katherine. 2009. ‘Biological Absorption and Genocide: A Comparison of Indigenous Assimilation Policies in the United States and Australia’. Genocide Studies and Prevention 4 (1): 59–79. doi:10.1353/gsp.0.0008.
Fenn, Richard K. 1995. The Persistence of Purgatory. Cambridge?; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Finzsch, Norbert. 2008. ‘“[…] Extirpate or Remove That vermine”:1 Genocide, Biological Warfare, and Settler Imperialism in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century’. Journal of Genocide Research 10 (2): 215–32. doi:10.1080/14623520802065446.
Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2007. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hartney, Christopher. 2014. ‘States of Ultimacy and the Cult of the Dead Soldier: The Anzac Tradition, the Secularisation Paradgim, the Charisma of Materilaity, and Civil Religion as It in Embodied in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra’. In Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, edited by Christopher Hartney, 214–50. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publ.
———. 2015. ‘Neither Civil nor Secular: The Religious Dimensions of Anzac’. St Mark’s Review 231 (1): 99–113.
Hayes, Carlton J. H. 1960. Nationalism: A Religion. Michigan: The Macmillan.
Inglis, Kenneth Stanley. 1999. Observing Australia: 1959 to 1999. Carlton South, Vic: Melbourne University Press.
Kimmorley, Sarah. 2015. ‘Here’s the Touching Speech Prime Minister Tony Abbott Gave at the Dawn Service in Gallipoli’. Business Insider Australia. April 25. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/heres-the-touching-speech-prime-minister-tony-abbott-gave-at-the-dawn-service-in-gallipoli-2015-4.
Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds, eds. 2010. What’s Wrong with ANZAC?: The Militarisation of Australian History. 1st ed. Sydney: University of NSW Press.
Lane, Belden C. 2001. Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality. Expanded edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Maloney, Dean. 2015. ‘Police Shut down Aboriginal ANZAC Day March’. Red Flag, April 26. https://redflag.org.au/node/4569.
McAuley, Gay. 1998. ‘Performance Analysis: Theory and Practice’. About Performance, no. 4: 1–12.
———. 2003. ‘Place in the Performance Experience’. Modern Drama 46 (4): 598–613.
———. 2007. ‘Local Acts: Site-Specific Performance Practice’. About Performance 7: 7–11.
———. 2009. ‘Unsettled Country: Coming to Terms with the Past’. About Performance 9: 45–65.
McIntyre, Scott. 2015. ‘Scott McIntyre @mcintinhos’. Twitter. April 25. https://twitter.com/mcintinhos.
Mock, Steven. 2011. Symbols of Defeat in the Construction of National Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Oakley, Gary. 2015. ‘Gallipoli - The Anzac Legend Has a Black Face’. Commemorative Address presented at the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commemorative Ceremony, Mount Ainslie, April 25.
O’Connell, Garth. 2015. ‘Welcome Address and Acknowledgement of Country’. Opening Address presented at the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commemorative Ceremony, Mount Ainslie, April 25.
Pilger, John. 2015. ‘Two Unsung Heroes Cut through in a Week of Propaganda’. The Sydney Morning Herald, April 28. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/two-unsung-heroes-cut-through-in-a-week-of-propaganda-20150427-1muqon.html.
Reynaud, Daniel. 2007. Celluloid Anzacs: The Great War Through Australian Cinema. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Rieff, David. 2011. Against Remembrance. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Ronaldson, Michael. 2014. ‘Media Release: Senator the Hon Michael Ronaldson, Minister for Veterans Affairs’. http://www.abc.net.au/compass/moral-compass-1/pdf/Ronaldson%20release%20-%20VA022%20-%20Gallipoli%20Anzac%20Day%202015%20ballot%20complete.pdf.
Seal, Graham. 2007. ‘ANZAC: The Sacred in the Secular’. Journal of Australian Studies 31 (91): 135–44. doi:10.1080/14443050709388135.
Seguy, Marie-Rose. 1977. The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet. London: Scholar Press Limited.
Short, Damien. 2010. ‘Australia: A Continuing Genocide?’ Journal of Genocide Research 12 (1–2): 45–68. doi:10.1080/14623528.2010.508647.
———. 2014. ‘Burying Genocide: Official Remembrance and Reconciliation in Australia’. In Remembering Genocide, edited by Nigel Eltringham and Pam Maclean, 176–99. Abingdon: Routledge.
Sovereign Union. 2015. ‘Police Cause Ugly Confrontation with Aboriginal People at Canberra ANZAC Commemoration’, April. http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/police-cause-ugly-confrontation-aboriginal-people-canberra-anzac-commemoration.
The New Zealand Herald. 2012. ‘Aboriginal Activists Warmly Received in Anzac Day March’, April 26.
‘The Right of Public Assembly in the A.C.T.’ 1985. Occasional Paper No. 8. Canberra, ACT: Government Printing Service.
Tillich, Paul. 2001. Dynamics of Faith. New York: Perennial.
Ubersfeld, Anne. 1981. L’Ecole Du Spectateur. Paris: Editions Sociales.
Weightman, Barbara A. 1996. ‘Sacred Landscapes and the Phenomenon of Light’. Geographical Review 86 (1): 59–71. doi:10.2307/215141.
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi, and Julia Iwersen. 2005. ‘Light and Darkness’. In Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay Jones, 2nd ed., 8:5450–55. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.
Wikström, Owe. 2014. ‘Liturgy as Experience - the Psychology of Worship. A Theoretical and Empirical Lacuna’. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 15 (0): 83–100.
Williams, David. 2007. ‘Aboriginal Servicemen in Separate Anzac Day March’. AAP General News Wire, April 24.
Worthy, Scott. 2004. ‘Communities of Remembrance: Making Auckland’s War Memorial Museum’. Journal of Contemporary History 39 (4): 599–618. doi:10.1177/0022009404046756.
Published
2017-04-20
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Alderton, Z., Hartney, C., & Tower, D. (2017). Fieldwork on Anzac Day: A Performance Analysis of the Dawn Service and Other Rituals, 25 April 2015. Fieldwork in Religion, 11(2), 170-198. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.33145
