Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entertainers: a booking guide

Before arranging a Welcome to Country, establish who has authority to give it on the Country where your event will take place. That can be a Traditional Owner or an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person authorised by the Traditional Owners. Booking a performer does not establish that authority, so start with the relevant local organisation and follow its advice.

The listings here are concentrated in Western Australia, with some performers in other states. This directory is not a complete picture of local cultural practitioners; the relevant Traditional Owner organisation is the right starting point wherever your event takes place. What follows is about the difference between a Welcome and an Acknowledgement, the performance forms you can book, and the questions to ask so that the arrangement is respectful and correct for the occasion.

A Welcome to Country welcomes visitors onto a particular Country. Reconciliation Australia explains that Traditional Owners can deliver it themselves or give permission to another Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person. Authority comes from the Traditional Owners of that Country, not from a performer's profile, reputation or availability.

An Acknowledgement of Country is different. It is a statement recognising the Traditional Owners of the land, and anyone can give it, including you or whoever is chairing your event. Many events have both: a Welcome from a Traditional Owner at the opening, and Acknowledgements made by speakers through the day. If you are unsure which your event needs, that is the first thing to sort out and it is not a question for a performer who is not from that Country.

Start with the relevant Land Council, Traditional Owner corporation or local Aboriginal organisation for the place your event is on, not with a general performer search. They can tell you who holds that authority and how to approach them. Your local council or the venue may already have a working relationship and a contact, and it is worth asking, because they arrange these regularly.

Allow time. This is a request being made of specific people with their own commitments and their own protocols for deciding, and a fortnight's notice is often not enough. Be clear in your approach about the date, the place, the occasion, who will be there and what you are asking for, and ask what the appropriate arrangement and fee is rather than proposing one.

Dance groups are the most commonly booked, performing traditional dance with ochre, clapsticks and song, often with an explanation of what each dance is about. Didgeridoo players work both as solo performers and alongside dancers, and some also perform contemporary music. Smoking ceremonies, where native plants are burned and people pass through the smoke, are a cultural practice rather than a performance and are arranged differently again.

Beyond those, the category takes in contemporary musicians, storytellers, cultural educators and workshop facilitators. A school or a workplace often gets more from a session where people learn something and can ask questions than from a performance they simply watch. Ask what the performer offers, because many work across several of these forms and are the right people to say which one fits your occasion.

Ask each performer what Country they are from and what they are able to offer at an event on the Country yours is on. That is a normal and respectful question, and it is the one that prevents the Welcome to Country mistake. Ask what would be appropriate for your occasion, and take the answer seriously even when it is not what you had in mind.

Then agree the cultural protocols in advance and in writing. Whether photography or filming is allowed, and of what. Whether any part of the performance should not be recorded. How the performer wants to be introduced. Whether there is anything the audience should be told beforehand or asked to do. Some of these will matter a great deal and some will not, and the only way to know is to ask rather than assume.

This is a directory. We list performers and pass on your enquiry. We do not verify anyone's cultural authority, their connection to a particular Country, or their standing to speak for any community, and nothing on this page should be read as a check we have made on your behalf. That verification is yours to do, through the performer themselves and through the relevant local organisations.

Nor can this page tell you what any particular group, Country or community permits, because that is not ours to say and it varies. Protocols differ between places and between occasions. What holds everywhere is the approach: ask, listen, allow time, and let the people you are asking tell you what is appropriate.

Give performers the same professional treatment any act should get: a private space to prepare, somewhere secure for instruments and belongings, water, shade if it is outdoors, and a clear slot in the run sheet where the room is quiet and attentive. A dance group needs floor space and a firm level surface, and a smoking ceremony needs an outdoor area and the venue's written agreement about smoke, fire and any alarm systems.

Brief whoever is running the event so the introduction is right and the timing holds. A Welcome to Country belongs at the opening, before speeches, not slotted in after the entrée. And tell your audience what is happening beforehand, because a room that knows what it is about to see behaves quite differently from one that does not.