South Sudanese musician Teresa Nyankol Mathiang performs before a huge crowd in Perth, Australia. [Gurtong/ Deng M Koch]
By Deng M Koch
PERTH, 15 May 2012 [Gurtong] – Nyankol jetted into Australia’s sunset city and mining Capital of Perth from Melbourne where she first landed.
Her arrival, unlike the first one in 2007 which was greeted by a huge crowd of enthusiasts at the airport, was a low key as only a few knew about it.
Nonetheless, word about her presence and performance spread quickly and entry tickets to the performance became hot cake.
In high spirit as usual, Nyankol appeared on the elevated stage, triggering beaming smiles in the faces of hundreds of her fans and supporters who applauded her performance.
Excited women invaded the dance floor before Nyankol’s first song could go down with the jubilant audience.
There was no doubt it was clearly a women’s night as men who were hopelessly outnumbered found themselves unwittingly relegated to one periphery of the dance floor.
Nyankol was accompanied by two local ‘Melbourners’ namely Majak Dut and Kamilo Dau, who spiced the night up with some songs from other well regarded artists in the music world like John Ngong Longar and John Kudusay among others.
Perth’s rising young music talents within the South Sudanese community also performed.
An elated community elder Abraham Jok Mabok was in full praise of the performamnce and said: “We used to dance into long nights based on Arabic music in the old Sudan, but Nyankol was one of the very few South Sudanese musicians who provided a modernised alternative to our own languages; music that we could fully understand and identify with”.