Barunga Festival, held annually on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (10-12 June, 2016) is now in its 31st year, earning its place as one of the most important community festivals in regional Australia. The festival is a celebration and showcase of remote Australian Indigenous community life though music, sport and culture & AMNplify’s Pauli Dee received the opportunity to interview the event’s MC; music legend and one of Pauli’s personal idols, Myf Warhurst.

Well basically I’ve got quite a few friends that live in Darwin & work for the local ABC radio up there and I go up there quite a bit. I was up there for the Northern Territory Song of the Year Award this time last year and you know, you just meet people and I connected with the people from SkinnyFish Music who run the festival. They told me about the theme of the festival, which is about empowering women, I think, this year and community as well, so they wanted to get a woman to MC the day and I just said “Of course I’d want to do that” because I’d heard of this festival from one of my colleagues, Mike Williams, who went last year and did a beautiful story for the Double J website. It’s incredible and I just thought “there’s nothing like this anywhere in the world,” and I’ve never been to Barunga, I have no idea what to expect and it sounds like a really educational, wonderful festival that combines all the elements, so you know, you’ll be learning about traditional culture and footy and music and all sorts of things!

Are you just MC’ing the musical acts part of it? Or do you know if you’re getting involved with the other aspects?

I don’t know yet but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is, just MC’ing and introducing!

Are you going to get into the damper making or the weaving workshops?

You bet! I haven’t made damper in years so I’m really looking forward to making some damper and bush tucker. We need to know more about what we can eat from the bush, so I’m totally into it. It’s going to be fascinating. I’ve heard that it’s one of the most special festivals you can go to and I’m so excited. You drive down and camp and it’s a dry festival too, which I think is really interesting. It’s just REALLY focused on the music, sport, culture and the community and I like that. I think that’s exciting.

Yeah I don’t know that there’s any other ‘dry’ festivals that we have here in Australia!

No, I don’t think there is any.

You’re a busy woman! You have Lunch with Myf every day from 11-2 on double J, you’ve had Vivid Live last Saturday and this Saturday coming up…

Yeah, I’ve got a talk tonight as well! I’m doing a couple of ‘in conversations’ with journos & photographers that are around joy division and new order that’s happening tonight and tomorrow night at the Opera House. It’s a busy time but it’s good, I like being busy.

Do you ever relax and just kick-back, doing nothing?

Ummm, I haven’t for a while… I did on my birthday on the weekend! I’m pretty capable of relaxing quite well actually! I know how to relax. When I shut off, I shut off well!

Did you celebrate your birthday? Or just kick back?

I did celebrate! I had a few drinks with some friends and it was good, it was nice! It wasn’t a significant birthday, so you know…

Oh they’re all significant! … You were also a judge for Eurovision recently. I’ve tried looking it up, but I can’t find the answer anywhere; did you have to go to Sweden for that?

No, sadly, I would have loved that! I love Eurovision. I’ve been a watcher of Eurovision forever, so it was a huge honour, it was so exciting! I love ALL of Eurovision, you know, the songs, the stage sets, the costumes, it’s all totally over-blown and totally wonderful, so I was really honoured. We had to go to a cinema somewhere in North Sydney and they picked us up at like 3.30 in the morning because it all has to be done live and it’s all very above board and official and you can’t muck around! In Australia we sort of treat it like a bit of a joke but it in Europe it’s really serious, so we had to follow all these rules. It was actually quite fascinating to see the process & to see how it all works, but I had a ball!

You couldn’t just allocate all your maximum points to Australia?

No, we weren’t allowed to vote for Australia at all!

What did you think of Dami (Im)?

I loved her and what people don’t know is that we judge the rehearsals. So the final show that goes out live, we’ve already judged it the day before, (the judges side) and then they do the public votes for the live show. Dami was so magnificent. She didn’t miss a beat and her notes were just perfect in both of them. I just thought she was divine.

The 31^st Barunga Festival goes from Friday June 10 – Sunday June 12, 2016
Tickets available for purchase HERE