The ancient story of a devil dog, kingfisher woman and a desert community has been launched into the vast sky above Uluru as part of the biggest permanent drone show in the world.
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Wintjiri Wiru, meaning "beautiful view out to the horizon" in the local Indigenous language, is a new performance of light, sound and culture at the world-famous rock.
It is a modern retelling of the Mala story, central to the Anangu who've lived for thousands of years on the red dirt and spinifex grassland surrounding the monolith.
Using 1296 super-light drones fitted with lights, as well as lasers and surround sound, a three-dimensional animation fills the sky after sunset above a single raised wooden platform facing Uluru.
The immersive project, featuring the locally extinct rufous hare-wallaby, officially opened on May 10, cost more than $10 million and has been years in the making.
'Our story'
"When we saw the result of all the work we felt quite overcome," Rene Kulitja, a senior Anangu woman and acclaimed artist said through a translator.
"It was amazing ... that it came from our tjukurpa [cultural knowledge], our story, our understanding of the world," she said on behalf of the Anangu consultation group.
The show tells just one part of the complex Mala story from Kaltukatjara, or Docker River, to Mutitjulu at the base of Uluru.
Devil dog rises
Presented in two acts, 400 drones initially take off from a 45-metre square platform hidden in the mulga scrub below to show the Mala's inma, or ceremony, being interrupted by an invitation to a different inma in the west.
When the offer is declined, an evil spirit takes the form of trees, rocks and birds to destroy the Mala people's ceremony.
Despite warnings from Luunpa, the Kingfisher woman, the people don't see it coming.
The nightly show's dramatic climax comes when the spirit morphs into a giant devil dog called Kurpany which looms 200 metres over the audience using 800 drones.
The Mala men flee, but the women are spared and stay.
Hear the voice of the desert
The technological magic that brings this age-old story to life in the boundless open space of central Australia is hidden entirely from the audience.
"The artistic idea there is this is the voice of the desert, this sound is of the desert, and the voices you hear and the narration are from this country," Canadian light artist and show designer Bruce Ramus said.
"We did whatever we could to conceal the technology so when you watch the show you feel it ... we wanted you to be able to be in the desert and feel it."
'Bush professors'
The "bush professors" who shared cultural wisdom passed down over thousands of years set a new standard for Indigenous story-telling in the modern world, renowned artistic director Rhoda Roberts, said.
Ms Roberts helped navigate the consultation between the Anangu and Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia, which owns Ayres Rock Resort and has driven the project.
"It's ground-breaking in that the voice and lens of this story comes from the Mutitjulu community," the Widjabul woman from northern NSW said.
"This is a continuance of thousands of years - of eons - of oral story and we realise we're in the 21st century and we need to use some new technology to continue to tell this story on country."
Ms Roberts said the consultation process with the Anangu community was similar to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
"This is a reclamation of our philosophy because we think very differently about land and tenure and about how those stories are interpreted. They're stories that hold law. That's really serious."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Anangu share the Mala story, from Kaltukatjara to Uluru, through a drone, sound and light show designed and produced by RAMUS.
Saffron Howden travelled to Uluru as a guest of Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia.
