The moment cemented her position as national treasure, built over the previous decade working in dance and song, and giving her a career with a diversity and longevity not enjoyed by many of her contemporaries.

Growing up in Cairns, the young Christine Anu learned the traditional music of her father and mother's Torres Strait Islander peoples when her father would get out his guitar. She would later train in dance in the early days of the famed National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association, and perform for both Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre.

Her work as a dancer and backing singer for The Rainmakers would introduce her to Neil Murray, who wrote and released My Island Home in 1986 while with The Warumpi Band. My Island Home was Anu's third single, having debuted as a pop performer with a cover of Paul Kelly's Last Train in 1993, followed by Monkey and the Turtle, where Anu crafted words from a traditional Torres Strait fable to dance beats.

"Music and dance were just part of my cultural upbringing," Anu says.

"You don't realise that's what's happening at the time," she says, "but story-telling is what we do and we record our songs stories by singing and dancing, and I was so fortunate to have been surrounded by that."

"It was when I went away [to Sydney] to study dance that I realised this and then I felt it was so important to use these skills, use my language, to express myself."

Anu would use that language on her debut album, 1995's Stylin' Up, where she collaborated with artists like Not Drowning Waving's David Bridie on the songwriting.

"Collaboration is so important, having someone there to bounce ideas off," she says, "to share your ideas with like-minded people and to open yourself up to new ideas."

"I'm sure if I sat on my own I might lack the discipline or commitment you get having other people in the room," she laughs.

While Anu has released several albums since – 2000s Come My Way would give her the hit Sunshine on a Rainy Day, 2007's Chrissy's Island Family was produced for the children's market – but I had Stylin' Up on high rotation in my car CD player across the '90s, so I keep coming back to it in my questions.

"I think the album depicts what was going on in Oz at the time," Anu says.

"We had the Mabo decision in 1992, Keating's speech in Redfern Park, here was Yothu Yindi and Archie Roach, it felt like things were culturally changing."

"I had moved to Sydney in 1988 and it was the first time I'd been involved in protests, where you'd only ever seen something like that on TV," she says, "and then fast forward to 1992, and I had a record contract, and I thought it was really important to put cultural material into my first album, something that spoke to me, in my own Indigenous language."

In 1998, Anu sang vocals for Baz Luhrmann's Now Until the Break of Day, a piece from Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream Luhrmann directed for Opera Australia. The song, produced by Blam and Paul Mac, would win an ARIA award that year for best video, but importantly, would lead to an invitation from Luhrmann to join the ensemble of women who worked the stage of the Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman's Satine in Luhrmann's 2001 film.

"Working with Catherine [Martin] and Baz was outstanding," Anu says.

"I wasn't formally trained as an actor, I learned on the job, which can be both wonderful, and scary and daunting," she says, "and I have been a little bit overwhelmed by the names I've gotten to work with."

"When you know them, of course they're just normal people, but watching them perform, watching them do their craft is an experience, and you learn so much from them."

Her work on screen after this would include The Matrix Reloaded, and television series including The Alice, Outland, Dance Academy, and Play School.

Anu's other great role is as mother to son Kuiam and daughter Zipporah.

I ask whether either of her children listen to her music, and she laughs that her son loves listening to her old albums strictly "for paying me out, for quoting my own stuff back to me."

"He's got a broad musical taste," Anu says of her son, "from the Beatles, blues, country, a real cross section, though he lives with his girlfriend now so I don't hear what he's listening to as much."

Anu finds it surprising that her daughter Zipporah enjoys listening to her old albums.

"I ask 'What are you listening to that for?' but she genuinely loves it, loves singing my songs back to me, showing me what she can do."

Anu says being a mum to older kids was "pretty rough to begin with."

"When they get a girlfriend, they slowly leave your world to create their own, they don't answer their phone or return your calls or respond to your messages when you need them to, that's challenging."

"It's all very settled down and I'm used to it now," she says, "but now I understand what it means to have your door open at all times and at all costs."

It's that same open door policy, being open to people sharing their stories and their problems, which she loves employing in her current gig on the national broadcaster, with her weekend evenings slot on ABC radio nationally.

"I can't tell you enough how it has embellished me as a performer," Anu says.

"I never really understood what it was like to give pause to words because that can be quite powerful," she says, "and that choice of words becomes so much more important creating stories for a listener."

"I've found it's so important to have a listener's trust," she says, "and that's really enhanced my experience of being in front of an audience."

Anu will share her stories with a live audience at Arc Cinema on Friday 2 June as she joins National Film and Sound Archive's Sound Curator Thorsten Kaeding in conversation. She also promises a few acoustic numbers.

In Conversation: Christine Anu at the National Film and Sound Archive, Friday 2 June 7pm. Tickets $35 available at nfsa.gov.au.

Cris Kennedy is Manager of Engagement at the National Film and Sound Archive.