On a rainy evening in Melbourne, the Collingwood Town Hall comes alive with a whirl of colour.

Key points: Australia's Uyghurs are celebrating traditional song and dance to defy Beijing

Australia's Uyghurs are celebrating traditional song and dance to defy Beijing Experts say China is enacting 'cultural genocide' by attacking language and religion

Experts say China is enacting 'cultural genocide' by attacking language and religion Restaurants serving Uyghur food are building a sense of community

At a vibrant celebration of traditional Uyghur music, the crowd rises to their feet and dances, blurring the line between the audience and the performers.

"This is how it was in the past," says singer Aynur Ashmajy, from Sydney.

"Now, it's a tragedy."

Uyghur singer Aynur Ashmajy says the oral history is a way to be a "voice for the voiceless". ( ABC News: Sean Mantesso )

The Uyghur people — and their culture — are under threat in China's far north-western region of Xinjiang.

More than a million Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, have been rounded up and detained in mass internment camps.

China rejects comparisons to "concentration camps" — Beijing has repeatedly said the facilities are vocational centres or "boarding schools" that are necessary to prevent "extremism" and "terrorism".

But China's campaign against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities extends far beyond restrictions to freedom and thought — it also attempts to sever them from their roots, history and lineage.

This, experts say, amounts to "cultural genocide".

But in Australia, defiant Uyghurs like Ms Ashmajy — whose sister is detained in Xinjiang — are determined to celebrate and share their rich culture.

"The Chinese Government — they try to erase Uyghurs from the Earth," she said.

"We want to be a voice for voiceless people who are suffering in concentration camps."

Firstly — who exactly are the Uyghurs?

The Uyghurs are of central Asian ethnicity and began converting to Islam in the 10th century.

Bordered by eight countries, Xinjiang is China's largest province. ( Supplied: Google Maps )

The vast majority of the world's Uyghurs live in Xinjiang — which is geographically closer to Tehran than Beijing — but there are also large communities outside China's western borders, such as in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Nadira Yusuf teaches the Uyghur language to children. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

The Uyghurs declared a short-lived independent state of East Turkestan in the mid-19th century, but it was subsumed as an "autonomous" region — similar to Tibet — by the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Some Uyghurs still refer to their homeland as East Turkestan today.

Uyghurs speak their own language — also called Uyghur — which is written in modified Arabic.

It is similar to Uzbek, Kazak and Turkish, and Uyghurs can often understand and communicate in those languages.

For Nadira Yusuf, who runs a language school for Uyghur children in Melbourne, keeping Australian-born children connected to their heritage is key.

"Our language is completely banned in China," she said.

"I still hope one day when we go back, the kids will be able to communicate with their grandparents."

'Without Muqam, there is no Uyghur'

Performers Alim Mamat and Shohrat Tursun (right) tune their strings. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Shohrat Tursun is a master of Uyghur Muqam — a UNESCO-protected Islamic melodic tradition unique to his people.

Draped in a gold-lined tunic, he strums a long-necked lute and sings. His voice swells to a point where it sounds very far away, until it is joined by other voices and re-tethered to the room.

Mr Tursun, who worked as a truck driver and at a chicken factory when he first moved to Australia, said the artform is inextricably entwined with his people.

"Without Muqam there is no Uyghur. To speak of Uyghur people is to speak of Muqam, and to speak of Muqam is to speak of the Uyghurs," he said.

"The customs, way of life, joys and sorrows, all kinds of experiences of the Uyghur people are all embodied in Muqam.

"This has been passed on and connected to each one of us, through every generation up to this very day."

Doppas, a type of Uyghur skullcap, line the end of the stage. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Performed for more than a thousand years, the music is imbued with history and religious significance, incorporating strings, drums and the piano accordion.

If all 12 cycles of this music were to be performed in one sitting, it would take 24 hours.

Ethnomusicologist and Uyghur culture expert Elise Anderson told the ABC the artform tackles what it means to be human and to grapple with the divine — it is also infused with a nationalist yearning for a homeland.

According to Dr Anderson, Uyghur music has managed to evade Chinese censors for decades — for example, by referring to God (or Allah) in vague terms as a "lover" — but in recent years Beijing's cultural crackdown has escalated to unprecedented levels.

'Cultural genocide' ripping at the threads of identity

A Chinese flag flutters near a minaret of an ancient mosque in Kashgar. ( Reuters: Thomas Peter )

Beyond the mass detentions, China has waged a campaign to stamp out many facets of Uyghur culture.

In the re-education centres, Uyghurs are taught to write and speak in Mandarin, instructed in Chinese Communist Party thought and discouraged from practicing Islam.

Mosques have been destroyed or are required to fly the Chinese flag.

Poets and professors have been detained, while majors in the subject of Muqam are no longer offered at universities.

Even the use of Islamic names, the growing of "abnormal beards" and the wearing of veils have been prohibited by Beijing.

Dancer Klara Razak spins during a traditional Uyghur performance. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Further, a policy document unearthed by Adrian Zenz orders officials to "break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins".

"Cultural genocide is an appropriate term," Dr Anderson said, for what is unfolding in Xinjiang.

"We are seeing this systematic attempt to wipe things out, this systematic attempt to eliminate," she said.

China "is interested in moulding Uyghurs into these perfect Chinese citizens that it has imagined," she added, and Uyghur people were being prevented from speaking their own language, reading their own books and listening to their own music.

"People are seeing the things that they hold most near and dear to their sense of identity and their sense of self being taken away from them," she said.

"It's a very personal kind of invasion of your life. But it's also something that rips away the threads that connect you to the other people around you and to a sense of tradition that for Uyghurs in particular, is very, very important — very potent."

"It's really traumatic, and it's the kind of trauma that I think can be inherited … I think that the effects of this are going to ripple for generations and generations to come."

Forced to eat forbidden food, Uyghurs dance to defy Beijing

Sidik Dawut and his wife Roshan Sawut opened the Karlaylisi restaurant in Footscray last year. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

The control also extends to cuisine.

Roshan Sawut and her husband, Sidik Dawut, opened the Karlaylisi restaurant in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray not long after returning from a visit to their family in Xinjiang.

Beaming in the kitchen, Mr Dawut deftly spins and lengthens the noodles; his wife says his skill derives from his 16 years as a surgeon before he moved to Australia.

Crispy dumplings are a specialty at Karlaylisi Restaurant in Footscray. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

The cuisine is a melting pot of Asian and Turkish food, encompassing hand-pulled noodles, crispy dumplings, homemade breads and skewered meats.

But since they are Muslims who subscribe to a halal diet, you will not find alcohol or pork on the menu.

"I heard in concentration camps, they just give pork to the Uyghur people … if they refused it, they get some kind of punishment," Ms Sawut said.

"We can feel the high pressure on our people. We heard really sad stories from our neighbours. To be honest, you can hardly believe it."

Ms Sawut said she has not been able to contact her mother for more than two and a half years, but that bringing the tastes of her homeland to Australia has helped build a sense of community.

"After we opened this business, we got lots of really beautiful customers from all different backgrounds," she said.

"They heard the sad story happening in Xinjiang, so some of our customers bring flowers. We can't survive without our community."

Uyghur musician Shohrat Tursun said the Uyghur identity is tied to the Muqam artform. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

For Uyghurs, this yearning for home and passion for their culture is poetically inscribed in the Muqam.

"I will take the blacks of my eyes, and I will make them into ink," according to the lyrics of one Muqam melody.

"With that ink, I will write a letter that I will send to my lover Allah. And through that letter, I will come to see the divine."

For Ms Ashmajy, the singer, there's a poignant irony in being free to celebrate her traditions here, but not in her traditional home.

"We want to tell the world we never give up," she said.