Review: Dark Emu

Dark Emu
Bangarra Dance Theatre 
6 September 2018
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 15 September
artscentremelbourne.com.au
bangarra.com.au

Dark Emu. Bangarra Dance Theatre

Bangarra’s Artistic Director, Stephen Page, reminds us in his program welcome that this is the “only company in Australia with its cultural origins in this land”. Let that sit for a moment. It’s a lot to take in, especially as they formed 29 years ago.

I thought about it at the end of Dark Emu when the Playhouse erupted with rock-star cheers.

Dark Emu opens with a giant blue seed pod. It’s not fluorescent, it’s more the glowing white-blue seen only in a star-filled night away from the city. It might not be a seed pod; maybe a map seen from above or a songline. It fills the stage and it’s from here that humans emerge.

Dark Emu. Black Seeds - Agriculture or Accident? by Bruce Pascoe was released in 2014. (Great interview with him.) I’d love to say that I've read it, but I only heard about it a few weeks ago when friends assumed that I’d read it; I WILL now. It demolishes the false idea that Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers before colonisation. It details complex farming practices and a reciprocal connection with the land – look after it; it looks after you. By telling the real history, it shows how our history was and is still re-written to fit post-1788 stories.

A revisionist-history non-fiction book is an unusual inspiration for a dance-theatre piece, but from the opening image, the connection between history and dance and story is so obvious that I wonder what we have to do to get every school-aged child in the country along to this show. It’s hard to change the minds of adults, but the next generations will see our stories though different eyes.

Not that we can’t change older minds. One way to start seeing things differently is to start feeling differently about them. The impact of art is often so hard to describe because it hits us in the feels before the thinks. Facts don’t mean much if you don’t feel emotionally connected to the consequences of those facts. Stunning works of art like this create the emotional link.

There’s narrative and story from Pascoe’s book that’s expanded with a focus on stories from the Yuin nation (south coast NSW). But it’s story without heroes or individuals. It’s about land and people, and destruction and resilience, and a hope and belief that these stories will be heard, shared and listened to. You don’t need to understand the detail of the stories about flies or fire to understand the feeling of massacre and destruction.

The choreography (Daniel Riley, Yolande Brown, Stephen Page and the 18 dancers) starts from and, mostly, stays connected to the earth. With no focus on individual dancers, and no straight lines or precise unison, it feels natural in its complexity. As does the colour in the design (set, Jacob Nash: lighting, Sian James-Holland), and the handmade costumes (Jennifer Irwin), which change with ochre and sweat as each season continues. The world is mostly dark and shadowy greys with fire/blood red, sky/water blue and new-life greens growing from the shadows.

One of the many joys of a Bangarra mainstage work – the company also works with communities and on Country – is how it’s not an option to try and separate one creative element from the rest. The choreography is integral to the designs, music (Steve Francis and others) and dramaturgy (Alana Valentine). And many of the collaborators have been working together since the company formed.

Bangarra may be the most vibrant, powerful and relevant cultural company in Australia and Dark Emu is as vital to our history as the book it started with.

Now, let’s all buy the book (from a local book store) and read it.

Review: Fire: a retrospective

Fire: a retrospective
Bangarrra Dance Theatre
6 November 2009
The Arts Centre, Playhouse

Hands up if you can name Australia’s internationally revered national contemporary dance company. How Aussie that, after 20 years of consistent achievement, Bangarra Dance Theatre isn’t always given the respect, the support and the adoration it deserves at home.

Not that the audience at Fire didn’t adore. Far from it. Being in that cheering audience was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve had in a theatre. It’s humbling to be with a crowd who are thanking the creators and performers for telling stories that all members of the diverse audience understood felt were theirs.

I like dance, but it’s like a foreign language and I’m often left admiring the pretty and the skill as I wonder what they are trying to say to me. But I totally get Bangarra. I watch this company perform and I know what they are saying to me. It might not be what they created it to say, but that doesn’t matter. Bangarra tell their stories by expressing the emotions of moments. We fill in the rest.

Under the artistic directorship of Stephen Page, Bangarra’s merge of traditional and contemporary is fluid and natural. There is no straight line in nature, no unison or perfect repetition. Random patterns are why it’s so hard to make anything artificial look natural. Bangarra’s choreographic style is precise, but there’s never unnatural unison. The slight differences between each dancer’s performance creates a stage that seems more natural and more in tune with how we are.

Bangarra’s originality flows from welcoming ancient white ochre ritual and encompassing Torres Straight Island celebration through to the a gorgeous use of elastic to create a stage full of cat’s cradle like song lines and the most awesome and sexy use of a slip ‘n’ slide. But the moments that remind us that our Indigenous culture is more than gum leaves and roo dancing are the most powerful.

Four men in jeans dance to a spoken Lord’s prayer and the voices of those who need to be heard in a piece about alchoholism, violence and abuse, and there’s a room silencing moment when a scratching, screaming woman finds relief in the horror of drugs. It’s not only in the arts that Australians suffer and are ignored for ‘cultural’ reasons.

At a time when far too much media and dinner party conversation was spent justifying the Aussie joke of black face and John Safran’s Race Relations is creating a mighty hoo ha on the telly, it’s a perfect time to go to the theatre to be part of a history, a vision and a contemporary dreaming that we are all part of.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Kin

Kin
Malthouse Theatre 
28 September 2007
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Kin is made by one family for all families to share.

Stephen Page has been the Artistic Director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre since 1991 and was Artistic Director of the 2004 Adelaide Festival of the Arts. In Kin, his cast are his son and nephews, who range in age from 10 to 14. His brother David composed the music. This family love working together, but it’s far removed from Von Trapps and Osmonds.

Page says, “The process started with a trip back to Country with my father and we talked about their culture and re-told stories. It was great. The boys’ eyes lit up – you could see this was something in their blood.” And so the boys from the city began creating their interpretation of old stories and telling us their own yarns.

Kin is told by the boys, so it is their view of their own world. Under the clear direction of Page, they don’t avoid the expected issues of racism, referendums and substance abuse, but neither are these issues all that their story is about. Guitars, rap and hip hop are possibly more important in a young teenager’s life.

Humour is a natural part of the telling. This is where the true personalities of the cast are evident and most revel in the audience’s response. There’s frustration and anger in some of the humour, and that’s what makes it so powerful. Don’t miss the joke about the coloured white folk. Page clearly guided the telling of some of the more sensitive issues, especially the very poignant and abstract depiction of petrol sniffing.

Kin is thoroughly captivating. Page captures the honest and raw energy of his cast and blends it seamlessly with his own signature choreography. Content aside, the cast are disciplined, controlled and skilled dancers.

Seeing children and families in the Merlyn together is fabulous. Bring your kids and your nieces and nephews and their friends. Although not recommended for the very little, Friday night’s audience proved Kin is for everyone.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.