Creative Development

Bunyi Bunyi Bumi

Image by Priya Srinivasan

Directed by Priya Srinivasan (Tamil)
Co-Devised by Raymond Blanco (Yadhaigana, Mer; Erub, Zenadth Kes), Waangenga Blanco (Pajinka Wik and Meriam Mer), Alfira O'Sullivan (Acehnese/Australian), Murtala (Acehnese)

Produced by BlakDance

Commissioned by Asia TOPA and Bunjil Place


About the Work

Bunyi, Bunyi Bumi Sounds of the Earth asks what is possible when we listen deeply to the Earth Mother and explores the dire consequences when we do not. 

What happens 
when people don’t pay attention
when fish wash up on the shore
when people don’t run to safety
when the Earth Mother speaks softly
when a supreme being who has no mouth unleashes his fury on those who keep violating the Earth
when women have to multitask between domestic, motherly and artistic labour
when people’s songlines are ruptured, yet they find ways to gain access to the songs to recover their fragmented selves
when men find a way to  heal each other by harmonising 

When very different people syncopate to each other and to the Earth Mother. What is possible to heal and recover? 

An immersive performance, the work explores these questions using Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islands and Acehnese stories woven from ancient songlines, mythological pasts, and anticolonial perspectives. Directors Priya Srinivasan (Tamil), Raymond Blanco (Yadhaigana and Mer; Erub, Zenadth Kes) and Waangenga Blanco (Pajinka Wik and Meriam Mer), together with Achenese knowledge and songkeepers Murtala and Alfira O’Sullivan (Acehnese/Australian) create a ground-breaking work incorporating dance, music, movement, text and body percussion.

 

Images from creative development January 2024, Dandenong

 

Bunyi Bunyi Bumi is produced by BlakDance, with commissioning support from Asia TOPA Festival and Bunjil Place.

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Dear Brother

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Image supplied by Queensland Theatre

By Lenny Donahue, Djabuganjdji and Tibian Wyles, Girramay and Kalkadoon
Directed by Isaac Drandic, Noongar

THE RIGHT TO A RITE OF PASSAGE.

Young men from different corners of Queensland blow into the big smoke burning with unbridled energy, desire and confusion. Each of them filled with the need to escape, to make something of their lives, to defy the hand that life has dealt them. An individual ignition has driven them all to Brisbane but something else — something ancestral — will bring them together.

Caught between adolescence and adulthood, these young fellas will converge and wrestle with themselves, each other, their ghosts and a deep-etched sense of duty to Country. Together they’ll lay themselves bare and bond as brothers over what it means to be a young Aboriginal man in 2024.

This high energy work, presented with BlakDance as part of Brisbane Festival, is all about giving today’s young Murri men a voice, one that challenges the narrative around public perceptions of Aboriginal masculinity.

Using dance, music and poetry, this form-defying work features Djabuganjdji man Lenny Donahue and Girramay and Kalkadoon man Tibian Wyles in a tour-de-force performance that is as physical as it is heartfelt.

Premiering September 2024

Dates 7 — 28 Sep

Location Bille Brown Theatre

 

Dear Bother is co-produced by BlakDance, with Queensland Theatre

swim

Image by Jade Ellis Photography

swim by Ellen van neerven, Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage

Creative development, march 2023

In March 2023, BlakDance, Griffin Theatre Company (co-producers), QPAC and HOTA supported a creative development of Ellen van Neerven’s new project swim – a movement performance poem on Australian swimming, the sovereignty of water, and the strength of culture and family in keeping us safe.

This development period included time for the creative team on Yugambeh Country and a studio development period in Meanjin/Brisbane, and introduced the movement/choreographic element into the project with movement director, Yolande Brown.

Freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, blakstroke, swim is a performance poem on Australian swimming, the sovereignty of water and the strength of culture and family in keeping us safe, told by a young genderqueer Murri ready to hit the fast lane at the local pool.  Is e’s Aunt the lifesaver they need right now, or is that sexy DJ spinning tracks over the pool’s PA, the PLI (potential love interest) that is gonna keep e afloat?  swim is a reflection on Blak queerness and decolonisation. 


Creative team

(March 2023 Creative Development)

Playwright: Ellen van Neerven 

Director: Andrea James 

Dramaturg: Bryan Andy

Choreography: Yolande Brown

Sound/composition: Brendon Boney

Performer: Dani Sibosado

Performer: Hannah Donnelly 

Elder: Jenny Fraser                       

Elder: Maria Van Neerven

Community Liaison: Hannah Scanlon (QPAC)

Stage Managers: Abbie Trott and Callie Roebuck

swim is a co-production of Griffin Theatre Company and BlakDance.

This project was first developed by Moogahlin Performing Arts through the Yellamundie Festival 2019. Script development in 2020 by Moogahlin Performing Arts, with the support of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. Creative developments have received support from Malcolm Robertson Foundation, and Erin Shiel and Robert Dick and continued support from Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

swim is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

On the Shoulders of Giants

Images by Simon Woods, 2021

by eXcelsior

eXcelsior is an intra-cultural Queensland First Nations dance collective made up of proud Murri and Torres Strait Islander artists based in Brisbane. Featuring Leonard Donahue, Benjin Maza, Benjamin Creek, Tibian Wyles, Manduway Dutton and Joshua Thaiday. Anchored in body based storytelling, they use art forms including cultural and contemporary dance, physical theatre and poetry, to express their intergenerational experiences. 

Their new work in development, On The Shoulders Of Giants reveals a journey of transition and adaptation through the eyes of First Nation males navigating the vulnerabilities behind mental health, shame, toxic masculinity, domestic issues and drug and alcohol abuse. “By keeping our culture strong we stay grounded, allowing us to get through the pressures of everyday life as a First Nations man”.

eXcelsior’s On The Shoulders of Giants has been developed through BlakDance Residency Program, and Performing Country. 

eXcelsior in their second creative development for new work On The Shoulders of Giants. Big shout out to Metro Arts and collaborators Lafe Charlton, Dimple Bani Jr and Zaimon Vilmanis.

In the third creative development period, artists Tibian Wyles (Warragamay & Kalkadoon) and Lenny Donahue (Djabugandji) worked on a script development with dramaturg Isaac Drandic, supported by Queensland Theatre and Brisbane Powerhouse over 2022.

Images from Simon Woods of Lenny Donahue, Tibian Wyles, Joshua Thaiday (3 of the eXcelsior 6).

 

On The Shoulders of Giants is developed through BlakDance’s Performing Country - Queensland, financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Backing Indigenous Arts and First Nations Commissioning Fund, developed with assistance of Metro Arts and supported by Brisbane Powerhouse and Queensland Theatre.

Preparing Ground

Preparing Ground

By Marilyn Miller (Kukuyalanji and Waanyi), Jasmin Sheppard (Tagalaka and Kurtitjar) & Katina Olsen (Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri).

Preparing Ground is a powerful First Nations-led independent contemporary dance project by leading choreographers Marilyn Miller, Jasmin Sheppard and Katina Olsen. 

Employing a framework founded on a deep relationship between humans and environment, Preparing Ground is an urgent call to action to us all to address colonisation’s impacts on Country, language, people and place through First Nations knowledges.

It will feature a dance work for mainstage presentation alongside audience engagement activities chosen and led by local First Nations knowledge holders to platform local responses to the project’s themes.

Preparing Ground is currently in creative development.

About preparing ground

Preparing Ground means to prepare land for our future survival. It is about preparing land for Ceremony, preparing us with the knowledge to survive, and preparing community to lead change into the future Future. It’s a multidimensional metaphor that challenges postcolonial ethics, morality, politics and emotions, through the lens of Country. 

Preparing Ground - the future Future

Developing the phrase “future-Future”, Preparing Ground takes on the longevity of Indigenous worldview. It acknowledges that taking care of Country and Community means continuing the work far into the future, over thousands of years – part of a continuum of knowledge, since the first sunrise. 

Repeatedly returning to their Wakka Wakka, Kukuyalanji, Tagalaka and Kombumerri homelands over three years (2021-2023), these artists nurture long-term cultural exchange, listening to and learning from Country to engage with millennia of knowledge in land management and cultural survival. This deep research and development connects and reconnects the choreographers to the complexity of relationships between each other and their Countries in a never ending cycle of being, knowing and doing.

It is a contemporary application of ancient protocols; a process of belonging and becoming. 

This experience then infuses and provokes responses in their choreographic language as they devise an immersive, multi-sensory dance production together with a wider creative team. The project’s process-driven, relational approach also deeply informs its long-term model of community engagement, which aims to support it’s core goal of platforming local First Nations voices and knowledges through its presentation.

Preparing Ground does more than embody the resilience of the world’s oldest surviving culture. It shows us how dependent our collective survival is on an enduring connection to land and sea.

Download 2023 Project Update

Watch the Community Engagement pilot - Kombumerri Country, October 2023 (trailer)

"There is a stronger elemental guidance influencing movement and how the body responds to Country that comes from such close association with, or being on, Country… It has been an extremely rewarding, renewing, and reinvigorating process. The realisation encapsulated as: 'we ARE Country'; we present the voice OF Country." Marilyn Miller, Co-Director Preparing Ground

“Working on Country or being connected to Country has been the springboard from where every concept, creative ideas and information which makes the bulk of our content has come from. It has informed the decolonized process of our creative development in the studio.” Jasmin Sheppard, Co-Director Preparing Ground

"Preparing Ground cannot happen without dedicated time on Country. Having this time researching and developing on Country means that our communities are involved in the making of our work right from the beginning and throughout the process of making the work. Therefore we are honouring our own protocol and duty to our communities, and the voice of community is then reflected in the work." Katina Olsen, Co-Director Preparing Ground

Image credits: Samuel James, Katina Olsen, Jade Ellis Photography

Community Engagement pilot images feature Kombumerri Rangers from Ngarang-Wal Gold Coast Aboriginal Association Incorporated

 

Preparing Ground - Creative Team

Co-Director - Marilyn Miller (Kukuyalanji and Waanyi),

Co-Director - Jasmin Sheppard (Tagalaka and Kurtitjar)

Co-Director - Katina Olsen (Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri)

Projection Designer - Samuel James

Sound Designer - Samuel Pankhurst

Lighting Designer - Karen Norris

Dramaturg - Victoria Hunt (Ngati Ohomairangi, Te Arawa, Ngati Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata Maori, English, Irish, Finnish)

Dancer - Audrey Goth-Towney (Wiradjuri)

 

Choreographic Outside Eyes

Tammi Gissell (Muruwarri)

Yolande Brown (Bidjara)

Raymond Blanco (Magarem, Erub Island and Malay)  - Cairns, 2021.

 

Cultural Advisors (on Country developments 2021 - 23)

Kukuyalanji / Mossman: Uncle John Hartley and Juan Walker

Tagalaka / Croydon: Patrick Wheeler and Victor Steffenson

Wakka Wakka / Eidsvold: Aunty Yvonne Chapman, Warru Olsen, Natalie Chapman, Corey Appo

Kombumerri / Gold Coast: Warru Olsen, Justine Dillon, Maxwell Dillon

 

Elders-in-Residence

Brisbane 2021: Raelene Baker (Yuggera, Birri, Bindal and Warranghu)

 

Preparing Ground is supported through the Australian Government’s Indigenous Languages and Arts program. It is assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with Brisbane Festival and Sydney Festival, and additional project funding from the Creative Australia. Preparing Ground is also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and the Council of the City of Gold Coast.

Preparing Ground is produced by BlakDance and supported by BlakForm, funded through Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.

The 2023 creative development phase has received additional support from Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), The Art House Wyong, HOTA (Home of the Arts), Bulimba-ja Arts Centre, The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) which is a partnership between the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and Sunshine Coast Council through ArtsCoast, and LJ Dance Projects.

September 2021’s creative development has been supported by Brisbane Powerhouse, Judith Wright Arts Centre, QPAC, The Art House Wyong and Ausdance Queensland.

 
 

Weredingo

IMG_9224.JPG

by Karul Projects

When something is not understood, fear, hatred and humour can arise. Shapeshifting for First Nations people is our past, present and future. As our bodies shift through the space we draw parallels to Black Lives Matter, Black Deaths in Custody and the many injustices for people in this country who shapeshift on a daily basis to not be killed. 

Weredingo investigates the practice of shapeshifting throughout the modern world. Through Karul’s signature sharp movement, text, song and projection, we reveal superhuman shapeshifting. Human forms turn animal and return to the land. From our Dreaming to the now First Nations people are descendants of, and continue to be, shapeshifters.

Karul developed Weredingo across 2018-2020 through support from Dancenorth (2018), Metro Arts (2019), PACT (2019), Arts House’s CultureLAB (2020).

Weredingo undertook creative development in May 2021 at The Farm, Gold Coast which included an industry and Community Sharing.  

Weredingo was the first of BlakDance’s produced works to undertake a new model for feedback on a work in development through BlakForm. The Critical Response Process (CRP) was a facilitated process that allowed the makers to question their work in open dialogues with industry and community leaders. We were delighted to undertake this initiative earlier this year with Joyce Rosario, a first-generation Canadian of Filipina descent, privileged to live on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Weredingo is produced by BlakDance and is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the City of Gold Coast, the City of Melbourne through Arts House, and was developed in the CultureLAB program with the assistance of Creative Victoria. Weredingo has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and Queensland Theatre. Weredingo is commissioned by BlakDance, through BlakForm. BlakForm is funded through Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.