THE OTHER SIDE OF ME - Gary Lang NT DANCE COMPANY
NT Dance Company offer a powerful, moving dance duet that navigates the limits of physical expression.
Images by Paz Tassone
After the Western and Central Australian 2024 tour of Gary Lang’s The Other Side of Me, we are thrilled to be joining the lineup for The Australian Ballet’s DanceX: A festival of dance!
“To stand alongside the nation’s leading dance voices in DanceX is a powerful moment, not just for me as a Larrakia artist, but for the stories I carry. The Other Side of Me is about returning home, about healing. That’s what DanceX feels like too, a gathering of spirit, story, and shared movement.” Gary Lang (Artistic Director, Gary Lang NT Dance Company)
“DanceX is more than a festival—it’s a powerful platform for Indigenous and non Indigenous voices to speak through movement. We’re proud to bring The Other Side of Me to this national stage, amplifying Gary’s vision and honouring the enduring strength of First Nations stories through dance.” Merindah Donnelly (Executive Producer, BlakDance)
This October, eight leading companies from Australia and New Zealand will come together at Arts Centre Melbourne for a series of extraordinary performances across two weeks.
Tickets on sale from Monday, 16 June. Visit The Australian Ballet’s website to explore the program.
15–19 October 2025 | Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
Image Chandler Connell and Alexander Abbot, by Paz Tassone
Choreographed by industry leader, Larrakia man, Gary Lang, this international, cross-cultural collaboration with Northumbria University (UK) communicates a story of the Stolen Generations. With care and compassion, it poses questions about relationships between country of origin, identity, adoption, the criminal justice system and psychological health.
The Other Side of Me translates into dance the true-life story of a young Aboriginal man, born in the 1960s in the Northern Territory, adopted by a white English family and raised in a remote hamlet in the English countryside. Drawing on a collection of personal letters and poems, it offers insights into the mind of a man struggling with his belonging from the other side of the world.
“While so-called classic and canonical works are regularly restaged in Australia, it’s still relatively rare to see new Australian works given a second lease of life. While there are, of course, exceptions, far too often many new Australian works have only a brief time in the sun before they’re mothballed and the focus moves on to the next new production waiting in the wings – which makes the current remount of The Other Side of Me by Gary Lang NT Dance Company all the more significant.”
– Artshub, Richard Watts
CREATIVE TEAM
Gary Lang (Co-Creator, Choreographer, Director) Larrakia
Banula Marika (Cultural Consultant, Songman) Yolŋu
Laura Fish (Co-Creator, Dramaturg, Writer)
Liz Pavey (Co-Creator, Dramaturg)
Josephine Crawshaw (Cultural Consultant) Kalkarindji
Jesse Norris (Cultural Consultant) Torres Strait Island descendent
Janet Munyarryun (Voice Artist) Yolŋu
Arian Pearson (Sound Designer) Yolŋu
Noelle Shader (Rehearsal Director)
Chandler Connell (Performer) Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal
Alexander Abbot (Performer)
Joseph Mercurio (Lighting Designer)
Jennifer Irwin (Costume Designer)
Samuel Pankhurst (Composer/Sound Designer)
Samuel James (Projection Designer)
BlakDance (Producer)
About Gary Lang
Born in Darwin, Larrakia man Gary Lang is a NAISDA graduate and alumnus of Bangarra and Dancenorth. Since 2002 Gary Lang has choreographed 9 seminal works in the Aboriginal dance canon, including GOOSE LAGOON, Mokuy, Waŋa (Spirit), Forbidden, Milnjiya, Milky Way' — River of Stars created with the Western Australian Ballet. In 2013, he was honoured with the distinguished Australia Council for the Arts’ Dance Board Fellowship.
About the Company
Gary Lang Northern Territory Dance Company (GLNTDC) is at the international forefront of innovative First Nations dance practice. Acclaimed Larrakia dancer and choreographer Gary Lang’s signature choreography blends the gestural physicality of First Nations dance with the ethereal movements of classical ballet, heightening the experience with orchestral strings accompaniments, to create a new art form that is entirely unique within the Australian dance landscape. Lang’s unique style of dance, subverts and transforms traditional Larrakia and Rirratjingu Yolŋu songlines and stories at the intersection of cultures, and explores the themes of spirit worlds, loss, hope, healing and journeys.
GLNTDC is the only contemporary Indigenous dance company located in Australia’s most isolated capital city, Darwin. In addition to its artistic presentations, the Company has a strong history of delivering training and development programs and opportunities to emerging Indigenous and non-Indigenous dancers located in Darwin and the NT.
The story is based on actual events. However, names, incidents and timelines have been changed for dramatic purposes. All characters depicted in the production are composites or fictitious. Any similarity to the original story, or of fictitious characters to an actual person, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
The Other Side of Me is produced by BlakDance. The production is a collaboration between Gary Lang NT Dance Company and Northumbria University, UK. It has received financial support through the Northern Territory Government, Regional Arts Australia, the British Council, Creative Australia, Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
The work premiered in 2023 in Darwin Festival at the Darwin Entertainment Centre.
Following the works Western and Central Australian 2024 tour, it is presented at The Australian Ballet’s DanceX Festival 15 - 19 October 2025. More information about DanceX Festival here: australianballet.com.au/dancex-2025-program
