Bangarra makes a welcome return

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Resource Text: Review
Title Bangarra makes a welcome return
Creator Contributors
Abstract/Description The return of Bangarra to Melbourne after a three-year absence is a welcome event, even if this current offering – a story of the Kimberley and Great Sandy Desert regions – is not an outstanding example of what the celebrated Indigenous contemporary dance company is capable. This is a relatively short program but the pattern of the narrative is epic, beginning deep in an eternal and uncreated darkness, extending through the turbulent twentieth century into the present. And it all happens before a vast cloth of gold that glows and glitters and burns. The work begins with a reflection on the ways in which the energy of the land connects with cycles of life in the bush and the desert for men and women, moving between a sort of contemporary impressionism and learned traditional dances. The men appear to have the more interesting material: stomping and quivering through a series of strong group designs, before moving into a traditional story – executed with eye-catching intensity – about the theft of totemic objects. The contemporary material performed by the women’s ensemble is rather banal. There is a lot of airy-floaty drifting about, punctuated by an occasional elevated leg. And whatever its inspiration, it fails to suggest a powerful feminine force that connects and flows. In the third act, visions of desperate people in chains are accompanied by the babble of an auctioneer at a cattle market. It’s very lurid and sensational and does not confront the special cruelties by which the Indigenous populations of the Kimberley were pressed into service. In act four – the pastoral industry having given way to the mining industry – there’s a fine duet featuring Beau Dean Riley Smith and Lillian Banks, full of low crouches and poignant clutching. He staggers like a man who has lost his place in the world. She supports and reorientates him. The show finishes with a beautiful series of dances for the whole ensemble. Bodies shimmer darkly as they flip and fold together. It’s the spectacle of a community gathering back its people and its knowledge. Behind them, the gleaming cloth – all red and orange – suggests sunset or the dawning of a new day.
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  • SandSong, The Arts Centre, Melbourne, VIC, 21 August 2022
Source The Age, Francis Cooke, South Melbourne, Vic, 1854
Page 29
Date Issued 29 August 2022
Language English
Citation Andrew Fuhrmann, Bangarra makes a welcome return, The Age, 29 August 2022, 29
Data Set AusStage
Resource Identifier 78427