Divercity

A moving exploration of contemporary Aboriginal life, celebrating women and culture, this performance combined dance, language and visual art to share their stories.

To begin the show, Randall invites female-identifying audience members into the performance space. We learn some simple steps and words meaning “woman” in different Aboriginal languages. Moving, speaking together, a collective feeling of pride and empowerment fills the room.

Soon after the men enter. We sit around the performance space in a u-shape. There is no forth wall between the audience and the artists. Performers Henrietta Baird and Waiata Teller captivate us with their movements, drawing on contemporary and traditional dance. Keith Deverell’s video art projected on the screen behind them makes a striking contrast to their silhouettes. The result is mesmerising.

The dancers spread coloured dust as they move, evoking the desert. The minimalistic sound track is complemented by the rhythms created by Baird and Teller’s movements and dialogue. They speak their languages. It doesn’t matter that we can’t understand what’s said. The point is their languages are being heard.

The performance culminates with Baird and Teller pulling electrical tape off the floor. Chatting playfully as they reveal the design, careful not to step on the lines left in the coloured dust. Randall explained afterwards it’s a topography – curvy lines for rivers, big straight lines for the mountains and small short lines for streets. Nature and man-made infrastructure intertwined.

Randall’s beautiful melange of elements brings her ancient culture to today’s arts scene. I relished being in her world.

Sophia Dickinson

Photographer: Bryony Jackson.