Illume

Bangarra celebrates its move on to the main stage of the Opera House with Illume, created by Artistic Director Frances Rings in collaboration with celebrated indigenous artist Darrell Sibosado. Together with their creative team, they have created a piece of theatre that is physically beautiful and visually powerful. It integrates dance, visual art, music and thousands of years of indigenous culture and storytelling in the way that only Bangarra can.

In the Wiradjuri language Bangarra means "to make fire" – the first light – and as Frances Rings explains, Illume pays tribute to the importance of “this luminous force (that) bridges the physical and spiritual realms, carrying ancestral wisdom and power”.

Set in the land of Sibosado’s people, the Bardi and Jawi people of the Dampier Peninsula of Western Australia, Illume shares the light of their stories of Country and kinship and culture, and, true to Bangarra’s commitment to “speak out against the wrongs of the past”, the destructive impacts of colonisation on the land and the people.

Others will write much more authoritatively about the intricacies of the choreography, the interweaving of cultural and contemporary dance and the poised control and lithe physicality of the performers. It is the total theatricality of Illume that stays with me …

On a dark stage, clusters of stars twinkle symbolically as Shadow Spirits, the first of the eleven sections of Illume, begins. Figures appear, moving hesitantly at first, then more confidently as soft dawn-like light suffuses the space. Now the dancers move together, elegantly welcoming a brighter light that spreads across the land linking the physical and spiritual world.

The importance of nature to that world is expressed in Mother of Pearl and Manawan.

In Mother of Pear,l Darrell Sibosado’s shining electronic artworks based on ancient designs of the mother-of-pearl shells illuminate the dancers as they pay tribute to the iridescent shell that is so important in the life and culture of the Bard people. In ancient lore the shells were scales detached by Aalingoon, the Rainbow Snake, and carried important knowledge and beliefs.

In Manawan, the practical and medicinal qualities of the manawan tree are expressed in weaving choreographic patterns that the suggest the blue-green leaves of that ubiquitous native eucalypt.

The importance of kinship is symbolised in Blood Systems. Here the dancers loop long LED ropes, interweaving them in patterns that rise and fall in rhythmic motions that suggest concepts of energy and connection and smoothly leads into an interpretation of Ngarrgidj Morr, the Proper Path taken by the Bard, who are saltwater people.

Attuned to living systems, the Bard navigate the variations of nature, “changing their behaviours to align with the true rhythm of Country” – but not the effects of colonisation on the isolated Dampier Peninsula

Light Pollution is a moving interpretation of darker times that threatened the land and its people, stealing its children, “severing their connections to family, language, lore and culture” – and breaking the hearts of those that were left behind. Heart break was clear in every carefully expressed movement, every dancer’s sad, accusing face, and in the subdued notes that hovered in the air above them.

More hopeful is Gajoorr, performed by the male ensemble. In indigenous cultures, fire was the first light and Illume pays tribute to its importance in a stunning collaboration of theatrical design - set, sound, light and movement.

Middens references the thousands of years of indigenous occupation evidenced as weathering exposes the shells of ancient campsites and in Whale Song four dancers celebrate the powerful totem of the humpback whale, returning every year “as a reminder of the people’s ongoing responsibility to protect and uphold cultural lore”.

Illume is more than dance. It is a story, a message. A homage to Bangarra mission “to present, the unifying wisdom and knowledge of the First Nations peoples of Australia. … to speak out against the wrongs of the past … to forge a peaceful future … to create a narrative of reconciliation and belonging”. A homage created by a collaboration of indigenous artists and performers that illuminates the unique power of the arts to come together and create something that is new and exciting.

Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Daniel Boud