Marrugeku: Telling That Story

Description Telling That Story details twenty-five years of intercultural performance-making by renowned Australian dance company Marrugeku, whose restlessly inventive work reaches from remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia to international audiences around the world. This work began in the small Kunwinjku community of Kunbarlanja in Arnhem Land and now continues in Yawuru Country in the Western Australian coastal town of Broome and in the urban centre of Gadigal lands in Sydney. The productions brought into dialogue for the first time in this book range in style from large-scale outdoor explorations of Kunwinjku spirit worlds to trans-disciplinary expressions of global ecological collapse to intimate dance solos on the theme of decolonization. Extending this significant body of work is an ongoing series of research laboratories, which functions as a key platform for strengthening dance in the Pacific region through trans-Indigenous exchange. Critical to the company’s success is its development of new choreographic and dramaturgical processes that are both intercultural and Indigenous in principle, practice and ethos. Such work draws on the experiences, stories and embodied practices of diverse artists, but is indelibly grounded in the specific places and communities where the day-to-day collaborations unfold. Marrugeku’s unique artistic and cultural journey is traced here through a words-and-pictures story co-curated by leading postcolonial settler scholar Helen Gilbert and the company’s co-artistic directors: Yawuru/Bardi choreographer and dancer Dalisa Pigram and settler director Rachael Swain. A rich array of essays, scripts, interviews, photographs, reviews and reflections make up the story’s strands, each opening windows on the performances at issue. These contributions by company members, critics, scholars, collaborators and Indigenous leaders shed light on the processes of cultural attunement at the heart of Marrugeku’s work. Collectively, they offer a compelling multivocal assessment of the power and appeal of political dance theatre in our times. Contents: Foreword Patrick Dodson   The Company Helen Gilbert, Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain   Chapter 1 Marrugeku in Kunbarlanja This Was Not a Fly-by-night Project, Michael Leslie Making Mimi, Rachael Swain Magic Followed Us, Raymond Blanco Telling That Story, Thompson Yulidjirri Children Are Sacred, Djon Mundine Darwin’s Art of Darkness, Nicholas Rothwell   Chapter 2 Crossing Borders From Stone Country to Saltwater Country: Dramaturg Peter Eckersall in Conversation with Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain Marrugeku’s International Touring, Justin Macdonnell   Chapter 3 Burning Daylight Revelation Found in Broad Daylight, Rosemary Sorensen Tangled Histories, Haunted Streets: Asian–Indigenous Relations in Broome, Jacqueline Lo, with script excerpt ‘Black Flowers’ Strategic Obfuscation in Marrugeku’s Burning Daylight, Vicki van Hout   Chapter 4 Intercultural Music Yarning about the Musical Journey: Musicians Matthew Fargher and Lorrae Coffin in Conversation with Dalisa Pigram Sound and Song: Cultural Collaborations, Mathew Fargher   Chapter 5 Research 1: Decolonizing Dance Trans-Indigenous and Intercultural Dance Praxis, Rachael Swain and Dalisa Pigram Animal Pop: An Interview with Dancer/Choreographer Jecko Siompo Taking Things into Your Own Hands: An Interview with Dancer/Choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly The Unbearable Stasis of Colonialism, Alison Croggon   Chapter 6 Buru Time/Land/Seasons/Place/Country, Dalisa Pigram Buru script   Chapter 7 Gudirr Gudirr A One-woman Dance Show of Evolving Aboriginal Repression, Martha Schabas The Tide Is Turning: New Choreoaesthetics in Indigenous Intercultural Dance, Rachael Swain with Dalisa Pigram Script Excerpts: ‘Lingo Story’, ‘This Is the Time’, ‘Warning’ and ‘Uncle Fuck Fuck’ Cosmopolitan Encounters and Diplomatic Interventions, Helen Gilbert   Chapter 8 Research 2: Listening to Country Traces in the Landscape, Rachael Swain Hear the Country Speak to You: An Interview with Bunuba Cultural Leader June Oscar Listening to Other Peoples’ Country, Hildegard de Vuyst Listening to Country Forum: Selected Statements   Chapter 9 Cut the Sky Cut the Sky Programme Notes Unpredictable Shifts: Rehearsal Process and Climate Change, Rachael Swain, with script excerpts: ‘Crocodile Poem’, ‘Hanky Panky’ and ‘Nature Is on Speed’ Looking Back on Cut the Sky: An Interview with Dramaturg Hildegard de Vuyst   Chapter 10 Burrbgaja Yalirra Critical Mimicry and the Deadman Dance: Marrugeku’s Burrbgaja Yalirra, Jonathan W. Marshall Ngalimpa script Script Excerpts: ‘Miranda Speaks’, ‘Language Poem’ and ‘Great Grandfather Poem’   Chapter 11 Jurrungu Ngan-ga Horrific Surrealism: New Storytelling for Australia’s Carceral-Border Archipelago, Omid Tofighian   Chapter 12 Finding a Meeting Place Future Thinking, Future Dancing: An Interview with Yawuru Cultural Leader Patrick Dodson Seeing the Process, Rachael Swain and Dalisa Pigram in Conversation with Richard Gough   Timeline Company Highlights 1996–2020   Credits Marrugeku Productions and Research Laboratories   Author Biographies