Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are suggested that this assessment comprises the identify of somebody who has handed away. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers of the work are additionally warned that SandSong comprises photos and voices of deceased individuals.

A shimmering, molten backdrop – gold and crimson just like the floor of the solar or a crucible of crimson scorching treasured steel – stretches the total width and top of the ASB Waterfront Theatre Auditorium. This is just one of many photos SandSong sears into the thoughts of the viewer.

Evoking the unfathomable scale and fantastic thing about the Kimberley and Nice Sandy Desert areas (a mixed space of 700,000 sq. kilometres) SandSong was created by Bangarra Dance Theatre in session with Wangkatjungka and Walmajarri Elders. The work tells their tales and shares their data in 4 acts, traversing each the cultural disruption and bodily displacement Aboriginal folks have skilled, and providing visions of Indigenous futures. 

The work was prompted by Bangarra collaborator Ningali Josie Lawford-Wolf, a Wangkatjungka lady. Lawford-Wolf had prompt making a piece impressed by the Kimberley in 2019 however sadly handed away later that yr. SandSong honours her reminiscence and attracts on the data of her siblings Putuparri Tom Lawford and Eva Nargoodah who took on roles as cultural advisors. 

The divisions of the 4 acts replicate seasonal and historic shifts. Act 1 is titled ‘Makurra, Chilly Dry Season’ and reveals life within the Kimberley earlier than Wangkatjungka and Walmajarri folks have been pressured off the land and foreshadows the arrival of white colonists; Act 2 ‘Parranga, Scorching Dry Season’ reveals change occurring and a mud storm brewing; Act 3 ‘Kartiya’ (that means White Particular person) begins with the recording of an auctioneer, a harsh interruption of the land and other people, and depicts time spent on the stations earlier than a climatic stroll off and return to the desert; and Act 4 ‘Yitilal, Moist Season’ reveals therapeutic, demonstrating that even this intergenerational trauma can not break the cycle.

Throughout the acts conventional dances are introduced in addition to authentic choreography (Stephen Web page and Francis Rings). Components of the motion vocabulary have been new to me. In locations the foot after which the leg leads as if the remainder of the physique is auxiliary to the leg quite than the leg being periphery to the central torso (because the limb largely seems in Western up to date dance). The expertise, for a viewer with out data of conventional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance practices, or a familiarity with up to date dances practices as established by NAISDA Dance School (Nationwide Aboriginal Islander Abilities Growth Affiliation), and even Bangarra’s wider oeuvre, is akin to the problem of listening to a language you solely know a handful of phrases from. Which means is conveyed, however you understand the fantastic thing about the sentence construction eludes you. 

Nevertheless, this isn’t alienating, it’s as a substitute a revelatory expertise. Something that is likely to be missed by way of the historical past conveyed is obtainable in intensive programme notes. And, even in the event you didn’t have the perception of the programme, the music driving the efficiency (scored by composer Steve Francis and interwoven with a variety of recorded voices and conventional songs) offers emotive cues clear sufficient to bridge the cultural divides.

Over the course of the efficiency the sunshine falling on that glittering gold backdrop shifts and it turns into gleaming black blue rock. One other lighting change and by some means it seems to be a wall of flame or mud roaring via a distant tree line. It’s astonishingly stunning and speaks to the chic high quality of the entire parts of this manufacturing.

Bangarra Dance Theatre clearly deserve their popularity as some of the distinctive theatrical voices within the Australian performing arts trade. SandSong is a piece that burns on within the thoughts’s eye effectively after the ultimate bows have been taken.

 SandSong performed the ASB Waterfront Theatre fifteenth to the 18th of March 2023 as a part of the Auckland Artwork Competition