swim

Image by Jade Ellis Photography

swim by Ellen van neerven, Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage

Creative development, march 2023

In March 2023, BlakDance, Griffin Theatre Company (co-producers), QPAC and HOTA supported a creative development of Ellen van Neerven’s new project swim – a movement performance poem on Australian swimming, the sovereignty of water, and the strength of culture and family in keeping us safe.

This development period included time for the creative team on Yugambeh Country and a studio development period in Meanjin/Brisbane, and introduced the movement/choreographic element into the project with movement director, Yolande Brown.

Freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, blakstroke, swim is a performance poem on Australian swimming, the sovereignty of water and the strength of culture and family in keeping us safe, told by a young genderqueer Murri ready to hit the fast lane at the local pool.  Is e’s Aunt the lifesaver they need right now, or is that sexy DJ spinning tracks over the pool’s PA, the PLI (potential love interest) that is gonna keep e afloat?  swim is a reflection on Blak queerness and decolonisation. 

Creative team

(March 2023 Creative Development)

Playwright: Ellen van Neerven 

Director: Andrea James 

Dramaturg: Bryan Andy

Choreography: Yolande Brown

Sound/composition: Brendon Boney

Performer: Dani Sibosado

Performer: Hannah Donnelly 

Elder: Jenny Fraser                       

Elder: Maria Van Neerven

Community Liaison: Hannah Scanlon (QPAC)

Stage Managers: Abbie Trott and Callie Roebuck

swim is a co-production of Griffin Theatre Company and BlakDance.

This project was first developed by Moogahlin Performing Arts through the Yellamundie Festival 2019. Script development in 2020 by Moogahlin Performing Arts, with the support of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. Creative developments have received support from Malcolm Robertson Foundation, and Erin Shiel and Robert Dick and continued support from Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

swim is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Dear Brother

Image by Zaimon Vimanis

By Lenny Donahue, Djabuganjdji and Tibian Wyles, Girramay and Kalkadoon
Directed by Isaac Drandic, Noongar

THE RIGHT TO A RITE OF PASSAGE.

Young men from different corners of Queensland blow into the big smoke burning with unbridled energy, desire and confusion. Each of them filled with the need to escape, to make something of their lives, to defy the hand that life has dealt them. An individual ignition has driven them all to Brisbane but something else — something ancestral — will bring them together.

Caught between adolescence and adulthood, these young fellas will converge and wrestle with themselves, each other, their ghosts and a deep-etched sense of duty to Country. Together they’ll lay themselves bare and bond as brothers over what it means to be a young Aboriginal man in 2024.

This high energy work, presented with BlakDance as part of Brisbane Festival, is all about giving today’s young Murri men a voice, one that challenges the narrative around public perceptions of Aboriginal masculinity.

Using dance, music and poetry, this form-defying work features Djabuganjdji man Lenny Donahue and Girramay and Kalkadoon man Tibian Wyles in a tour-de-force performance that is as physical as it is heartfelt.

Dear Bother is co-produced by BlakDance, with Queensland Theatre

On the Shoulders of Giants

Images by Simon Woods, 2021

by eXcelsior

eXcelsior is an intra-cultural Queensland First Nations dance collective made up of proud Murri and Torres Strait Islander artists based in Brisbane. Featuring Leonard Donahue, Benjin Maza, Benjamin Creek, Tibian Wyles, Manduway Dutton and Joshua Thaiday. Anchored in body based storytelling, they use art forms including cultural and contemporary dance, physical theatre and poetry, to express their intergenerational experiences. 

Their new work in development, On The Shoulders Of Giants reveals a journey of transition and adaptation through the eyes of First Nation males navigating the vulnerabilities behind mental health, shame, toxic masculinity, domestic issues and drug and alcohol abuse. “By keeping our culture strong we stay grounded, allowing us to get through the pressures of everyday life as a First Nations man”.

eXcelsior’s On The Shoulders of Giants has been developed through BlakDance Residency Program, and Performing Country. 

eXcelsior in their second creative development for new work On The Shoulders of Giants. Big shout out to Metro Arts and collaborators Lafe Charlton, Dimple Bani Jr and Zaimon Vilmanis.

In the third creative development period, artists Tibian Wyles (Warragamay & Kalkadoon) and Lenny Donahue (Djabugandji) worked on a script development with dramaturg Isaac Drandic, supported by Queensland Theatre and Brisbane Powerhouse over 2022.

Images from Simon Woods of Lenny Donahue, Tibian Wyles, Joshua Thaiday (3 of the eXcelsior 6).

On The Shoulders of Giants is developed through BlakDance’s Performing Country - Queensland, financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Backing Indigenous Arts and First Nations Commissioning Fund, developed with assistance of Metro Arts and supported by Brisbane Powerhouse and Queensland Theatre.

Weredingo

by Karul Projects

When something is not understood, fear, hatred and humour can arise. Shapeshifting for First Nations people is our past, present and future. As our bodies shift through the space we draw parallels to Black Lives Matter, Black Deaths in Custody and the many injustices for people in this country who shapeshift on a daily basis to not be killed. 

Weredingo investigates the practice of shapeshifting throughout the modern world. Through Karul’s signature sharp movement, text, song and projection, we reveal superhuman shapeshifting. Human forms turn animal and return to the land. From our Dreaming to the now First Nations people are descendants of, and continue to be, shapeshifters.

Karul developed Weredingo across 2018-2020 through support from Dancenorth (2018), Metro Arts (2019), PACT (2019), Arts House’s CultureLAB (2020).

Weredingo undertook creative development in May 2021 at The Farm, Gold Coast which included an industry and Community Sharing.  

Weredingo was the first of BlakDance’s produced works to undertake a new model for feedback on a work in development through BlakForm. The Critical Response Process (CRP) was a facilitated process that allowed the makers to question their work in open dialogues with industry and community leaders. We were delighted to undertake this initiative earlier this year with Joyce Rosario, a first-generation Canadian of Filipina descent, privileged to live on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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Weredingo is produced by BlakDance and is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the City of Gold Coast, the City of Melbourne through Arts House, and was developed in the CultureLAB program with the assistance of Creative Victoria. Weredingo has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and Queensland Theatre. Weredingo is commissioned by BlakDance, through BlakForm. BlakForm is funded through Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.