Preparing Ground

By Marilyn Miller (Kukuyalanji and Waanyi), Jasmin Sheppard (Tagalaka and Kurtitjar) & Katina Olsen (Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri).

Preparing Ground is a powerful First Nations-led independent contemporary dance project by leading choreographers Marilyn Miller, Jasmin Sheppard and Katina Olsen.

Employing a framework founded on a deep relationship between humans and environment, Preparing Ground is an urgent call to action to us all to address colonisation’s impacts on Country, language, people and place through First Nations knowledges.

It will feature a dance work for mainstage presentation alongside audience engagement activities chosen and led by local First Nations knowledge holders to platform local responses to the project’s themes.

Preparing Ground is currently in creative development.

About preparing ground

Preparing Ground means to prepare land for our future survival. It is about preparing land for Ceremony, preparing us with the knowledge to survive, and preparing community to lead change into the future Future. It’s a multidimensional metaphor that challenges postcolonial ethics, morality, politics and emotions, through the lens of Country.

Preparing Ground - the future Future

Developing the phrase “future-Future”, Preparing Ground takes on the longevity of Indigenous worldview. It acknowledges that taking care of Country and Community means continuing the work far into the future, over thousands of years – part of a continuum of knowledge, since the first sunrise.

Repeatedly returning to their Wakka Wakka, Kukuyalanji, Tagalaka and Kombumerri homelands over three years (2021-2023), these artists nurture long-term cultural exchange, listening to and learning from Country to engage with millennia of knowledge in land management and cultural survival. This deep research and development connects and reconnects the choreographers to the complexity of relationships between each other and their Countries in a never ending cycle of being, knowing and doing.

It is a contemporary application of ancient protocols; a process of belonging and becoming.

This experience then infuses and provokes responses in their choreographic language as they devise an immersive, multi-sensory dance production together with a wider creative team. The project’s process-driven, relational approach also deeply informs its long-term model of community engagement, which aims to support it’s core goal of platforming local First Nations voices and knowledges through its presentation.

Preparing Ground does more than embody the resilience of the world’s oldest surviving culture. It shows us how dependent our collective survival is on an enduring connection to land and sea.

Download 2023 Project Update

Watch the Community Engagement pilot - Kombumerri Country, October 2023 (trailer)

"There is a stronger elemental guidance influencing movement and how the body responds to Country that comes from such close association with, or being on, Country… It has been an extremely rewarding, renewing, and reinvigorating process. The realisation encapsulated as: 'we ARE Country'; we present the voice OF Country." Marilyn Miller, Co-Director Preparing Ground

“Working on Country or being connected to Country has been the springboard from where every concept, creative ideas and information which makes the bulk of our content has come from. It has informed the decolonized process of our creative development in the studio.” Jasmin Sheppard, Co-Director Preparing Ground

"Preparing Ground cannot happen without dedicated time on Country. Having this time researching and developing on Country means that our communities are involved in the making of our work right from the beginning and throughout the process of making the work. Therefore we are honouring our own protocol and duty to our communities, and the voice of community is then reflected in the work." Katina Olsen, Co-Director Preparing Ground

Preparing Ground, on Country trip 2021

Creative Development - October 2023

Community Engagement pilot, Kombumerri Country, 2023

on Country R&D, Tagalaka July 2022

Wakka Wakka on Country trip, March 2023

on Country R&D, Tagalaka July 2022

on Country R&D - Kukuyalanji, April 2022

Choreographic explorations, September 2021

Projection tests, September 2021

on Country R&D, 2021

Image credits: Samuel James, Katina Olsen, Jade Ellis Photography

Community Engagement pilot images feature Kombumerri Rangers from Ngarang-Wal Gold Coast Aboriginal Association Incorporated

Preparing Ground - Creative Team

Co-Director - Marilyn Miller (Kukuyalanji and Waanyi),

Co-Director - Jasmin Sheppard (Tagalaka and Kurtitjar)

Co-Director - Katina Olsen (Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri)

Projection Designer - Samuel James

Sound Designer - Samuel Pankhurst

Lighting Designer - Karen Norris

Dramaturg - Victoria Hunt (Ngati Ohomairangi, Te Arawa, Ngati Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata Maori, English, Irish, Finnish)

Dancer - Audrey Goth-Towney (Wiradjuri)

Choreographic Outside Eyes

Tammi Gissell (Muruwarri)

Yolande Brown (Bidjara)

Raymond Blanco (Magarem, Erub Island and Malay) - Cairns, 2021.

Cultural Advisors (on Country developments 2021 - 23)

Kukuyalanji / Mossman: Uncle John Hartley and Juan Walker

Tagalaka / Croydon: Patrick Wheeler and Victor Steffenson

Wakka Wakka / Eidsvold: Aunty Yvonne Chapman, Warru Olsen, Natalie Chapman, Corey Appo

Kombumerri / Gold Coast: Warru Olsen, Justine Dillon, Maxwell Dillon

Elders-in-Residence

Brisbane 2021: Raelene Baker (Yuggera, Birri, Bindal and Warranghu)

Preparing Ground is supported through the Australian Government’s Indigenous Languages and Arts program. It is assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with Brisbane Festival and Sydney Festival, and additional project funding from the Creative Australia. Preparing Ground is also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and the Council of the City of Gold Coast.

Preparing Ground is produced by BlakDance and supported by BlakForm, funded through Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.

The 2023 creative development phase has received additional support from Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), The Art House Wyong, HOTA (Home of the Arts), Bulimba-ja Arts Centre, The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) which is a partnership between the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and Sunshine Coast Council through ArtsCoast, and LJ Dance Projects.

September 2021’s creative development has been supported by Brisbane Powerhouse, Judith Wright Arts Centre, QPAC, The Art House Wyong and Ausdance Queensland.