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| Daniel Mateo in "Brown Boys" - Photo: Cass Eipper |
Canberra Theatre Centre May 23 - 27, 2026.
Premiere performance May 23rd reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
2026 is shaping up to be a memorable year for Bangarra Dance
Theatre.
Fresh from its Sydney Opera House season of Flora, a
co-production with the Australian Ballet, Bangarra is premiering Sheltering
in Canberra ahead of its first national tour of 2026.
Sheltering is partly a celebration of Bangarra’s
international recognition after the Vienna Biennale Danza 2026 awarded the
company the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. The honour will
be presented before Bangarra performs Terrain at the Biennale Danza, the
Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice, in July.
Fittingly, Sheltering gives the company a chance to
present a triple bill that honours both its past and its future.
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| Bangarra dancers perform "Keeping Grounded" in SHELTERING Photo: Daniel Boud |
The first work is a remount of Keeping Grounded, created for the 2023 program Dance Clan by NAISDA Dance College graduate Glory Tuohy-Daniell, who joined Bangarra in 2016 through the Russell Page Graduate Program.
Keeping Grounded is dominated by a huge net designed
by Shana O’Brien, first revealed draped over eight dancers. Created to honour
Indigenous connection to land, the work opens with what appears to be a mound
of earth at centre stage.
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| Tamara Bouman and Daniel Mateo in "Keeping Grounded" Photo: Daniel Boud |
As Karen Norris’s evocative lighting slowly reveals the stage, the dancers emerge through holes in the net and perform intricately choreographed floor sequences—first with their arms, then with their whole bodies.
Subtle lighting shifts and the constant repositioning of the
net allow Tuohy-Daniell to explore its possibilities as a moving sculpture
through which the dancers climb, swing and play.
The work unfolds in six sections, danced in varying
combinations and marked by subtle costume changes. Designed by Clair Parker,
the costumes range from loose earth-toned pants and tops to striking brown
unitards.
Although the significance of each section is not always clear, the effect is mesmerising, not least because the dancers perform Tuohy-Daniell’s demanding choreography with impressive skill and precision.
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| "Sheok" in SHELTERING. Chantell Lee Lockhart (Keeper) (c) Photo: Daniel Boud |
The evening’s major work is Sheoak, created by Frances Rings in 2015 in response to the threat of Aboriginal community closures and the misconception that life in remote communities was merely a “lifestyle choice”.
Little appears to have changed since then, and Rings’s
revival of this seminal work has lost none of its force. Across its three
sections—Place, Body and Spirit—it celebrates the resilience of First Nations
women.
The choice is especially resonant because Sheoak is
set to the last score David Page composed for the company before his death in
2016.
The printed program includes a moving tribute to Page’s
contribution as a songman, storyteller and performer, and as composer for
twenty-seven Bangarra productions.
Since its inception, Bangarra has been celebrated for a
design aesthetic grounded in natural elements. This production offers superb
examples from three artists central to that reputation: Jennifer Irwin
(costumes), Jacob Nash (set) and Karen Norris (lighting).
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| Bangarra dancers performing "Sheoak" in SHELTERING. Photo: Edward Mulvihill. |
At first, Irwin dresses the dancers in striking white
two-piece costumes overprinted with black tree-branch silhouettes. Nash
complements them with old-growth scar tree poles that descend from above and
become part of the choreography.
Later, Irwin overlays these costumes with extraordinary
skeleton-like waistcoats, giving the dancers a zombie-like appearance. In an
aggressive male section, the dancers push and shove one another while dressed
in black streaked with red, suggestive of blood.
For the final section, Spirit, Irwin costumes the company in
flowing pants for the men and skirts for the women.
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| Bangarra dancers perform "Sheoak" in SHELTERING. Photo: Daniel Boud |
Linking the two works is the striking six-minute film Brown Boys.
Co-directed by Daniel Mateo and Cass Mortimer Eipper,
choreographed by Mateo, with music by Leon Rodgers and design by Elizabeth
Gadsby, the film reinforces the program’s central theme.
A meditation on the dislocation from Country felt by young
urban brown boys, it is gorgeously shot by Liam Brennan and compellingly
performed and spoken by Mateo. It also provides an imaginative way to avoid
breaking the program’s mood with an interval.
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
