Tracker
Co-Director & Choreographer
Daniel Riley. Co-Director Rachael Maza AM. Writers
Ursula Yovich and Amy Sole Set Designer Jonathan Jones. Composer
& Sound Designer James
Henry. Composer
& Live Musician Gary Watling. Lighting
Designer Chloë Ogilvie. Costume Designer Ailsa
Paterson. Performers
Tyrel Dulvarie, Rika Hamaguchi, Ari Maza Long and Kaine Sultan-Babij. Dramaturgs
Amy Sole and Jennifer Medway. Project Elders Aunty
Shirley Mathews and Aunty Ann Cribb. Wiradjuri Language Translator Aunty Dianne Riley-McNaboe.
Scenic
Artist Merindah Funnell, Producer
Erin Milne. Production
Manager Nathan Evers. Stage
Manager Lyndie Li
Wan Po. Technical
Supervisor Clinton Camac.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Australian Dance Theatre. Odeon Theatre,
Adelaide Festival March 10-19 2023
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Australia Dance Theatre and
Ilbijerri Theatre Company’s Adelaide Festival offering, Tracker is a dramatic monologue with dance. It could be regarded as
drama with dance rather than dance theatre. Tracker
is the story of artistic director Daniel Riley’s Great Grand Uncle on his
father’s side. Sergeant Alexander Riley was a highly regarded aboriginal
tracker with the NSW police force for almost forty years. His story is a
fascinating one. His connection to country and his understanding of the land
and ability to read the lessons of the land is a lesson to us all to listen, to
see and follow the heart. One of the company plays Daniel Riley, a descendant
now living in the city. There is a touch of ironic comedy at the opening of the
performance as he discovers that his orienteering skills are limited as he sets
out to trace his ancestor’s life as a police tracker. There is an underlying sense of loss as he helplessly attempts
to read the map before him.
We are told of Alexander Riley’s instinctive
ability to uncover the truth through observations of the signs in Nature. He
leads police to the missing body of Ruby Green, thrown into the river after
dying from a self-attempted abortion. He leads police to the body of a missing
boy, eight months after his disappearance. He helps police to find and
apprehend serial killer Andrew Moss and discover stolen goods in a hollowed out
tree by following a trail of ants carrying the stolen sugar. He is credited
with the capture of bushranger Roy Governor. The narration is told clearly with
accompanying dance by the spirits of the bush that taught him the signs and
accompanied him on his search. It is a fascinating insight into Riley’s acute
knowledge of country .
It is a story
that should be told and a lesson that should be learned. Sadly the dance
contributes little to the drama.
The
choreography is repetitive and much of it is confined to floor work. There are
moments when it escapes the pull to the earth and begins to respond to the dramatic
score, played on the synthesizer. All too soon however the action returns to
the narrator, who reads accounts of Riley’s adventures from his notes.
In a final scene the actor
playing Daniel Riley assumes the character of his ancestor, later in life and
living on a reserve, and wearing a watch he received on retirement, the only acknowledgement
of four decades of service to the white man’s laws. The anger spurts forth, not
from the mouth of the kind and good Alex Riley, but from the descendant. It is
the anger of accusation, didactic and forceful. Anger is no substitute for art.
They can co-exist but ADT ‘s creative
mission is to tell stories through theatre and dance. Brecht’s Epic Theatre
exhorts an audience to judge. The story and the theatrical form enable that
judgement to occur.
Marrugeku Dance Theatre in Jurrungu Ngan-ga (Straight Talk) also
voiced their anger at the deaths in custody, the erosion of culture and
identity and the suicides on Manus and Nauru. It is an anger, visible and
palpable today, against the white police and the white man’s policies. It is an anger , shared by any kind and good
person told through innovative and theatrically striking and diverse
contemporary dance. Its message is clear, its criticism specific and its
performance dynamic.
In fairness, I found the space at the Odeon Theatre
restrictive. I don’t doubt the talent of the dancers and especially the female
dancer, but I felt that they were confined by space and narrative. I was
distracted by a moving scrim and a sense of confined space for the theatre to
make its impact.
Tracker is still a work in
progress seeking to find its way through the art of theatre. The story of Alexander
Riley is a story of exploitation and servitude. It is a story of lost
opportunity by the white people to learn and value the lessons that can be
learnt from First Nations people which go far beyond solving crimes. A work in
progress teaches us to learn the power of art. I hope that Ilbijerri Theatre
Company and Australian Dance Theatre will continue to develop the ideas and
stories in Tracker into the exciting piece of theatre and communication that it
can become.
