SHELTERING BANGARRA DANCE THEATRE

 

 

Sheltering. Keeping Grounded. Brown Boys and Sheoak.

Artistic Director, Co-CEO and choreographer Sheoak. Frances Rings. Choreographer Keeping Grounded Glory Tuohy-Dniell. Choreographer and Director Brown Boys Daniel Mateo. Composer Sheoak David Page (dec). Music Director Sheltering and Composer Keeping Grounded. Composer Brown Boys Leon Rodgers. Director Brown Boys Cass Mortimer Eipper. Set Designer Sheoak Jacob Nash. Set designr Keeping Grounded Shana O’Bren. Set and costume designer for Brown Boys Elizabeth Gadsby. Costume Designer Sheoak Jennifer Irwin APDG. Costume Designer Keeping Grounded Clair Parker. Lighting Designer Sheoak and Keeping Grounded Karen Norris. Rehearsal Director Rikki Mason. Director of Photography Brown Boys Liam Brennan. Producer Brown Boys Michael Le.

The Dancers: Courtney Radford. Kallum Goolagong. Kassidy Waters. Jye Uren. Maddison Paluch. Daniel Mateo. Emily Flannery. James Boyd. Chantelle Lee Lockhart. Edan Porter. Tamara Bouman. Roxie Syron. Amberlilly Gordon. Donta Witham. Zeak Tass. Eli Clarke. Maddison Fraser.

Bangarra Dance Theatre. Canberra Theatre. May 23 – 27 2026. Bookings: canberratheatre.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Sheltering is Bangarra Dance Theatre like you have never seen them before. The dance’s origins remain traditionally rooted in the indigenous culture and audiences who have been fortunate enough to experience the wonder of Bangarra’s work over its thirty year history will recognize in Sheltering the spirit and visceral connection of a work that draws on 60,000 years of song, dance and storytelling passed down through ceremony over the ages. In the Canberra Theatre that reflection of indigenous storytelling through the exquisite magic of Bangarra’s dancers is heightened by the extraordinary use of technology to embellish the power of the creative imagination, making the experience of Sheltering a spiritual meditation on what Auntie Violet in her Welcome to Country rightly observes when she says “We are all human”. Sheltering, like all of Bangarra’s work is a gift of understanding and connection, expressed through the conventions of contemporary dance blended with traditional inspiration. On the one hand Sheltering is a tribute to survival. On the other it is an artistic acknowledgement of the power of the dance to bridge time, culture and experience and restore harmony and reconciliation.

Daniel Mateo in Brown Boys Photo by Cass Eipper

Sheltering comprises three separate performances all linked by the emotive expression of indigenous experience through the art of Bangarra’s dancers. Keeping Grounded presents five short pieces, expressing a humanity that we all share. Migi (Ground) summons our connection to shared country. Muted Contact announcing the peril of disconnection and loss of shared communication. Guliyapa (cheeky) is a condemnation of greed and materialism. No pull up is a condemnation of a society, caught in a vortex of superfluity, ignoring the value of pausing in a pressured world. Blues tells us to value what exists and cherish the moment and finally Ngulibi (Water) advising us to let go in response to the tight pressures that weigh upon our lives. It offers hope for the future, advising us to value what we have and who we are. From the early beginnings, emerging from beneath a net that rises and offers sanctuary and enclosure to the creation of patterns of connection and separation to the creation of imagery through the body in motion Keeping Grounded is a warning that offers hope. The dancers mesmerize, using the body as a vessel of communication, accompanied by an evocative composition by Brendan Boney, thrillingly choregraphed by Glory Tuohy-Daniell and designed by Clair Parker.

Daniel Moto’s performance piece Brown Boys is a short video featuring Mateo in salutation to his race and with a deep connection to country, to the earth and to his nature. There is pride in his portrayal of abrown bot, standing Samuel Becket like in a mound of dark earth and smearing his mouth with earth mixed with honey. His beauty is captivating, his performance in closeup a celebration of self and identity. At only six minutes, Brown Boys, performed in a cocooned wurley, reminds us of the pride in who we are. Designer Elizabeth Gadsby and director of photography Liam Brennan keep us riveted to Mateo’s performance. It is a compelling piece that, like Becket’s Happy Days deserves development into a longer work of theatre.

Keeping Grounded  Photo by Edward Mulvihill

The major work of the evening is a reimagined revival of the 2015 work Sheoak, choreographed by Bangarra’s Artistic Director Frances Rings. In Sheoak we discover the abundant richness of symbolism, myth and story. A decade on, this work born of a time of conflict, resonates with the power of righteousness. Advances have been made, but grievance lingers and rectification still needs to be addressed. Amberlilly Gordon enters the stage as Sheoak, an ancestor and sentinel, observer of her culture over generations and in thee sections depicting the human experience of Place, Body and Spirit. Sheoak is a remarkable work, not only for the astounding athleticism, control and beauty of the dancers in spirit and in movement, but also for the late composer David Dubbo Page’s resonating rhythms and sounds combining traditional and contemporary composition. The loss of David Page in 2016 after twenty years of composing for founding Artistic Director Stephen Page’s creations is still felt deeply but the revival of his startling and empowering composition in the current performance of Sheoak remains a lasting tribute to his legacy. In Place, the old is being replaced by a new way of life and the people must adapt. Change brings resistance and dysfunction in Body as the ancestral figure struggles to maintain the old. At the end of Spirit and the search for a new spirit for the age, Sheoak emerges to bring hope and renewal.

Sheltering is a phenomenal collaboration of dancers and the creative team. It is a metaphor for reconciliation and the power of art to transform and heal. The dancers are extraordinary, not only in their athleticism but in their capacity for emotional truth expressed through the choroagraphy, accompanied by the composition, settings and lighting effects in a performance that once again places Bangarra at the pinnacle of contemporary dance in the country and an ambassador for the indigenous citizens of the land. I have witnessed many Bangarra productions over the years but none has revealed the wondrous artistry and power of collaboration so vividly or in the closing image of Sheoak offered hope for change and renewal to heal the loss and wrongs of the past.

 Photos by Daniel Boud, Cass Eipper and Edward Mulvihill