Clan: Bangarra Dance Theatre
November 2013
Stephen Page + Greg Barrett / Allen & Unwin
To watch a Bangarra production is to be suspended in a time of ancient Indigenous knowing and yet to be simultaneously catapulted through it into a highly modern aesthetic. Bodies, sinuous and strong, keenly reference their physicality and yet also speak of other presences. Evocations of snakes or brolgas appear as if summoned by a shaman. Dust flies off ochre-inscribed bodies and smoke weaves its ghostly presence through space as country is performed onstage and the sacred is made apparent, amongst interrogations of Aboriginal contemporary identity.
The publication of Clan precedes Bangarra’s twenty-fifth anniversary next year. A collaboration between visionary Artistic Director Stephen Page and photographer Greg Barrett, it is essentially a photographic foray into the world of this company, a visual encounter with its stories rather than a historical account.
From the first arresting image, senior Rirratjingu woman Kathy Balngayngu Marika ushers us into this world fecund with stories, inviting the viewer to witness what follows and executing a gesture that might be part of a Smoking Ceremony. These dancers refuse to be objectified either for their race or beauty, often beholding us steadily in their gaze. As a photographic book it is highly sculptural, artfully aware of the interplay between light and movement. The black pages sometimes take on a mirror sheen, reflecting the images opposite them.
Page writes in his introduction, ‘The land shapes the people, the people shape the language, the language shapes the song, the song shapes the dance, and the spirit flows through it all.’ He has said before that ‘the essence [of Bangarra] comes from the stories’. Clan references these highly dynamic performances rooted in knowledge, ushering us into spaces unknowable and wondrous and beckoning us to attend in flesh the company’s next mesmerising work.