Saltwater magic by the river, brought to you by Stephen Page
Former artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre Stephen Page is bringing it all back home for Brisbane Festival.
Brisbane Festival’s celebration of First Nations’ work is a pivotal part of this year’s program, in what artistic director Louise Bezzina describes as one of her proudest moments.
For her final Brisbane Festival Bezzina has embedded Indigenous voices across every part of the program, giving their works the stature and respect they deserve.
“It’s not just a thing that is important, it’s absolutely critical,” she says. “As the artistic director of an international arts festival you need to start with the stories of this place and the stories of the people from here. I feel so lucky to be in a position to help facilitate a program of this nature and to dream big with the artists.”
Bezzina’s festival program reflects how art and culture are intertwined and inseparable.
“We are so lucky in Brisbane and Queensland to have the longest-surviving culture in the world, also with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and artists,” Bezzina says. “It’s such a rich fabric of incredible stories that we’re blessed to have in our festival. This is a program of extraordinary artists who might be telling stories from this country or other nations across Australia, but they’re in it because their work is just outstanding and their talent is immense.
“What’s amazing about this year is a real sense of scale that comes with those incredible stories and how they sit as heroes of the festival in a way that doesn’t put it in a category of `this is the First Nations program’.”
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The magnitude of Baleen Moondjan, which can be seen from Queen’s Wharf Brisbane from September 18 to 21, is a great example of this. The contemporary dance and song cycle is sung in English, Jandai and Gumbaynggirr/Yaegl, while staged on a barge floating down the Brisbane River, backdropped by enormous whale bones that give a dramatic sense of place for the powerful storytelling of the former artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, Stephen Page.
Page says he’s excited to return to his hometown of Brisbane with Baleen Moondjan, his first major commission since departing Bangarra. He and set designer and frequent collaborator Jacob Nash explore the relationship between Indigenous people and baleen whales and their communities and the sacred resilience of Country.
“Baleen Moondjan is people,” Page says. “It’s celebrating the people of Minjerribah, which is North Stradbroke Island – my mother’s people, the Noonuccal Ngugi people, Saltwater people.
“My mum passed away in 2018 and my brother David passed away in 2016. He had worked on some Jandai language from North Stradbroke Island relating to the land, people, water and totemic system. The biggest one was the Yalingbila, the humpback whale, and its significance to people. I thought, maybe David’s given me a sign to actually create a story.
“Jake Nash, an amazing scenic set designer that I worked with at Bangarra, (and I) had the opportunity to do this work as a cultural contemporary ceremony – but it all sits in the belly of these extraordinary fragile, poetic resilient whale bones.”
Nash says working with Page again on something so epic has been a gift.
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‘We’ve been on a long journey with Brisbane Festival, working out the best site for this amazing story to be told’
“As a designer, it’s amazing to be back working with Stephen after so many creative projects,” Nash says. “It’s also been amazing to be back here in Brisbane. I grew up here, so when we come back, there’s so much family to share these stories with.
“We’ve been on a long journey with Brisbane Festival, working out the best site for this amazing story to be told. What you’ll see on the river is about 50m wide, a floating stage with whale bones that stretch up into the sky. Some of them are about 8m-9m tall. They arc over the performers. Audiences and people in Brisbane will see the river transform as these bones make their way up the river to the place where we’ll share this story.”
Bezzina says there are many reasons why she was determined to bring Baleen Moondjan to Brisbane Festival.
“First of all, it’s Steven Page and Jacob Nash – they’re incredible Queensland artists who have international reputations,” she says. “This work comes from Quandamooka country, which is right here on our doorstep. And it would feel very, very like a missed opportunity if Brisbane Festival wasn’t a place in which you would see Baleen Moondjan.
“And then to find a venue that was most suitable … Brisbane River is such an iconic part of our city’s landscape. Another reason I really wanted to place it front and centre and locally is so it’s not forgotten, it’s not hidden. You won’t miss it. It’s going to look absolutely exquisite.”
Brisbane Festival’s Indigenous programming includes a dance work created over six years (in close collaboration with community) called Preparing Ground; Skylore – Nieergoo: Spirit of the Whale that uses drones to retell creation stories by Yuggera and Toorbul man Shannon Ruska; and Unveiling Shadows, the debut dance solo work from First Nations and Italian artist Joshua Talliani.
Baleen Moondjan, Queen’s Wharf, Brisbane, September 18-21.