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The Guardian
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bangarra: Illume review – exquisite dance show makes for an astonishing visual feast
Kinetic light and energy gloriously transmit Indigenous cultural knowledge in Bangarra Dance Theatre's latest production, Illume: a dance cycle that flows across 11 interwoven sections within an abstracted, ephemeral landscape that shimmers with light, a symbol of life. Tubular poles of neon click on and off to the dancers' rhythms, as shooting lights conjure both the cosmos and ceremonial dance wear designs. The ensemble then loops one another in bright white cables that form connected patterns suggesting their kinship. Light is portrayed as a connection between the spiritual and physical worlds but as a destructive force too; a gathering tempest of light pollution and the industrial exploitation of Country. A large guan (mother of pearl) shell descends from the ceiling, emitting a spotlight, connecting land, sea and lian/liarrn (inner being or spirit). But colonisation is coming: the performers begin to dance frenetically while seated on boxes, as if in a European missionaries' classroom denuded of Indigenous cultural systems. Now in its 36th year, the Sydney-based troupe has chalked up two firsts with this new show, which was choreographed by artistic director Frances Rings. This is their first collaboration with a visual artist, Goolarrgon Bard pearl carver Darrell Sibosado, from Lombadina on the Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia (although Bangarra's former head of design Jacob Nash, who left the company in 2023 after 12 years, remains highly regarded for his artistry too). And second, this is Bangarra's first season in the Sydney Opera House's 1,500-seat Joan Sutherland theatre, after a two-decade tenure in the more intimate, 577-seat Drama theatre. The company has performed in the Joan Sutherland before, but as part of an Australian Ballet collaboration in 2012. With Illume, Bangarra makes the most of the substantially larger theatre, the expanded space maximising the show's astonishing visual images – a whirlpool of fish, a fire ceremony and euphoric flashes of swirling, sandy reds that suggest the jagged pindan cliffs of Sibosado's Kimberley home. This visual artistry envelops the achingly exquisite shapes made by the Bangarra dancers, who become part of Sibosado's pattern. By chance last week, at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, I happened across Sibosado's arresting wall-length electrical work Ngarrgidj Morr (the proper path to follow), the same name he has given a section in Illume about the interconnectedness of all living things. The NGA work, a triptych of men's ceremonial dance plates rendered in powder-coated steel with LED tubes, echoes the designs seen in the Bangarra work; both allow us to see the strength of cultural lore and the enduring legacy of spirit in ways ancient and optimistically futuristic. At times, I craved an obvious delineation of Illume's 11 sections but quickly realised flagging each chapter would have broken the spell; they segue seamlessly into one another. In the end, I could not believe the show's 70-minute (no interval) run time had passed so quickly. Rings, who took over as Bangarra's artistic director in 2023, is showing an admirable ambition for the company with this collaboration; kudos are also due to set designer Charles Davis, lighting designer Damien Cooper, costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby and composer Brendon Boney. Long may Bangarra begin its annual tour in this way, on the epic stage and auditorium it deserves. Bangarra's Illume is at the Sydney Opera House until 14 June, Perth's Heath Ledger theatre 10-13 July, Albany Entertainment Centre 18 July, Canberra Theatre Centre 25-26 July, Queensland Performing Arts Centre 31 July-9 August, Darwin Entertainment Centre 15-16 August, and Arts Centre Melbourne 3-13 September
ABC News
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Bangarra's new work Illume draws on the traditional Bardi and Jawi practice of pearl shell-carving
Darrell Sibosado and his brothers carve guan (mother of pearl shells) in the same shed once used by their father and uncles. It's a shed in Djarindjin/Lombadina on Western Australia's Dampier Peninsula — at the site of the mission where Sibosado grew up, which ran from 1909 until the 60s. "When the mission closed, we took over a lot of the infrastructure," the Goolarrgon Bard man tells ABC Radio National's Awaye!. From his Old People, he learnt about carving, stories and symbols, which allowed Sibosado to link the traditional art-making practice of rjij (pearl shell carving) to his contemporary installation works using metal and light. With a maze of lines that have been carved into the guan and inlaid with ochre, riji represents the scales shed by Aalingoon (the Rainbow Serpent) as he rests on the ocean surface, containing traditional knowledge and beliefs. Where Sibosado once carved the geometric design, he now re-creates those same symbols as monochromatic installations of epic proportions made with metal and LED tubes. "Even though [our symbols and motifs] are ancient, for the rest of the world I guess they seem so new and strange, [but] they've been around for thousands of years," Sibosado says. "What I'm trying to do really, in my practice, is just reintroduce this [visual] language. "The symbols I use — the very traditional ones — they're the ones that have been passed down to me and my brothers by a particular uncle, who was a very senior loreman in our clan, the Goolarrgon clan." His carving and installation works have gained national and international recognition, in major exhibitions including the Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley (2019), the National Indigenous Art Triennial (2022) and Ever Present (2023). Now, Sibosado is working with Indigenous contemporary dance company Bangarra Dance Theatre to create a new full-length choreographic work, Illume, which opens this week in Sydney, ahead of a national tour. Sibosado lived in Sydney for around 30 years, during which time he worked to support other visual artists as they developed their practice. It wasn't until he moved home to Western Australia 10 years ago that Sibosado felt ready to focus on his own work. "I'd done small things, and I was always drawing and stuff like that, but that would be always stashed away in a drawer," he says. "Going back home on Country, a lot of that stuff just fell away, and it opened up space for me to focus, and for the information, my own information from my people, my ancestors to get back in." For Bardi and Jawi people, connecting with Country in this way is "Ngarrgidj Morr" (the proper path to follow). Mirning choreographer and Bangarra's artistic director, Frances Rings, has certainly "followed the proper path" in her collaboration with Sibosado. It took several years for her to convince the artist to work with her to translate his art into choreography. "It was difficult for me to see how I was going to fit with Bangarra and how Bangarra was going to fit with me, but it seems to have just happened pretty organically," Sibosado says. "I don't know any other company that [collaborates like Bangarra], that goes through this whole process, which is like all our traditional protocols … It put me at ease." By intersecting their practices of choreographic and visual art perspectives in Illume, Rings and Sibosado hope to bridge the physical and spiritual worlds to convey complex themes about light, culture and environmental issues. Told in nine sections, Illume is an examination of artificial light pollution and the way in which it disrupts First Nations peoples' connection to sky country. With vast troves of knowledge held in constellations, light pollution limits our ability to share celestial knowledge and skylore, regarding everything from navigation, to when to seed and harvest food, to the best time to fish. Every aspect of Illume's design — the lighting, the costumes, the music and the set — has been overseen by Sibosado to ensure the work embodies his community and Goolarrgon Country. A self-confessed perfectionist, Sibosado says the collaboration has eased his biggest concern: that his work might be "overshadowed" by the production, or will "look like something stuck up on a wall". Rings was equally concerned about ensuring Sibosado's work shines throughout all the production and design elements. "Every day there's a lot of pressure to uphold that and to meet that expectation," she says. "Darrell is so generous, and his community have also been so open and generously sharing with us … I hope that they feel that sense of collaboration when they sit in the theatre, and they see just the incredible amount of work that everyone's put into this." Rings has wanted to collaborate with Sibosado since she met him while they were both studying at NAISDA Dance College in 1988. In 2023, she took on the top job at Bangarra, and one of her first ideas to do something new and different was to draw on Indigenous art as inspiration. That led her back to Sibosado, whose work she thinks "belongs in the theatre" because of the way it captures the vast scale and piercing light of his Country. Rings even sees an echo of the "rich and saturated" colours of the red pindan soil and "indescribable blue" of the sea, despite Sibosado's tendency to work in monochromatics. "Darrell's work is very monochrome, but there's a power, and there is a sense of something that is not just on the wall, but it's an energy and a feeling that it gives you, and that's really rare," she says. In bringing his work to the stage, Sibosado has thought a lot about that sense of travelling backwards in time — while staying firmly situated in the present. "I've moved into [working with] light now because I'm always trying to capture the iridescence of pearl shell, to honour pearl shell … [Adaptation] doesn't diminish your authenticity or your connection to your traditions," he says. "Our ancestors and our Elders are expecting us to move in this world, and maintain your solid roots and your solid base and let that guide you. "But we have to be able to move in this world." Illume is at Sydney Opera House from June 4-14, before touring to Perth, Albany, Canberra, Brisbane, Darwin and Melbourne.
