Bangarra lights up in 2025

Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia's flagship Indigenous performing arts company, will present the world premiere of its first ever visual arts collaboration in 2025. Called Illume, it brings together Bangarra's Artistic Director, Frances Rings, and Goolarrgon Bard visual artist, Darrell Sibosado.

Sibosado is from Lombadina on the Dampier Peninsula, WA, north of Broome. He studied at NAISDA, after which he embarked on a varied career, including film and tourism. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and nationally, including at the 2024 Sydney Biennale. 

"My work is steeped in the context of where I’m from," Sibosado says. "I am really looking forward to seeing how Frances and I can work together, how our practices will respond, merge and translate to express the rhythm and essence of my people and my country.”

Illume will examine artificial light pollution and its "disruption to land and sky, devastating First Nations people's connection to sky country and limiting their ability to share celestial knowledge and skylore".

"Illum explores the awe of light, a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. It charts the impact of light pollution in a climate emergency," the collaborators say.

Illume will open first at the Roslyn Packer Theatre from May 24 to 28 for community and schools performances, then move for its main stage premiere to the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, from June 4 to 14. It will then go on tour to Perth, Albany, Canberra, Brisbane, Darwin and Melbourne from July through to September.

For more information, go here.