Two double bills of First Nations contemporary dance will take place in Melbourne in May that give voice to past and future ancestors.
Presented by Arts House in North Melbourne and the Yirramboi festival for First Nations artists, the first program (May 5 & 6) presents Culture Evolves by Brent Watkins and Kisiskâciwan by Jeanette Kotowich.
Culture Evolves combines traditional dance, hip-hop and music to explore the historical account of a Gunai Kurnai man travelling from the Bogong Moth ceremonies to 90 Mile Beach in Gippsland.
This will be the first in an ongoing series of collaborations that will develop and revive the Bogong Moth ceremony. This revival will be guided by the insightful testimonies of Gunai/Kurnai Elders as well as historical records, and will highlight the cultural significance of the moth in Gunai/Kurnai society and its role as a keystone species in South Eastern Australian ecosystems.
Kisiskâciwan takes audiences to the landscape of Saskatchewan, Canada, the land of Kotowich’s forebears. The work is described as evoking the "vast, inspiring prairie and gently rolling hills of Kah-tep-was valley, a sacred place that calls generations of peoples for gathering, hunting, and spiritual replenishment".
The second program (May 12 & 13) comprises Them Voices by Lara Kramer and blood of my blood by Jada Narkle.
Them voices is a solo which "explores the relationship between the artist’s body and her memory, calling upon notions of performance, social critique and cultural resistance".
blood of my blood is described as "an inquiry into the body’s morphing shapeshifting adaption within this post-colonial dystopia . . . a look into intergenerational trauma, intersectionality and the many faces First Nations people wear to navigate a reality which seeks to erase them".
There is also a workshop on offer with Kotowich and Kramer on May 10.