Bangarra, Sydney: Kylian, Rounds and others

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As selected sections of the doco that preceeds this work make clear, aboriginal dance has had a profound and lasting influence on Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian. His work, Stamping Ground is the central work in this three part program looking back at Bangarra's 30 year history. (30 years of 65,000). It is also the first time that the company has featured a non-indigenous work. And what  a work it is! It opens with a single dancer on stage, a dancer who is replaced by another, and another. The 6 dancers introduced, they break into pounding duos and trios, the influence of aboriginal dance seen especially in the movement of the hands, the head and the neck. But it is influence, not imitation.

Staming Ground is preceeded by the 2004 work Unaipon, by Francis Rings, now Associate Director of the company. This work celebrates the life of David Unaipon, Australia's first great aboriginal intellectual, in 7 parts, each dealing with an aspect of Unaipon's life. I remember best String Games, which involved the dancers interacting with lines of twine across the stage. String games in traditional life are a major means of story telling and passing on cultural knowledge.

Finally, To Make Fire consists of extracts from four seminal works, starting with the 2008 work Mathinna. I found this last,  commemorating as it does the kidnap and rape of young aboriginal women, acutely uncomfortable, especially as I grew up in Tasmania, where this dance is set. When I grew up, the genocide of Tasmanian aborigines was not even mentioned at school. Through, among other things, the work of Bangarra, and Bangarra's wonderful dancers this has changed.

I left the theatre thoughtful and moved, and profoundly glad that even if the Royal Ballet is a long way from my finger tips, we have Bangarra, and Queensland Ballet, not to mention the Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Theatre. Among others! How lucky am I?