Dance Theatre: Jurrungu Ngan-ga (Straight Talk)

Concept by Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain
With Patrick Dodson
Marrugeku
Presented by Black Swan
Director Sarah Rachael Swain
Choreographer Dalisa Pigram with the performers
Performance dramaturgy Hildegard De Vuyst
Cultural dramaturgy Behrouz Boochani, Patrick Dodson and Omid Tofighian
Set designer Abdul-Rahman Abdullah
Costume designer Andrew Treloar
Lighting designer Damien Cooper
Music by Sam Serruys, Paul Charlier and Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY
Lyrics by Beni ‘Bjah’ Hasler
Sound design Sam Serruys and Paul Charlier
Performed by Czack (Ses) Bero, Emmanuel James Brown, Chandler Connell, Luke Currie-Richardson, Issa el Assaad, Macon Escobal Riley, Bhenji Ra, Feras Shaheen, Miranda Wheen
Heath Ledger Theatre
15 – 23 September 2023

Bhenji Ra (pic Prudence Upton)

 There are times when the magnitude of events make attempts to expose and explain them through art seem trivial and patronising.

But rarely, though reason and justice fail, art can reach an intensity that is scalding to the touch.

If you’ve ever stood in front of Picasso’s Guernica, with its massive fury and agony, you’ll feel that heat.

The Perth premiere of the celebrated Broome-based dance-theatre Marrugeku’s Jurrungu Ngan-ga (Straight Talk) was always going to be eagerly anticipated. The company of director Rachael Swain and choreographer Dalisa Pigram has reached new heights of on and off-stage power here with an international assembly of performance talent and creative support.

Its subject matter is the historic and pervasive sickness of incarceration that infects Australia’s colonial history and present, the grinding tragedy of Indigenous imprisonment and the open-ended detention of asylum seekers.

What couldn’t have been anticipated in 2016, when Jurrungu Ngan-ga was conceived by Pigram, Swain and the great Jawuru leader Patrick Dobson, was the wicked project of proselytising a second Terra Nullius that is slouching towards us in the wake of the likely political failure of the Voice referendum.

In just the last fortnight, agents of the No campaign, basking in the hubris of the victory they think is already theirs, and egged on by shameless politicians and the shadowy figures behind them, have begun tearing at the established facts of the post-colonial experience of Indigenous Australians and thrown monumental slurs at the integrity of Indigenous people, culture and communities both before and after colonisation.

They are preaching a sermon of derision and division, and have the passionate intensity, not necessarily of those who believe they are right so much as those who are sure they will succeed.

It’s heartbreaking that we have come to this dark episode, and the message of Jurrungu Ngan-ga is urgent and, as its English translation, Straight Talk, reminds us, even more vital.

One of the great strengths of Marrugeku is its ability to part the veil that can obscure the language of dance, and Jurrungu Ngan-ga is a brilliant example of their practice.

The nine dancers in the troupe perform solo, in duets or in riveting ensemble, taking us from the fear and anguish of a prisoner (EJ Brown) alone and helpless in a cell with the sounds of metal on metal and harsh half-heard voices around him to marvellous expressions of the joy of kinship and life of diverse people living in the shadow of captivity.

Among them are the transfixing movement and voice piece by Bhenji Ra that somehow brought to mind Laurie Anderson’s 1986 Home of the Brave and a searing transposition of Childish Gambino’s This is America to an Australian context, performed by the imposing Luke Currie-Richardson.

The music of Sam Serruys, Paul Charlier and Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY pulsates throughout, sometimes a heartbeat, sometimes marching feet, sometimes with lyrics by Beni ‘Bjah’ Hasler.

The richness of the movement, the music and voices of Jurrungu Ngan-ga draws from the wealth of experiences of its performers and dramaturgy; along with Dobson, Pigram and Swain, the Kurdish/Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani, translator Omid Tofighian and the Belgian dance dramaturg Hildegard de Vuyst informed the work, while performers drew from their Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Kurdish, Palestinian and Filipino cultural experience,

The entire effect of Jurrungu Ngan-ga is propulsive, the visual impact of Abdul-Rahman Abdullah’s enigmatic set of opaque, metallic panels through which shadowy figures emerge like ghosts while incongruous crystal chandeliers rise and fall casting a sallow light on the space and the figures within it.

Jurrungu Ngan-ga is a work of deeply considered anger and considerable artistry. It’s our Guernica.

And it brings straight talk to the table at a time when it is most needed.