The performances at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games impressed the world with their elements of Australia's fascinating indigenous culture.
Now Stephen Page, director of those ceremonies, brings his Bangarra Dance Theatre performers to Beijing. They will perform Page's new triple-bill Corroboree at the Century Theatre on Wednesday and Thursday.
Last year, the Bangarra Dance Theatre premiered the new work Skin at the Sydney Opera House. The piece has since won Page and Bangarra the coveted Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work and best Dance Work of the year.
Early this year, Page was honored with the Helpmann Award again, this time for Best Choreography for Corroboree, which toured Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and received great critical and popular acclaim.
A rich visual feast and a return to the purity of dance and tradition, the work strives to bring attention to the origins of life.
"I think the Olympics affected me a lot: Working with 1,000 indigenous people, all the elders trusting me to take their stories and put it on that ground, bringing black clans together, gathering in our own backyard," Page said.
With a score that mixes contemporary sound beats with haunting native chants and instruments, Corroboree, consisting of three parts, journeys through three dreams that are central to the lives of Australia's indigenous peoples - that of Brolga (Gudurrku), Red Kangaroo (Garrtjambal) and Sea Turtle (Waru).
The first part Brolga tells the story of a young woman's transformation and the ritualistic cleansing of the spirit during rainy season on the Brolga plains of Arnhem Land.
Roo explores the relationship between hunter and prey. This part deals with urban men who have had their social and religious values taken away from them.
Turtle relates to the sand, the sea and the waters of the Torres Strait, off the northern coast of Queens land, Australia. It recalls the everyday turbulence of birth and death, life and struggle.
The part also deals with pollution, poison in sacred waters, poison affecting traditional cultures, smothering and confinement and how people survive.
"Turtle is my favorite. This is my tribute to the Torres Strait peoples and the beautiful, melodic water that surrounds this country and what the Pacific means to people in general," Page said.
"The triple-bill explores the transformation of the human spirit, the relationships between Aboriginal people, creatures and the land and what it is that unifies us as one," Page added. "It is about challenging, awakening and cleansing the spirit."
"The choreography, rooted in tradition, flowers in remarkably imaginative new ways," said Willy Tsao, artistic director of the Beijing Modern Dance Company.
"It melds past and present, bringing urban Aboriginal sensibility and international contemporary dance styles to strands of an ancient culture," said Ou Jianping, dance critic and China correspondent of the US Dance magazine.
Bangarra Dance Theatre is both the oldest and one of the youngest dance companies in Australia. Old because it draws on Australia's indigenous dance traditions that go back at least 40,000 years. Young because it was founded just over a decade ago and its vigor, themes and attitudes belong to today.
(China Daily October 22, 2002)
