Bangarra’s mainstage works — a chronological viewer’s guide
Bangarra Dance Theatre‘s mainstage works are the country’s most artistically coherent body of contemporary dance — a continuous thirty-five-year catalogue of works that draw on First Nations cultural authority, contemporary movement language, original commissioned scores from the David Page and Steve Francis line, and the design language that Jacob Nash and Jennifer Irwin have built into the company’s visual identity over two decades. For the contemporary dance audience approaching Bangarra’s catalogue cold, here is the chronological viewer’s guide that Anna has been recommending to friends for years.
The Stephen Page foundation period (1991–2008)
Stephen Page founded the company’s mainstage practice when he became artistic director in 1991 and remained in the role for thirty-two years until 2023. The foundation period — through the 1990s and into the 2000s — established the contemporary-dance-grounded-in-First-Nations-cultural-authority line that has been the company’s identity ever since. The signature works of this period are Praying Mantis Dreaming (1992), Ochres (1995), Fish (1997), and Awakenings (2003) — the ensemble pieces that established Bangarra as a distinct contemporary dance voice in Australian and international dance.
The mature Page period (2008–2018)
The decade from 2008 produced the works most contemporary audiences would recognise as the defining Bangarra catalogue.
- Mathinna (2008). The story of the Aboriginal Tasmanian girl Mathinna, adopted and then abandoned by Sir John Franklin in the 1840s. One of the most affecting Bangarra works in the catalogue.
- True Stories (2007) and Spirit (1999/2008). The mixed-bill works that established the Bangarra triple-bill format.
- Patyegarang (2014). The story of the young Eora woman who taught the language to Lieutenant William Dawes in 1791 Sydney. The international touring production that took Bangarra to the Lincoln Center.
- OUR land people stories (2016). The triple-bill that paired three different choreographic voices in the company.
- Bennelong (2017). The Stephen Page-directed full-length retelling of the life of the Wangal man Bennelong. The international touring production that took Bangarra to Sadler’s Wells in London.
The late Page period (2018–2023) and the Frances Rings transition
The closing five years of the Stephen Page tenure — and the immediate Frances Rings succession — produced some of the most ambitious Bangarra works in the catalogue.
- Dark Emu (2018). The full-length production drawn from Bruce Pascoe’s controversial 2014 book on pre-colonial Aboriginal agriculture. A work whose reception itself became part of the cultural discussion of the source text.
- SandSong (2021). Daniel Riley and Frances Rings’s collaboration on the story of country in the West Kimberley, foreshadowing the Rings artistic direction that would follow.
- Wudjang: Not the Past (2022). The Stephen Page-directed full-length work that effectively closed the Page tenure as a thirty-two-year mainstage director — produced as the major Sydney Festival 2022 commission and toured internationally.
- Yuldea (2023). Frances Rings’s first full-length work as artistic director. The story of the Anangu of the Maralinga lands and the British nuclear testing of the 1950s.
What we’d recommend watching first
For first-time Bangarra audiences approaching the catalogue cold, Anna’s recommendation order is: Bennelong first (the production with the strongest international touring record and the clearest narrative line), Patyegarang second (for the contrast of the more lyrical choreographic voice), then Yuldea for the contemporary Frances Rings direction. The films of Bennelong and Patyegarang are available through the company’s archival programme; live performance is the better experience but the films give you a sense of the choreographic voice before you book a seat.
