Table Of ContentNEW WORLD CHOREOGRAPHIES
Dance in
Contested Land
New Intercultural
Dramaturgies
rachael swain
New World Choreographies
Series Editors
Rachel Fensham
School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Australia
Kate Elswit
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
London, UK
This award-winning series presents studies of choreographic projects
embedded in the intermedial and transcultural circulation of dance.
Through advanced yet accessible scholarship, it introduces the artists,
practices, platforms, and scholars who are rethinking what constitutes
movement, and in the process, blurring boundaries between dance,
theatre and performance. Engaged with the aesthetics and contexts of
global production and presentation, this book series invites discussion of
themulti-sensory,collaborative,andtransformativepotentialofthesenew
world choreographies.
Editorial Board
Susan Leigh Foster, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Gabriele Klein, University of Hamburg, Germany
André Lepecki, New York University, USA
Avanthi Meduri, Roehampton University, UK
Kirsi Monni, University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland
Jay Pather, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Prathana Purkayastha, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Gerald Siegmund, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14729
Rachael Swain
Dance in Contested
Land
New Intercultural Dramaturgies
Rachael Swain
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISSN 2730-9266 ISSN 2730-9274 (electronic)
New World Choreographies
ISBN 978-3-030-46550-6 ISBN 978-3-030-46551-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46551-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
namesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreefor
general use.
Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinforma-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen
made.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmaps
and institutional affiliations.
Coverillustration:DalisaPigramandMirandaWheeninCuttheSky.ImageRobMaccoll,
Brisbane, 2018.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Dalisa
My partner in crime
Series Editors Preface
’
In the twenty-first century, choreographic projects and choreographic
thinking are responding to new political and social conditions and
prompting new aesthetics that in turn stretch the boundaries and poli-
tics of ‘dance studies’. Dance formations in this expanded global sphere
maybevariouslyfluid,intermedial,interdisciplinary,collaborativeorinter-
active. And very often, these ‘new world choreographies’ utilise corpo-
real interactions to imaginative and critical ends in dialogue with local
ecologies, technologies and communities.
With an openness to the many spaces in which dance so adeptly
manoeuvres, this book series aims to provide critical and historicised
perspectives on the artists, concepts, and cultures shaping recent devel-
opmentsinembodiedperformancepractices.Alongsidetheemergenceof
ever more complex questions about climate change, technology, global
capital, social justice and health, we need to continue to reorient our
thinkingaboutchoreographyinrelationtotheworld,inrelationtoothers
and to ourselves. The series thus provides a platform to reflect upon
and examine how dancing mobilises emerging knowledge paradigms to
generate a creative aesthetics and politics. And the series curates the bold
vii
viii SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE
andimaginativescholarshipofinterdisciplinaryperspectivesonmovement
as we negotiate these contingencies of an ever-changing world.
Parkville, Australia Rachel Fensham
London, UK Kate Elswit
Acknowledgements
The projects described in this book were developed in two very
different communities, the Kunwinjku community of Kunbarlanja,
Western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory where Crying Baby
(2000)wasmadeandtheYawuruandmulti-ethniccommunityofBroome
in the north-west of Western Australia where Gudirr Gudirr (2013) and
Cut the Sky (2015) were developed and performed. I wish to start by
acknowledging these communities and their cultural custodians for their
participation in, influence on, and witnessing of these three productions.
Interculturalperformanceprocessesrequireaparticularkindofintense
participation from all those involved and a level of commitment that
is always at once both personal and political. The three productions
described in this book were co-created with artists from multiple Indige-
nousnationsandfromsettlerandEuropeanbackgrounds.Theembodied,
cultural and personal contributions of the cultural custodians, dancers,
choreographers, visual artists, designers, composers, lighting designers
and dramaturgs who are named throughout the following chapters, are
at the heart of this book. I especially wish to acknowledge my friends
and close collaborators: Storyman Thompson Yulidjirri; choreographers
Raymond Blanco, Dalisa Pigram, Koen Augustijnen and Serge Amié
Coulibaly; cultural dramaturg Patrick Dodson and dramaturg Hildegard
De Vuyst whose artistic, cultural and political practices have provided the
substance and the structure of the works described here.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At the outset, I acknowledge that in my role as director or dramaturg
of these projects I have played but one part within the complex collab-
orations and ideas about performance described here. Because of this I
have endeavoured to foster a way of writing in which my voice is not
louder than the assertions of the practice itself, allowing the perspectives
of my colleagues to shine through. First and foremost in this regard is
thevoiceofYawuru,BardidancerandchoreographerDalisaPigram,who
shares the artistic leadership of Marrugeku with me. We have collabo-
rated together since 1996, shifting through our different roles in each of
the works described here while supporting each other’s distinct responsi-
bilities along the way. As a co-devising dancer in all three works, as co-
choreographer of Gudirr Gudirr and Cut the Sky and with her extraor-
dinary ability to encapsulate the complexities of her people’s belonging
in dance, Dalisa more than anyone embodies and enables everything of
whichthisbookspeaks.Ifyouareluckyenoughtoseeherdanceyouwill
not need to read this book.
IwishtothanktheserieseditorsofNewWorldChoreographiesRachel
Fensham and Peter Boenisch for the invitation to include Dance in
ContestedLand inthisimportantbookseriesandfortheircriticalfeedback
ondraftsastheprojectdeveloped.Iamgreatlyappreciativeoftheeditorial
guidance of commissioning editors at Palgrave Macmillan Tomas Rene,
VickyBates,editorEileenSrebernikandeditorialassistantJackHeeney.I
amgrateful to Alexander Heller-NicholasandSiobhanMurphy,assistants
totheserieseditors,fortheirprecise,timelyandalwayscheerfulassistance
and revisions of drafts during this process. I also thank the anonymous
clearance reader for their critical feedback which helped me expand some
keypointsinthefinaleditingstage.IamtrulygratefultoAnnabelCrabb
for proof reading my proof reading at the 11th hour. Real friendship in
action!
Iamindebtedtothewisdom,insightandgenorisityofYawurucultural
leader, current Senator for Western Australia and Marrugeku’s Patron
and primary cultural dramaturg Patrick Dodson and Bunaba Cultural
leader June Oscar who is Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commis-
sion.Bothhavemadecriticalcontributionstotheintersectionsofpractice,
theory, culture and politics described in these pages. I also acknowledge
the important perspectives on northern Australia (and on dance prac-
tices in particular) shared by Yolngu leaders Galarrwuy Yunupingu and
M.Yunupingu.1 I have quoted from a selection of Indigenous Australian
