Given the continual news stories about problems with escalating youth crime, the newly elected CLP Chief Minister’s commitment to lowering the age of criminal culpability to 10, (unfathomably), and the fact that the vast majority of children incarcerated,(2 thirds), are of indigenous descent, and the current news story about 17 year old Cleveland Dodd found hanging in his cell in Unit 18, Casuarina Prison, one would be tempted to comment on the currency and timeliness of this production. Until you remember that these tragic stories are just the latest in a history of injustice stretching back more than 200 years.
This production, by renowned Dance Company, Marrugeku, designed by leading Western Australian visual artist, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, co-created with Yawuru leader, Patrick Dodson, Kurdish-Iranian writer and former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani, and Iranian-Australian scholar-activist Omid Tofighian, then, is a wake up call to all reasonably minded people to heed and react to the suffering of countless indigenous families who have young and very young people that have ended up in the justice system, often with very little hope of escaping to a better life.
The publicity blurb describes “an exquisite work of great sophistication that throbs with sadness, anger and joy.” Well…it certainly did “ ..arrest my attention” and “dare me to look away”
The energy and commitment of the performers was extraordinary. They worked seamlessly as an ensemble, then solo’d in spectacular fashion parenting individual stories of pain and unjust and inhumane treatment. Indigenous and Torres Strait islander Czack (Ses) Bero and transdisciplinary artist Bhenji Ra deserve special mention.
The choreography was exciting,( if a little repetitive -but then so is the abuse hitorically and currently inside the institutions).
The set was imaginative and practical. (Didn’t quite get the significance of the chandeliers.) But the screens and the lighting were well conceived and used to great effect.
The music score was a little too loud, especially the bass effect at the start of the show, and was more like sound effects,(wood cracking or water dripping?) or a mood “pad” often used in movies etc. and repetitive. It was dramatic and effective at first but eventually…
The ‘telling’ thing about this experience is the terrible history alluded to.
I have to agree with the Sydney Morning Herald’s comment: “We need the politicians to see this.” Overall – wonderful show!
Merrigong Theatre Company’s production of JURRUNDGU NGAN-GA (STRAIGHT TALK) is playing the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre until 31st August 2024.
Production photography Prudence Upton
