Birrpai 2021

Activators 5: Ngioka Bunda-Heath

Imagine seeing images frozen in time of your ancestors in museums, taken by people documenting an ‘exotic’ sighting. Who has the power over their image?

Co-commissioned by Chunky Move and Next Wave, Ngioka Bunda-Heath’s (Wakka Wakka, Ngugi, Birrpai) new dance work and photographic exhibition explores the idea of shifting the gaze and refocusing the colonial lens that has publicly framed her ancestors.

Extending on her 2019 YIRRAMBOI Festival work, Blood Quantum, about her mother’s story, Birrpai turns to Ngioka’s father’s heritage; to her great-grandmother captured by the camera of a ‘culturalist’. She puts a First Nation perspective on colonial photography alongside contemporary dance that has taken her to stages around the world.

“Ngioka Bunda-Heath’s solo Blood Quantum, beginning with the dancer’s strongly weighted plunging to the earth over and over, was poignant and challenging. Video and voice told the tragedy of children being taken from their mother as Bunda-Heath’s movement gradually intensified to thrashing despair. ” – Kim Dunphy

Creative Team

Choreographer and Performer Ngioka Bunda-Heath
Cultural Consultant and Performer John Heath
Dramaturge/Movement Director Joel Bray
Mentor Theodore Cassady
Sound Engineer Daniel Nixon
Lighting Designer Siobhain Geaney
Stage Manager Steph Cox
Producer Erica McCalman

Presented  Blak Dot Gallery

Performances
8-14 May 2021

Photography Exhibition
29 April – 27 May

Birrpai by Ngioka Bunda-Heath is co-commissioned by Chunky and Next Wave.

Birrpai is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, City of Moreland, YIRRAMBOI Festival Resilience in Isolation Fund, Brunswick Mechanics Institute, Besen Family Foundation and Lucy Guerin Inc via a studio residency at WXYZ Studio.

Activators is Chunky Move’s commissioning program for small scale experimental new work with an open ended approach to the format and platform for presentation. We commission multiple works annually and the program is curated by invitation only. Activators is grounded in choreographic approaches to site, space, time and material with the body at the centre of investigation. The program acknowledges expanded practice in art making as an aspect informing contemporary dance and Activators commissioned artists play a role in shaping and influencing contemporary and future dance practice. Previous works in the program have explored digital screen based practice and animation, hybrid performance lecture contexts, gallery formats and live streamed events.

Awards
2022 Green Room Award For Best Duet/Ensemble

Image: James Henry