Dharawungara 2018
The 11th incarnation of Chunky Move's vital Next Move commissioning program featured two new works choreographed and performed by dancers Lauren Langlois and Joel Bray. Dharawungara by Joel Bray was a collision of rituals. Following his successful work Biladurang, the audience was invited to reimagine the theatre as a ceremonial ground of light and sound, as Joel explored how to breathe life into this Wiradjuri rite he has only ever read about. Naretha Williams joined Bray onstage as songwoman, and her driving beats conjured the space around us. Together they created a site of intersection between his ancestral ceremonial practice, our collective imagination and the realities of colonisation.
Creative Team
Concept, Direction & Choreography Joel Bray
Lighting Design Amelia Lever-Davison
Sound Artist Naretha Williams
Costume Design Kate Davis
Original Performer Joel Bray
Artistic Director Anouk van Dijk
Executive Producer Sarah Greentree
Production Manager Mikkel Mynster
World Premiere
9 November 2018 Melbourne
“Joel Bray has created a moving and heartfelt “lament for the rite-of-passage I can never do”. Dharawungara is a solo (performed by himself) imbued with an aching loss for cultural practices that were obliterated by white culture and that he can only reimagine through fragments of knowledge passed down (ironically) by European anthropologists.” Dance Australia.
Joel Bray Image: Pia Johnson
