Thirty years ago, Yawaru leader and senator Patrick Dodson was one of the six commissioners working on the Royal Commission into Indigenous Deaths in Custody. It was during this time that Dodson made a link between the high rates of Indigenous incarceration in Australia and the indeterminate detention of asylum seekers – two issues that have barely changed in the decades since.
Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk] is a new dance work from dance company Marrugeku that explores these twin issues in an electric, compelling performance at Arts House. The work is three years in the making and was developed from the perspectives of Dodson, as well as those of Kurdish-Iranian writer and former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani, and philosopher Omid Tofighian.
Marrugeku co-artistic directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain say the work "reflects on the disgraceful disproportion of Indigenous Australians in custody and first-hand descriptions of life inside Australia’s immigration detention centres."
Jurrungu Ngan-ga is a performance about Australia's predilection for locking people up and pulls no punches as it questions this mindset. The work is performed by a large and diverse ensemble of dancers who use movement and spoken word, alongside installation and a soundscape to convey this moving piece of dance theatre.
Jurrungu Ngan-ga is on at Arts House in North Melbourne from August 18 to 22.
