This selection of performance images were photographed by Daniel Boud at the Sydney Opera House premiere season of SandSong, 2021. Images are displayed in order of appearance. Captions detail which section within the work the choreography is from.
Sections of SandSong
ACT 1
MAKURRA I COLD DRY SEASON
Poison
Time and space collide in a cloud of black collective consciousness, foreshadowing dark times ahead. But the Land is always present, the breathing womb of resilience.
No cast
Dry
The vibrant energy of the seasons unfolds to reveal the enduring cycle that sustains life in the Great Sandy Desert.
Cast: Full ensemble
Skin
A young woman is guided through kinship and affirms her place amongst her skin group. She is given her name and told of her responsibilities to family, and to the women’s’ business knowledge that she will inherit one day.
Cast: Rika Hamaguchi, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Lillian Banks, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters, Maddison Paluch, Emily Flannery
Junta: Women’s Traditional Bush Onion Dance
This traditional dance is about collecting the Junta Bush onions, cooking them, rubbing them together and finally winnowing them in the coolamon till they are clean and ready to eat and share with the family.
Cast: Rika Hamaguchi, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Lillian Banks, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters, Maddison Paluch, Emily Flannery
Totem
The men are preparing a young man for Ceremony. Through the lens of male energy, ritual transformation connects the men to their totems. The totemic shapeshifters move through the space, evolving as they reaffirm story to place, and their responsibility to the maintenance of men’s sites.
Cast: Beau Dean Riley Smith, Rikki Mason, Baden Hitchcock, Ryan Pearson, Bradley Smith, Kallum Goolagong, Gusta Mara, Kiarn Doyle, Daniel Mateo
Marjarrka: Men’s Traditional Dance Story
This tells the true story of how Wurtuwaya (Yanpiyarti Ned Cox’s grandfather) and Wirrali (Ningali Lawford-Wolf’s great-grandfather) recovered their stolen Marjarrka totemic object from a group of men who had taken it and were using it to perform their own ceremony. Wurtuwaya and Wirrali managed to retrieve the sacred totemic object, and created this important ceremonial dance, which is performed by both senior and younger men.
This dance belongs to the Lawford Family, Tighe Family, Cox Family and James Family.
Source: National Museum of Australia.
Cast: Beau Dean Riley Smith, Rikki Mason, Baden Hitchcock, Ryan Pearson, Bradley Smith, Kallum Goolagong, Gusta Mara, Kiarn Doyle, Daniel Mateo
ACT 2
PARRANGA, HOT DRY SEASON
Coolamon
The women hunt during cold weather time. This year is different though, its dry and cold. The land is quiet and there is a drought, water and food are scarce. A meditation on fragility, survival, balance, knowledge, life and death.
Cast: Rika Hamaguchi, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Lillian Banks, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters, Maddison Paluch,Emily Flannery
Spinifex
The men are carrying smoking spinifex to make a shelter. They are burning off, vaccinating, maintaining the health of Country. The old people are talking to Country, they can sense the change coming. The colonisers and their cattle have brought a dust storm with them which breaks the Land apart, displacing families.
Cast: Full ensemble
ACT 3
KARTIYA
Auction
The land has been interrupted. Mobs have left the desert, forced to leave the memories of bush life behind them. People begin their new life as laborers and domestics, in servitude to the pastoral industry, victim to the lawlessness of a new frontier and the whims of the station owners.
Cast: Full ensemble
Station Labour
The men toil from dawn to dusk in the stockyards, labouring in a relentless cycle, paid only in rations of food and clothing.
Cast: Beau Dean Riley Smith, Rikki Mason, Baden Hitchcock, Ryan Pearson, Bradley Smith, Kallum Goolagong, Gusta Mara, Kiarn Doyle, Daniel Mateo
Build Up / Walk Off
Wet season lies in the distance, reflecting the growing tensions of the people. A cyclone is brewing as the people stand up for their rights. Vincent Lingiari’s voice fills the space, stabilising the energy, awakening the memory of the proud desert men that they once were, and giving them the strength and solidarity to walk-off the stations.
Cast: Full ensemble / Aerialists: Rikki Mason, Lillian Banks
ACT 4
YITILAL, WET SEASON
Fringe
A young boy is lost, an internal storm brewing, ready to explode from social trauma and intergenerational grief. Wet season reminds him of his Grandfather and the resilience of the Lore Men who came before him. His sister steps out from the shadows of his fear, carrying the spirit to cleanse him.
Cast: Rika Hamaguchi, Baden Hitchcock, Kallum Goolagong, Daniel MateoLore Time Mobs come together for Ceremony and to begin the healing. Cast: Beau Dean Riley Smith, Rikki Mason, Rika Hamaguchi, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Baden Hitchcock, Ryan Pearson, Lillian Banks, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters, Gusta Mara, Emily Flannery, Kiarn Doyle, Maddison Paluch
Karnti: Women’s Traditional Bush Potato Dance
This traditional dance is about looking for the Karnti bush potato. You look everywhere with your digging stick for the roots. You see a crack in the ground and that is where the Kartni is and you can dig it up.
Cast: Rika Hamaguchi, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Lillian Banks, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters, Maddison Paluch, Emily Flannery
Painting Mob
Painting Country brings the people closer to their desert homeland, which they have not seen for forty years. Art transports them back to their traditional lands, reconnecting and reaffirming ties to Country. This cultural awakening empowers and strengthens them to rebuild family, community and their future.
Cast: Full ensemble
Homeland
Through oppression, multiple displacements and decades of upheaval, the spirit of people and place endures to stand strong in their kinship and belonging. They come together in wet season for Lore time when everyone gathers for Ceremony. Unbroken, the cycle continues.
Cast: Full ensembleDescriptions of traditional dances provided by Eva Nargoodah, Mayarn Julia Lawford and Putuparri Tom Lawford