Some call it a feeling, some call it the mother spirit. It’s the compass that guides us home.

In our first mainstage cross-cultural collaboration, leading Māori choreographer and Arts Laureate Moss Te Ururangi Patterson joins beloved Bangarra alumna Deborah Brown. Together they guide our award-winning ensemble in stories that honour their mother countries and the spirit that calls them home.

Brown is a proud descendent of the Wakaid Clan and Meriam people in the Torres Strait, and has heritage from far across the seas in Scotland. She carries strength and resilience from her ancestors. Patterson, born near Lake Taupō, is a proud mokopuna (grandson) of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe, and describes his sense of home as something alive, a fire inside, that he carries like a beating heart.

Come explore the cultural forces that bind us together, across oceans and eons. Experience the resilience of the First Peoples of the Oceania region, that extends across the continent now known as Australia, the Torres Strait Islands and Aotearoa, our southern neighbour.

Horizon is a double bill opening with Kulka by Bangarra alum Sani Townson, followed by the primary piece, The Light Inside, choreographed by Bangarra alum Deborah Brown and Māori choreographer and Arts Laureate Moss Te Ururangi Patterson.

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Sections of The Light Inside

Gur/Adabad/Salt Water

CYLINDER
Beneath the blanket of scratches and clicks, a haunting voice from the past reverberates through to our core. In 1898, anthropologist Alfred C Haddon, recorded songs on wax cylinders from various islands across the Torres Strait. Approximately 141 cylinders were recorded, delicately encasing ancient and sacred stories passed through generations. Voices so powerful, they reach beyond the horizon.

Cast: Daniel Mateo

SAILS
Across the horizon, the striking sails glide across the sea. We come from eafaring people. The islands have had many visitors and in turn, we have become navigators ourselves. From The Coming of the Light, Christianity landing on Darnley Island, to the majestic pearling luggers that mastered the
waters and reefs. These sails represent a carrier from land to the depths of the sea and the chance for a safe return home.

Cast: Courtney Radford, Maddison Paluch, Emily Flannery

DIVERS
Aboard the impressive luggers are the brave men who plunged to great depths for the illustrious pearl shell. An industry that provided for much of the world, these men proved to be industrious and resolute despite the dangers of the sea.

Cast: James Boyd, Jye Uren, Donta Whitham

REEF
As children we learn of our connection to the reef through song. The reef evokes a sense of beauty and wonderment. A natural barrier to shelter and protect many of the islands, providing a home to an abundant marine life, a primary food source for islanders. An underwater constellation. Arguably, the world’s most renowned reef, The Great Barrier Reef, begins at the farthest eastern island of the Torres Strait, Mer.

Part 1 Coral
Cast: Chantelle Lee Lockhart, Roxie Syron, Janaya Lamb, Amberlilly Gordon

Part 2 Reef
Cast: Courtney Radford, Emily Flannery, Maddison Paluch, Janaya Lamb, Chantelle Lee Lockhart, Amberlilly Gordon, Roxie Syron

BOUNDARIES
We are taught to respect our neighbour’s boundaries. Over the centuries, islanders have had their boundaries challenged. In more recent years we have seen the Torres Strait Treaty come to fruition, protecting the islands from downstream effects of mining and exploitations of resources, to the Mabo native title case and more recently the Torres Strait 8.

Part 1 Politics
Cast: Kassidy Waters, Kallum Goolagong, Jye Uren, Donta Witham

Part 2 The People
Cast: Full ensemble

BLUE STAR
The scintillating star tells islanders of a change in season. A storm is coming, the moisture in the air makes the star blue and twinkle faster. Stars are our guides, our compass. As seafarers, as caretakers of land and now as people who travel the world, seeing the constellations of Tagai, of Baizam, seeing the stars twinkle, we are the past, present and future all at once. We share these stars across cultures.

Cast: Lillian Banks

REJUVENATION
Culture is never completely lost. We always carry a seed of knowledge. As a contemporary community we share and instil that knowledge as best we can. We acknowledge our ancestors and know that we keep their light shining through our accomplishments, through song, dance, cooking, caretaking for land, caring for our Elders or raising our children. There is guidance from our past.

Part 1 Seed
Cast: Daniel Mateo, Janaya Lamb

Part 2 Leaves
Cast: Full ensemble

Wai Ma¯ori/ Fresh Water

ATUATANGA | THE DIVINE SPIRIT WITHIN
The opening scene acknowledges the Atuatanga, or Godly state, within Māori consciousness. Our whakapapa (genealogy) stretches back to the beginning of time and to the Atua (the spiritual guardians) and reminds us to seek higher consciousness in all things.

Cast: Full ensemble

TE KOROKORO O TE PARATA | THE GREAT WHIRLPOOL OF PARATA
In the story of our journey from Hawaiki (the ancient homeland), to Aotearoa, New Zealand, The Te Arawa waka (the boat on which my tribal ancestors traversed the high seas) was pulled into a great whirlpool. My ancestor Ngatoroirangi used his incantations to invoke the hammerhead shark to guide and pull us out. In the vortex, the resilience of the people is ignited to navigate Tangaroa (God of the ocean) protecting them on their epic journey.

Cast: Full ensemble

TAUPŌ HAU RAU | THE LAKE OF ONE HUNDRED WINDS
We arrive to the hundred winds of Taupō standing on the shoreline looking out across the horizon feeling the call of the ancestors rising through the earth. We also hear a powerful haka (challenge), written and performed by senior cultural leader and elder Ngāpō Wehi. The haka calls on the government to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi (an agreement signed in 1840 between the Crown and Māori) and respect Tino rangatiratanga (Indigenous sovereignty). The elements of rocks, wind and water place us within the sacred landscape of the central north island.

Cast: Full ensemble

TE ŪRANGA | THE ARRIVAL
The resilience of my people, the people of Tokaanu and of Ngāti Tūwharetoa is evoked. The light emanating from the body follows the journey of the spirit from a baby, to an adult, to death and the transformation into a spiritual being. We are journeying, cutting through, using our resilient spirits and totems. The Hokioi (spiritual hawk) is a feminine spiritual warrior, traversing time, traversing space, symbolic of the way forward as Indigenous women lead us into the future.

Cast: Full ensemble

WAIRUA | SPIRITS RISING
The connection that we have to the earth and our journey in life continues into the spirit realm. The knowledge that we hold in this lifetime rises and rises and rises, to support our communities and to be captured if we can be silent enough to hear the whispers around us.

Cast: Full ensemble

MAKAWE TAPU | SACRED HAIR
This section references two traditional stories. The attainment of the three baskets of sacred knowledge and the story of Maui attempting to tame the sun Tama-nui-te-rā. Maui was not able to achieve this task until his sister Hinauri gifted him sacred strands of her hair giving him the knowledge, strength and courage to complete the task. The power, strength, resilience and
wisdom of the divine feminine is present in the three baskets of knowledge that were passed down to humankind. This act is reminding us and calling for the amplification of Indigenous knowledge and the sacred feminine.

Cast: Emily Flannery, Chantelle Lockhart, Jye Uren, Daniel Mateo

PURE | THE CLEARING AND PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL

Cleansed by the winds of Tawhirimatea. A beautiful waiata (song) sung by Jacqueline Carter speaks about the love that surrounds us, the vibrational energy that we can capture when we are still enough to listen. It asks us to remember our Atuatanga (higher self), our core sense of being and to shed our tears and to let go of our inhibitions and to be all that we can be, to stay
close and be at peace. The final moment in the show returns to the Hokioi,
the spiritual warrior, a feminine deity, leading us into a future of love, connection and resilience. ‘Kau tau te mauri’ let us all be at peace.

Cast: Full ensemble

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