Associate Artist
Bhenji Ra is a transdisciplinary artist currently based on the stolen land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Her practice combines dance, choreography, video and installation. Her work is often concerned with the dissection of cultural theory and identity, centralizing her own personal histories as a tool to reframe performance. With an emphasis on occupation and at times collective action, her work plays with the multiplicities of spectacle while offering strategies to disrupt normativity and western dance convention. Collaboration is key to her work as she regularly accesses her own community as an essential critical voice. She is the mother of Western Sydney based collective and ballroom house SLÉ. In 2016 she was the Dance WEB scholarship recipient for Impulstanz Dance Festival, Vienna, undergoing a mentorship program with artist Tino Sehgal. For the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, Bhenji engaged Tausūg Elder and Pangalay master Sitti Obeso from the southern Philippines in the performative conversation The Offering (Pang Alay). Her recent exhibitions and choreographic works include Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2023); Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmania (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2022); National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021); 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2017); Australian Centre of Moving Image, Melbourne (2017). and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2015–16). Bhenji is an Associate Artist of Marrugeku, collaborator and performer in their critically acclaimed major work Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk]. Bhenji also co-choregraphed and performed her solo work No New Gods, as part of Marrugeku’s triple bill Burrbgaja Yalirra 2.
