The work created by Broome-based company Marrugeku is noteworthy, not only because it presents the unique artistic voice of performer Dalisa Pigram, but because it is an excellent piece of dance theatre.
Pigram explores the different facets of her Asian-indigenous heritage, highlighting the way her ancestry has shaped her sense of self, while still demanding to be seen as more than just the sum of her parts. Through spoken word, projection and a range of different kinds of movement, Pigram explores aspects of her life in Broome, her anger at the careless industrialisation of land and her despair for future generations.
The latter issue is powerfully explored through a video depicting a street brawl between young men, filmed for Facebook by several different mobile phones.
Here, as in many other moments of this work, Gudirr Gudirr manages to be both an intensely personal exploration of identity as well as a kind of universal commentary on where we are as a larger society.
The notion of sustainability – for ecology, culture and even for Pigram herself – is the theme that underpins this work. Throughout the work, Pigram retreats to a large fishing net, which hangs from the ceiling, giving her something to resist against, scale to the top of or swing from.
..this work has real power both in its relevance and in its rawness.