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Yuldea

14 June - 15 July 2023

In the Drama Theatre | Bangarra Dance Theatre | Dance

Frances Rings' first work as Bangarra Dance Theatre's Artistic Director is a ceremonial affirmation of history and heritage.

Bangarra Dance Theatre is a modern dance company unlike any other…remarkably imaginative and richly varied.

New York Times

Yuldea is a ceremonial affirmation of history and heritage

We are memory.
Glimpsed through shimmering light on water.
A story place where black oaks stand watch.
Carved into trees and painted on rocks.
North – South – East – West.
A brittle landscape of life and loss.

At Yuldea, stories hover in the sky. The stars reveal a divine Songline, stretching between earth and sky. 

Frances Rings’ first work as Artistic Director is a ceremonial affirmation of history and heritage. Yuldea awakens the earth and sky worlds to tell the story of the Anangu people of the Great Victorian Desert. 

Yuldea explores the moment traditional life collided with the industrial ambition of a growing nation. In 1917, the two halves of the Transcontinental Railway met at the precious water soak on the edge of the Nullarbor, Yuldi Kapi.

Great metal serpents scarred the landscape, draining all water from the sacred soak. Then came the black mist of the atomic testing at Maralinga, forcing the Anangu people to leave their desert homelands where they had lived for millennia.

Now memories lay scattered, like the Anangu people, displaced from their home. Remnants of colonial progress are swallowed by sand. But the Anangu endure, determined to keep strong their knowledge systems of land and sky, honouring their eternal bonds of kinship between people and place.

Yuldea features original music by Leon Rodgers with featured songs by multi-award-winning duo Electric Fields (Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross). Designers Elizabeth Gadsby (Set), Jennifer Irwin (Costume) and Karen Norris (Lighting) create a desert world on stage. 

Presented by Bangarra Dance Theatre

Video gallery

Artist information

Choreographer 
Frances Rings

Set Designer 
Elizabeth Gadsby

Costume Designer 
Jennifer Irwin

Lighting Designer 
Karen Norris

Composer 
Leon Rodgers

Featured songs by Electric Fields

Mirning Cultural Consultant
Clem Lawrie

Yalata Cultural Consultant 
Maureen Smart

Cultural Astronomer 
Karlie Noon

Cultural Authority 
Representatives from the Yalata Anangu Aboriginal Community Council

Aerial and Acrobatic Creative Consultant
Joshua Thomson

Other information

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