Bangarra Dance Theatre: ochres

Recorded during the 1996 Festival of Perth, this production is an exemplary work from the dancers and musicians of the Bangarra Dance Theatre Company, Australia, acclaimed for its fusion of contemporary dance and indigenous traditional styles as well as original musical scores. The performance is centred around the substance Ochres, a material with both physical and spiritual purposes in traditional and urban Aboriginal culture, and from which Stephen Page drew inspiration for his original creation of the choreography for the production in 1994. The dance performance is structured around the characteristics, qualities and variety of symbolic significances of the substance. Divided into 5 parts, it begins with the spirit of Ochres, ‘the light’, then the performance shifts to a study of Ochres’ four essential colours; yellow, black, red and white. The performance features Bangarra Dance Theatre Company artists Gary Lang, Marilyn Miller, Djakapurra Munyarryun, Russell Page, Albert David, Kathryn Dunn, Frances Rings and Gina Rings in a seamless video capture of a powerful dance work.