Page says: "I feel like she has had that wonderful journey from being a student, to falling into the shape of a dancer, and then learning this beautiful craft of telling stories. "It was really important for me to just move away from Bangarra for a while to learn other skills and to oversee the curriculum at a dance college that the majority of our dancers come from," she says.
Choreographer Frances Rings set out to explore the "significance of land and country to Indigenous people". Terrain was inspired by Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. The dancers had to put up with it … there was a lot of unfinished business that we had to do if we wanted to move on, and that's what I've been working on since David passed." "Bangarra's had to put up with those suicides. In a reflective moment in the film, sitting on Munaldjali country in the Beaudesert area of Queensland, where his father was born, he says: "I haven't grieved at all for Rusty or David properly." He also reflects frankly on the toll it took on him and the company. Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN) on 1800 008 774.Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.
In the aftermath, Page threw himself headlong into his work: "I felt creating and cleansing through that was the best thing I could have done," he says in Firestarter. Page leaves at a high point in the company's history: In 2018, his ambitious and critically acclaimed work Bennelong swept the Helpmann Awards, winning six- including Best New Australian Work and Best Choreographer in 2019, the company celebrated its 30th anniversary with an exhibition, the launch of an online archive, and the retrospective program 30 years of Sixty Five Thousand.Īnd in 2020, the documentary Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra had its world premiere as part of the Brisbane International Film Festival.īrothers Russell, Stephen and David grew up in the Brisbane suburb of Mt Gravatt, making home movies and theatre in the backyard. And I looked at Fran, and you just know … I go on my instinct." I felt like I had space around me and I could see clarity. It will be Page's last year leading the company he took the helm of in 1991, at the age of 24.Īt 55, he says the decision to step down was a matter of instinct.
The news follows the announcement on Friday of Bangarra's 2022 season, which will feature Page's most ambitious and personal work to date, Wudjang: Not The Past, and a 10th-anniversary remount of Rings's iconic work Terrain.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of people who have died. Bangarra Dance Theatre's artistic director of 30 years, Stephen Page, has announced he is stepping down from the role - and passing the torch to former Bangarra dancer, choreographer and current associate artistic director Frances Rings.
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