All of that, Rings says, “impacted on the availability of water”, and the soak was depleted. The culture that had thrived around the waterhole was in disarray, too.
And then came what she calls “the final act of displacement”, the atomic testing at Maralinga in the 1950s and ’60s.
“People were removed from Yuldea and sent in trucks north, south, east and west, displaced into missions around South Australia and Western Australia as well,” she says.
All of this is told – or, perhaps more accurately, evoked – in Yuldea. It’s a remarkable work of movement, sound and light, with an electronic score (from composer Leon Rodgers, with contributions from Electric Fields) and a minimalist set that features a curved fringe of ropes and a giant hovering white arc, sometimes positioned on the horizontal axis, sometimes on the vertical.
It is meant to represent a boomerang, says Rings. It is, she says, “a symbol of hope that wherever you were, wherever you would go, you would always be called back to your home, back to your country.”
It represents more than that, of course. The U shape is used in Indigenous art to suggest a gathering of people. And at times, as the arc hangs low above the stage, mirrored in the glossy black surface of the floor, it seems to suggest the reflecting edge of a body of water; at others, it could be the metal serpent itself.
“For different people, it speaks a different story,” Rings says. “And I love that.”
The arc centrepiece of the Yuldea set represents a boomerang, a symbol of return.Credit: Daniel Boud
As with all Bangarra work, the story was born on and informed by country, with permission to share it being sought and granted by those who are custodians of those tales.
“When I hear those stories, I’m like a sponge, I’m taking all of that in, I’m feeling it, and I’m seeing it,” says Rings. “It’s really visceral for me, it’s all there, I just have to get to the studio and collaborate with the dancers.”
Late next year, Bangarra will take the work back to the area in which it was conceived. There’ll be workshops, a feast, mob bused in from remote communities and bused back home afterwards, and, of course, the performance itself.
“It’s the process we use to work with a community to create a work and then return that work to community at the end,” Rings explains. It’s the crowning element in the creative life cycle that informs every piece of work the company creates.
“It’s the most important performance we’ll ever do of Yuldea,” Rings says of this homecoming. “It’s the full boomerang.”
Yuldea is at Arts Centre Melbourne until Saturday October 7, and at Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo from October 13-14. Details: bangarra.com.au
Contact the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin, and read more of his work here.
