Country is our heart
Seventy years after white dancers performed blackface interpretations of Aboriginal culture on the Australian stage, The Australian Ballet's 60th anniversary double bill 'Identity' placed First Nations artists—choreographer Daniel Riley and composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon—at the creative helm of a major commission. This is not merely a programmatic milestone but a reckoning with the long arc between spectacle and self-determination, between stories told about a people and stories told by them. What the stage now holds is the result of decades of quiet, persistent work by First Nations artists to claim their own voice in the country's cultural life.
- A colonial wound runs through Australian ballet's origins—white artists in blackface performing Indigeneity as exotic spectacle as recently as a royal command performance in 1954.
- For decades, First Nations artists were either absent from major stages or present only as subjects of someone else's imagination, a gap that generated sustained creative resistance outside mainstream institutions.
- The founding of NAISDA in the 1970s and Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1989 built the infrastructure for self-determined Indigenous performance, producing a generation of independent choreographers who could no longer be ignored.
- Daniel Riley's 'The Hum' disrupts classical ballet's rigid hierarchies from within—replacing fixed assumptions about movement, authorship, and country with collaboration, breath, and a volcanic heart beating at center stage.
- The double bill 'Identity' lands as both celebration and correction: Australian ballet is finally asking not just what is distinctly Australian, but whose stories have the right to be told, and by whom.
In 1950, a ballet called Corroboree premiered in Sydney to great fanfare—choreographed by a white artist, composed by a white composer, and performed by white dancers asked to pull grotesque expressions. Four years later, a second version was staged for Queen Elizabeth II, this time with dancers in blackface. From today's vantage, it reads as a nation's artists performing Indigeneity as spectacle, telling stories they did not own or understand.
Seventy years on, The Australian Ballet marked its 60th anniversary with a double bill called Identity. One of its two new works, The Hum, was choreographed by Daniel Riley—a Wiradjuri man and artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre—with music by Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and costumes by Taungurung designer Annette Sax. It was the first time First Nations women held the roles of composer and costume designer in a major TAB production, and the first time since 1997 that an independent First Nations choreographer had been commissioned for the company's main stage.
The distance between those two moments was not traveled quickly. Dance theorist Tammi Gissell describes the early ballets as surface-level—the exotic other rendered for a white gaze. The shift required decades of work by First Nations artists themselves. When African American ballerina Carole Y. Johnson founded what became NAISDA Dance College in the 1970s, she laid the groundwork for Bangarra Dance Theatre, which emerged in 1989 as the first company where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers represented themselves as self-determined artists. Bangarra's 1992 production Praying Mantis Dreaming was a turning point—work taken seriously as a full creative force, not a cultural curiosity.
Riley's The Hum brings together contemporary dancers from Australian Dance Theatre and classically trained performers from TAB. At the center of the stage, a circular screen displays what appears to be a beating heart—revealed to be a volcanic rock from Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country, three-dimensionally scanned and animated. Country is our heart. Two black rocks flank the stage, appearing immovable until rotated to show they are props—a quiet statement about identity: what we assume is fixed is often mutable. Riley built the work through genuine collaboration, drawing on a cultural principle that values every voice equally, asking classically trained dancers unaccustomed to improvisation to find something personal in movement.
The second work, Paragon, was created by TAB's resident choreographer Alice Topp. It reunites thirteen legendary dancers across generations—from a 1969 debut to a 1991 one—weaving pas de deux between older and younger performers into a meditation on the company's evolution. Dance historian Yvette Grant notes that Topp managed to make nostalgia point forward, the past made visible in the bodies of young dancers moving alongside the icons who shaped them.
Together, the two works sketch a portrait of an art form learning to see itself differently. Australian ballet once looked to European canons and international figures for legitimacy. By the 1940s and 50s, artists began asking what was distinctly Australian. By the time Riley and Topp created their works for the 60th anniversary, the question had deepened: not just what is Australian, but who gets to decide—and whose stories get told. The answer, finally, is beginning to include the people whose country this has always been.
In 1950, a ballet called Corroboree premiered in Sydney to considerable fanfare—described as a landmark in Australian cultural life. Its choreographer was white. Its composer was white. And when the dancers took the stage, they were asked to contort their faces into what the composer called "grotesque expressions." Four years later, another version premiered for Queen Elizabeth II, this time featuring white dancers in blackface, including the choreographer herself playing an Aboriginal boy. From the vantage point of today, it reads as almost incomprehensible—a nation's artists telling Indigenous stories they did not understand, performing Indigeneity as spectacle, as the exotic other.
Seventy years later, The Australian Ballet marked its 60th anniversary with a double bill called Identity. The timing matters. One of the two new works, The Hum, was choreographed by Daniel Riley, a Wiradjuri man and artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre. The composer was Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, a Yorta Yorta woman. The costume designer was Annette Sax, Taungurung. For the first time in a major Australian Ballet production, First Nations women held the roles of composer and costume designer. For the first time since 1997, an independent First Nations choreographer had been commissioned to create work for the company's main stage.
Tammi Gissell, a dancer and performance theorist who is Muruwarri-Wiradjuri, describes what happened in those early ballets as a reflection of the era—artists doing their best, perhaps, but telling stories that were not theirs to tell, without understanding what those stories meant. "It was surface-level," she says. "It was still very much a case of the exotic other." The shift from that moment to this one did not happen overnight. It required decades of work by First Nations artists themselves to claim the stage and tell their own stories.
When Carole Y. Johnson, a classically trained African American ballerina, came to Australia in the 1970s, she founded what became NAISDA Dance College. From that institution emerged Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1989—the first time Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander dancers represented themselves on the main stage as self-determined artists. Bangarra's 1992 production Praying Mantis Dreaming was a watershed. "You're seeing self-determined work," Gissell says. "The first time it on stage was being taken seriously, as a full force." The last two decades have seen independent First Nations choreographers rise alongside Bangarra's continued prominence—artists like Vicki Van Hout, Jacob Boehme, and Joel Bray.
Riley's The Hum brings together contemporary dancers from Australian Dance Theatre with The Australian Ballet's classically trained performers. The work interrogates the relationships that exist in performance—between audience and stage, between dancers and orchestra, between the rigid structures of the proscenium arch and the bodies moving within it. At the center of the stage is a large circular screen displaying video imagery that appears at first to be a beating heart. It is actually a volcanic rock from Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country, three-dimensionally scanned and animated. The meaning is deliberate: country is our heart. Dancers take deep audible breaths as they move together and apart. Two black rocks flank the stage, appearing immovable until they are rotated and revealed as mere props—a visual statement about identity itself, about what we assume to be fixed and what is actually mutable.
Riley approached the choreography as collaboration, creating space for each dancer to contribute. This comes from a deeper cultural principle, he explains—a way of making work that values equity and voice, that honors song men and song women and performers as equal participants. The Australian Ballet dancers, trained in classical technique, were not accustomed to deep dialogue or improvisation, to finding something personal in movement. The composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon worked alongside them as the piece developed, bringing that same collaborative sensibility to the music.
The second work in Identity, Paragon, was created by Alice Topp, The Australian Ballet's resident choreographer. It examines the company's 60-year history by bringing back thirteen legendary dancers—Julie da Costa, who made her debut in 1969; Simon Dow from 1974; Lucinda Dunn from 1991; David McAllister, who joined in 1983 and later served as artistic director. The work includes pas de deux between older and younger dancers, ensemble sequences where the retired dancers hold powerful focus as younger performers gravitate around them. It is, as dance historian Yvette Grant notes, deeply nostalgic—but Topp managed to make it not just about the past but about the present and the future, visible in the bodies of the young dancers moving alongside the icons of Australian classical ballet.
What emerges from both pieces is a portrait of an art form learning to see itself differently. Australian ballet, like other European forms transplanted to this country, initially looked to canonical works and international figures. But by the 1940s and 50s, artists began asking what was distinctly Australian—not English. Robert Helpmann's 1964 work The Display, featuring AFL, lyrebirds, and a bush picnic, staked a claim to the first truly Australian ballet. Graeme Murphy's 1992 reimagining of The Nutcracker as a story about a Russian dancer coming to Australia during wartime showed a playful willingness to remix inherited forms. By the time Riley and Topp created their works for the 60th anniversary, the question had evolved: not just what is Australian, but who gets to decide, and whose stories get told. The answer, finally, is beginning to include the voices of the people whose country this is.
Citas Notables
We've moved beyond a collaboration with Bangarra; we have an independent First Nations voice coming in to work with the Aussie ballet. We haven't seen anything since 1997 that comes close to this.— Tammi Gissell, dancer and performance theorist
I am a First Nations artistic director, one of very few in this country, and the fact that I can be making work in this space that celebrates and interrogates an art form that is not of this place, speaks volumes.— Daniel Riley, choreographer
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
What strikes you most about the contrast between Corroboree in 1950 and The Hum in 2023?
The difference is ownership. In 1950, white artists were interpreting Indigenous culture for a white audience. Now, Indigenous artists are interpreting their own culture on their own terms. That's not a small shift—it's a fundamental reclamation.
But The Hum isn't a traditional Indigenous dance work. It's ballet, a European form. Does that complicate the story?
Absolutely. Riley is very aware of that tension. He's asking: how do I take this imported art form and make it speak to who we are? The volcanic rock at the center of the stage—that's country. The breathing together—that's about meeting someone. He's not abandoning ballet; he's interrogating it, bending it, making it his.
Gissell mentions that just because a choreographer is Indigenous doesn't mean every movement is sacred knowledge. Why does she need to say that?
Because there's a risk of over-reading, of assuming that Indigenous artists are always performing their culture. Riley is an artist first. He's using the tools of ballet to explore identity, collaboration, the structures of performance itself. That's different from being asked to represent your entire culture.
What does it mean that First Nations movement vocabulary is now in the high school dance curriculum?
It means young dancers—not just Indigenous ones—are learning that there are multiple ways to move, multiple landscapes within Australia that can be expressed through the body. That's generational change. In twenty years, it won't be remarkable to see an Indigenous choreographer at The Australian Ballet. It will be normal.
Paragon brings back retired dancers alongside young ones. Why does that matter in a First Nations context?
Gissell points out that it mirrors a First Nations way of working—going to find the knowledge keepers, sitting with them, learning from them. The young dancers in that studio with the icons of Australian ballet would have had an extraordinary education just by being in the room. That's not sentimental; that's how knowledge actually transfers.