16 June

Burrbgaja Yalirra Marrugeku

07 – 16 June

WORLD PREMIERE

Country. What is it to belong?

From the creators of Gudirr Gudirr, Cut the Sky and Burning Daylight, Burrbgaja Yalirra (Dancing Forwards) is an evocative triple bill of new solo works exploring reciprocity and our sense of belonging in Australia today.

Curated by Marrugeku’s Artistic Directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain, each work is a tailored invitation from our leading change makers to experience intercultural exchange. Though a series of collaborations with Marrugeku Associate Artists Eric Avery, Edwin Lee Mulligan and Miranda Wheen and a team of interdisciplinary artists, Burrbgaja Yalirra is a deeply poetic and vividly kinetic unification of Indigenous and non-Indigenous contemporary cultures across dance, music and storytelling.

Led by visionaries Marrugeku, an unparalleled presence in Australia today dedicated to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians working together, join this vibrant retelling and reawakening of histories, locations and languages.

Co-commissioned by PICA and Carriageworks

Preview: 7 June, 7.30pm Season: 8, 9 & 12 – 16 June, 7.30pm

Pre show panel talk: Saturday 9 June, 5pm Post show Q&A: Thursday 14 June

PICA Performance Space Tickets: Standard $32 | Member $26 Concession & Groups 6+ $22 | Preview $20 Schools $15 Duration: 80 minutes without interval Burrbgaja Yalirra – New Short Works

Artistic direction, dramaturgical, cultural and choreographic support: Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain Set & Costume Designer: Stephen Curtis Sound Designer: Sam Serruys

Photo: Jalaru Photography / Michael Torres Featured: Burrbgaja Yalirra, Edwin Lee Mulligan in Ngarlimbah.

16 Performance

Ngarlimbah

Ngarlimbah (You are as much a part of me as I am of you) is by Walmajarri/Nyikina painter and poet, Edwin Lee Mulligan, in collaboration with Sohan Ariel Hayes (Boorna Waanginy). Ngarlimbah is the essence of reciprocity between human, spirit and environmental realms. In an expressive fusing of spoken word and animated video, Edwin shares his dream encounters with two dingoes, the calm Yungngora and the dark dog Jirrilbil, who speak to contemporary concerns in his community.

Concept, paintings, poems and performer: Edwin Lee Mulligan Co-directors: Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain Vision direction and animation: Sohan Ariel Hayes Composer: Dazastah

Miranda

Tackling the iconic text Picnic at Hanging Rock, and its final (initially unpublished) chapter, dancer/performer Miranda Wheen visits the fate of her fictional namesake ‘Miranda’, who seemingly disappeared in the Australian landscape. Choreographed with Serge Aimé Coulibaly (Burkina Faso/Belgium), cochoreographer of Burning Daylight and Cut the Sky, Miri explores the position of settler Australians grappling with understanding Indigenous Australian experience, and of a white Australia struggling for a moral, intellectual and spiritual position to deal with its history.

Concept, co-choreographer and dancer: Miranda Wheen Director and co-choreographer: Serge Aimé Couliblay Composer: Sam Serruys

Dancing with Strangers

In collaboration with Koen Augustijnen (Belgium), co-choreographer of the award winning Gudirr Gudirr, dancer and violinist Eric Avery imagines where we might be now if music and dance had been made between two cultures at the time of first colonial contact. A custodian of songs and dances from his father’s line, Eric belongs to the Yuin, Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan and Gumbangirri peoples and takes inspiration from the story of his great-great-grandfather, Jack Biamanga (Yuin), who saw the First Fleet sail past his mother’s country (Monaroo region of NSW).

Concept, co-choreographer, dancer and musician: Eric Avery Director and co-choreographer: Koen Augustijnen Composers: Eric Avery and Sam Serruys

Photo: Jalaru Photography / Michael Torres Featured: Burrbgaja Yalirra, Miranda Wheen in Miranda.

Jupiter Orbiting Joshua Pether

Jupiter Orbiting is a new work in development by Joshua Pether as part of the PICA x Next Wave Commission, which will be presented at Next Wave Festival in 2018 and PICA in 2019.

Jupiter Orbiting is an immersive exploration of personal identity via science fiction narrative and a visceral combination of movement, sound and video. In this work Pether negotiates the boundaries of fantasy and reality to navigate past psychological and physical traumas.

As fact and fiction collide within a highly sensorial environment, the performer and audience begin to develop a shared bond that explores perceptions of mental health, our relationship to trauma and our ability for empathy. Joshua Pether is an emerging choreographer/ performer based in WA. Of Kalkadoon heritage, Joshua’s work is a reflection of his body politics and heritage. The two intertwining cultures of Indigeneity and disability help to shape his practice, which shifts across dance and performance art contexts. Joshua’s second solo work Monster premiered at the First Nations arts festival Yirramboi in 2017.

A PICA x Next Wave Commission

Image: Joshua Pether, Monster, Yirramboi Festival 2017 Photo: Caitlin Dear

Created and performed by: Joshua Pether Dramaturg: Shona Erskine Videographer & Film Editor: Neil Berrick Sound Composer: Daniel von Jenatsch Understudy/Dancer: Romey Cresswell

18 Creative Development

Exhibition Program Season 1

Image above: Kimsooja, Aire de Agua / Air of Water, 2009. 06:07 loop, sound, still from Earth - Water - Fire – Air. Commissioned by Hermes Foundation, Paris. Courtesy Kimsooja Studio

Image below: Kimsooja, Tierra de Agua / Earth of Water, 2009. 07:09 loop, still from Earth - Water - Fire - Air. Commissioned by Lanzerote Biennale, Spain. Courtesy Kimsooja Studio.

Zone of Nowhere Kimsooja

17 February – 25 April

Zone of Nowhere will be the first Australian solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed, South Korean-born multimedia artist Kimsooja.

For more than 30 years Kimsooja has dedicated her site-specific works to cultural and political issues facing our world. Kimsooja is perhaps best-known for her use of bottari – the traditional Korean bedcover used to wrap and protect personal belongings – as a symbol of structure and connection. Heavily influenced by Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism and the age-old role of the artist as shaman, she creates lyrical installations that draw inspiration from everyday activities. The result is a practice that brings together the physical and the metaphysical. The exhibition will feature a new large-scale installation created especially for PICA’s vast central gallery space as well as an associated public art project on the streets of Perth. Curated by Eugenio Viola.

Presented in association with Perth Festival

All PICA Galleries Opening: 16 February 6.30pm – 8.30pm

Image: Kimsooja, Bottari Truck - Migrateur, 2007. Single Channel Video Projection, silent, 10:00, loop, performed in Paris. Commissioned by Musée D’Art Contemporain du Val-De-Marne (MAC/VAL). Still Photo by Thierry Depagne. Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio

22 Exhibitions

“My work has always been a response to violence and inhumanity and this will never change. I answer by means of healing, either by showing society’s reality as a witness or by proposing a harmonious coexistence, questioning who we are and where we’re going. I hope people find an equilibrium and peace in my work that comes from their own empathy.*

Kimsooja

Image: Kimsooja, To Breathe - The Flags, 2012. Single channel video animation, silent, 40:41 loop. Photograph by Ralph Feiner. Courtesy of Gallery Tschudi, Zuoz, Switzerland, and Kimsooja Studio. * (From Thomas Van Loocke, Kimsooja ‘To Breathe’ in Centre Pompidou Metz “My work has always been a response to violence and inhumanity’, 2015)