Burning daylight

The process of making a documentary which followed the rehearsals and community consultation leading to the stage production Burning Daylight allowed us to bring a number of the aspects of the production into focus. Burning Daylight sought to break new territory in the arena of contemporary Indigenous dance. The collaboration between Indigenous dancer and choreographer Dalisa Pigram and contemporary choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly from Burkina Faso, West Africa, is in negotiation with the elders of the Yawuru community. The dancers in the project are exposed in the documentary as the backbone of the final work. The question of what constitutes contemporary Indigenous dance and how aspects of traditional movement forms can inspire contemporary practice are explored from the personal point of view of the dancers and choreographers. We hope the documentary will contribute to understandings of contemporary Indigenous dance and culturally appropriate rehearsal processes in Australia.

The ReelDance Archive was developed by ReelDance Inc. with support from Arts NSW, Australia Council for the Arts and Performance Space.