We've moved beyond a collaboration with Bangarra; we have an independent First Nations voice.
For seven decades, Australian ballet told stories of this land through voices that did not belong to it — white artists in blackface, choreographers who saw only the surface of a culture they could not enter. Now, at its 60th anniversary, The Australian Ballet has invited Wiradjuri choreographer Daniel Riley to lead a production from the ground up, with First Nations women composing and designing alongside him for the first time. It is a moment that measures not only how far an art form has traveled, but how much further a nation must still go in deciding who holds the mirror.
- A double bill called Identity has opened at the Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre Melbourne, carrying the full weight of what its title implies — not just for a ballet company, but for a country still negotiating whose stories belong on its grandest stages.
- The wound beneath the celebration is real: as recently as the 1950s, white dancers in blackface performed 'Aboriginal ballets' before the Queen, and for most of the decades since, First Nations artists have been consulted rather than commissioned, collaborated with rather than trusted to lead.
- Daniel Riley's The Hum breaks that pattern — an independent First Nations voice directing a TAB production from conception to curtain, with Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and Taungurung designer Annette Sax marking the first time First Nations women have held these roles in the company's history.
- The work itself enacts its politics: classical and contemporary dancers are drawn into improvisation and open dialogue, a volcanic rock from Wurundjeri country pulses at the centre of the stage, and the question of what is fixed and what can be transformed runs through every breath the performers take.
- Riley's hope is not that this commission be celebrated as exceptional, but that it become unremarkable — a beginning, not a milestone, in a future where First Nations artists regularly shape how Australia sees itself through dance.
In 1950, a ballet called Corroboree premiered in Sydney to considerable fanfare. The choreographer was white, the composer was white, and the dancers were asked to contort their faces into what the composer called 'grotesque expressions.' Four years later, white dancers in blackface performed for Queen Elizabeth II. From where we stand now, the distance feels almost incomprehensible.
Dancer and performance theorist Tammi Gissell, who is Muruwarri-Wiradjuri, is generous about those early efforts — 'they probably were trying to do their very best' — but clear about their failure. Someone else was telling stories they did not understand, seeing only the surface, projecting the exotic other. For seven decades, that pattern held.
The Australian Ballet's 60th anniversary double bill, Identity, suggests something has shifted. One of its two new works, The Hum, was created by Daniel Riley — a Wiradjuri choreographer and artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre. This is not a partnership with an established First Nations company, as occurred in 1997 when Bangarra's Stephen Page collaborated with TAB. This is an independent First Nations voice leading the work from the ground up, with Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and Taungurung costume designer Annette Sax — the first First Nations women to hold these roles in a TAB production. 'We haven't seen anything since 1997 that comes close to this,' Gissell said.
The second work, Paragon, was made by TAB's resident choreographer Alice Topp and brings back thirteen legendary company figures, including dancers who debuted as far back as 1969. It is nostalgic but forward-looking, suggesting that Australian ballet may be moving beyond the pursuit of virtuosity alone toward a deeper question: who are we together.
Riley's process for The Hum was itself a kind of answer. He drew both classical and contemporary dancers into improvisation and open dialogue — unfamiliar ground for the classically trained. At the centre of the stage, a large circular screen displays a volcanic rock from Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country, three-dimensionally scanned and animated to resemble a beating heart. Country is our heart. Two black rocks flank the stage, appearing ancient and immovable until they are rotated to reveal they are props — a quiet provocation about what is fixed and what is not.
Riley is clear-eyed about the weight of the moment. Creating a work called Identity, he said, about an imported art form and the identity of a nation, is 'very loaded and very difficult.' But his deepest hope is not that this commission be celebrated as a breakthrough — it is that the next one comes in years, not decades.
In 1950, a ballet called Corroboree premiered in Sydney to considerable fanfare. Critics hailed it as a landmark in Australian cultural life. But the choreographer was a white man named Rex Reid, the composer was another white man, John Antill, and Antill had made a specific request: the dancers should contort their faces into what he called "grotesque expressions." Four years later, choreographer Beth Dean created her own version for Queen Elizabeth II's royal tour, featuring white dancers in blackface—Dean herself, a white American, played an "Aboriginal boy." From the vantage point of today, the distance between that moment and this one feels almost incomprehensible.
Tammi Gissell, a dancer and performance theorist who is Muruwarri-Wiradjuri, describes those early efforts charitably. "They probably were trying to do their very best," she said in an interview. But the fundamental problem remained: "It was somebody else telling our stories, without understanding what those stories were. It was surface-level. It was still very much a case of the exotic other." For seven decades, that pattern held. Australian ballet, like the nation itself, was learning to see itself—but it was looking in a mirror held by someone else.
The Australian Ballet marked its 60th anniversary in May with a double bill titled Identity, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House and is now showing at Arts Centre Melbourne. The commission itself signals a shift. One of the two new works, The Hum, was created by Daniel Riley, a Wiradjuri choreographer and artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre. This is not a collaboration with an established First Nations dance company, as happened in 1997 when Bangarra's Stephen Page was brought in to work with TAB dancers on a piece called Rites. This is an independent First Nations voice, leading the work from the ground up. The composer, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, is Yorta Yorta. The costume designer, Annette Sax, is Taungurung. They are the first First Nations women to hold these roles in a TAB production. "We've moved beyond a collaboration with Bangarra," Gissell observed. "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."
The other work in the double bill, Paragon, was created by Alice Topp, TAB's resident choreographer. It brings back thirteen legendary company dancers, including Julie da Costa, who made her debut in 1969, and David McAllister, who led the company from 2001 to 2021. Topp's piece examines the company's history and what it means to represent Australian ballet on the world stage. The work includes duets between older and younger dancers, and ensemble sequences where the retired dancers hold focus while younger performers move around them. It is, as one dance historian noted, "incredibly nostalgic" but also very much about the present and the future. It suggests that Australian ballet may be moving away from the pursuit of perfection and virtuosity alone, toward something more interested in asking who we are together.
Riley's The Hum takes a different approach. He collaborated closely with the dancers—both the classically trained TAB dancers and contemporary dancers from Australian Dance Theatre—inviting them into a process of deep dialogue and improvisation. This was unfamiliar territory for the classical dancers. "They aren't used to deep, open dialogue or improvisation and finding something very personal in dance, which is what we do as contemporary artists," Riley reflected. The composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon worked the same way, alongside the dancers as the piece developed. This collaborative method, Riley explained, comes from a deeper cultural practice. "We have our roles—our song men, song women, performers, artists—but for all the work I make, I'm interested in how to have equity and voice."
The stage for The Hum centers on a large circular screen displaying video imagery. What appears at first to be a beating heart is actually a volcanic rock found on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country, three-dimensionally scanned and animated. The meaning is deliberate: Country is our heart. Two black rocks flank the stage, appearing ancient and immovable until they are rotated, revealing themselves as mere props. The dancers take deep, audible breaths as they move together and apart. All of this speaks to something Gissell emphasized: just because a choreographer is Indigenous does not mean every movement carries sacred knowledge. But the work as a whole asks questions about what is fixed and what is mutable, about breathing together, about meeting someone.
Riley himself carries the weight of what this moment represents. "Being a First Nations artistic director and choreographer, the idea of a work called Identity—talking about the identity of an imported dance form, in ballet, as well as the identity of our land and who we are as a nation—is very loaded and very difficult," he said. But he also expressed a hope that extended beyond this single commission. "I hope that it's not 20 years or even 10 years until another First Nations person gets to make a work at The Australian Ballet." The distance from 1950 to now is real. But the distance from now to genuine equity in who gets to tell Australian stories on the classical stage—that distance, Riley's words suggest, should be measured in years, not decades.
Citas Notables
It was somebody else telling our stories, without understanding what those stories were. It was surface-level.— Tammi Gissell, dancer and performance theorist, on early Australian ballets
I hope that it's not 20 years or even 10 years until another First Nations person gets to make a work at The Australian Ballet.— Daniel Riley, Wiradjuri choreographer
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that Daniel Riley is Wiradjuri, that Deborah Cheetham Fraillon is Yorta Yorta, that Annette Sax is Taungurung? Couldn't the work just be good work?
The work is good work. But for seventy years, Australian ballet told stories about First Nations people without letting First Nations people tell their own stories. The names matter because they mark the moment when that changed—when the people whose country this is, whose stories these are, got to decide what gets said and how.
But doesn't that risk reducing the work to its identity politics? Making it about representation rather than art?
That's what people often say. But representation is not separate from art. If you've spent seventy years not being in the room, then finally being in the room is part of the art. It changes what can be made, what can be asked, what can be risked.
The source mentions that Riley hopes another First Nations choreographer doesn't have to wait twenty years. That sounds like he's saying this is still rare.
It is. One commission in 26 years is rare. Riley is being hopeful but also realistic. He's saying: this shouldn't be an exception. This should be normal. The fact that he has to say it at all tells you something.
What about the younger dancers in Paragon, learning from the elders on stage? Is that connected to what Riley is doing?
Gissell noticed that connection. In First Nations practice, you sit with the knowledge keepers. You observe. You learn. Topp created that on stage—different generations together, the older dancers holding power, the younger ones gravitating toward them. It's a different way of thinking about what a ballet company is.
So Identity is about more than one double bill.
It's about what Australian ballet can become when it stops assuming it knows what Australian means, and starts asking the people who've always been here.