EORA - The Land

Artists: Bangarra Dance Theatre (Stephen Page (Australia) / Jacob Nash (Australia))

One of Australia’s leading performing arts companies, Bangarra Dance Theatre, creates a work that gives visitors an insight into the Eora Aboriginal people and the ways that their deep spiritual and cultural connections with the land have sustained them over thousands of years.

Eora people are the traditional owners of a territory that encompasses most of the city of Sydney, the surrounding coastal areas and parts of greater Sydney. It includes river systems, bushland, sandstone cliffs, beaches, bays and caves. For thousands of years the Eora people have shared a vital relationship with this land and its flora and fauna. They regard it as a source of their life force, spirituality and internal strength.

The installation uses animation and the latest digital technology to light up the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and illuminate the rich history of the Eora Nation; to depict how, for thousands of years, they  looked after the sacred place we live on today.

Bangarra’s artistic director Stephen Page and head designer Jacob Nash have created a breathtaking work inspired by creation stories of the waratah and cockatoo; it also depicts how the people lived with natural elements showing their vital relationship with flora and fauna. The lithe ochre-covered bodies of the dancers represent the land and its living connections to all things in the natural world.

Country represented by installation: Australia