Balit Liwurruk: Strong Girl

Worawa is an institution that offers academic, sports and boarding facilities for indigenous girls in years 7 to 12 – some from the most remote areas of Australia.  For many, English is their second language.  St Martins has been running workshops at Worawa and now we have Balit Liwurruk: Strong Girl, featuring Years 10 -12 indigenous and non-indigenous young women telling us their stories – a mix of everyday lives and their determination to retain their culture but also to gain a ‘western’ education’ and find a place in the modern world.  It’s what Aunty Lois Peeler, a Wurundjeri and Yorta Yorta woman and the school’s principal calls ‘parallel realities’.  Those two goals – and the grit, pride and determination to achieve them – are the subject of the show.

Director Nadja Kostich has collected stories from the young women at Worawa Aboriginal College – stories of their lives in country, of their struggles, aspirations and realisations about themselves - edited them, arranged them and then took them back to the storytellers.  The young women themselves, with dramaturge Kamara Bell-Wykes, have shaped a show that (loosely) relies on an inversion of the labours of Hercules.  A particularly effective – and funny - sequence in the show features projections of interviews in which the women are asked, ‘If you were Hercules…?’  The video designer is Michael Carmody.

The choreography by Rheannon Ford combines metaphoric and allegorical movements, suggesting both journeys and solidarity, while Naretha Williams’ music is predominantly percussive, echoing traditional and ‘modern’ rhythms.  As well, the stillness of remote places is evoked by the sounds of birds – in sharp contrast to the modern city and its demands.  A particularly striking sequence toward the end of the show has the performers suddenly bathed in bright light, as if they are breaking out of the dimness that has held and hindered them.  The lighting designers are Rachel Burke and John Ford.

Overall, some of the young women performers are, so far, tentative and perhaps shy – but this is in itself very moving as we see and feel the courage of these young women to assert their hopes and identity in front of an audience of strangers.  They are sure to gain in confidence, bolstered by the warmth and support of their friends, schoolmates, teachers and mentors.  This is a show that is undoubtedly as much for the performers themselves as for any audience.

Michael Brindley