GUDIRR GUDIRR

Artist Bios

Dalisa Pigram

Born 1977, Yawaru Country, Nileribanjen (Broome), Western Australia. Lives and works on Yawaru Country, Nileribanjen (Broome), Western Australia

Marrugeku

Established 1994, Yawaru Country, Nileribanjen (Broome), Western Australia and Gadigal Country, Sydney

Choreographer and dancer Dalisa Pigram is a Yawuru/Bardi woman born and raised in Broome. Pigram isco-artistic director of the dance company Marrugeku. Pigram’s groundbreaking solo work Gudirr Gudirr, co-choreographed with Koen Augustijnen, premiered in 2013and has been performed on stages around the world,earning an Australian Dance Award (Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance 2014) and a Green Room Award (Best Female Performer 2014). Through her work with Marrugeku and as a Yawuru language teacher in her hometown, Pigram is committed to the maintenance of Aboriginal languages and culture through arts and education.

Marrugeku is an unparalleled presence in Australia today, developing new dance languages that are restless, transformative and unwavering. Marrugeku builds bridges and breaks down walls between urban and remote dance communities, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and between local and global situations. Marrugeku is led by co-artistic directors, choreographer/dancer Dalisa Pigram and director/dramaturg Rachael Swain, with General Manager Robina Burton. Marrugeku’s patron is Yawuru cultural leader and national reconciliation advocate, Patrick Dodson. The company is based in both Broome and Carriageworks, Redfern.

Vernon Ah Kee

Born 1967, Djirrbal/Ngadjonji Country, Innisfail, Queensland. Lives and works on Jagera/Turrbal Country, Meanjin (Brisbane). Waanyi, Gulf region; Kuku Yalanji/Gugu Yimithirr, East Cape region

Vernon Ah Kee’s conceptual text pieces, videos, photographs and drawings critique Australian popular culture from the perspective of Aboriginal experience incontemporary life. In particular, he explores the dichotomy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies and cultures. Ah Kee’s works respond to the history of the romantic and exoticised portraiture of ‘primitives’. Heeffectively repositions the Aboriginal in Australia from an ‘othered thing’, as represented in museum and scientific records, to contemporary people inhabiting real and current space and time.