Dalisa Pigram

Delving into Dance

‘The challenge has been to create these processes that we can carry Country with us. So whether we’re, you know, performing internationally or you know on other people’s Country here in Australia, we’re carrying part of that - that process is always with us. So if it was a production that’s had choreographic processes that have been out on a specific site or a place that that has given us material, we carry that with us.’ Dalisa Pigram Co-Artistic Director Marrugeku

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Photography by Heidrun Lohr

Dalisa Pigram is the Co Artistic director Marrugeku. She is a Yawuru/Bardi woman with Malay and Filipino heritage born and raised in Broome, Dalisa studied in Perth after high school to complete an Advanced Certificate in Aboriginal Musical Theatre, a course developed and facilitated by Michael Leslie and accredited by WAAPA (1995). At the end of study Dalisa was invited to join Marrugeku by Michael Leslie for its first project to create Mimi (1996) working closely with Kunwinjku storytellers and dancers of Kunbarlanja community in Arnhem Land with the larger group of Marrugeku artists over 8 years. Dalisa became co artistic director of Marrugeku with Rachael Swain in 2008 after the company began working in her homelands of the Yawuru in Broome (2003). A co-devising performer on all Marrugeku’s productions, touring extensively overseas and throughout Australia, Dalisa’s first solo work Gudirr Gudirr (2013) directed and co choreographed by Koen Augustijnen, earned an Australian Dance Award (Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance 2014) and a Green Room Award (Best Female Performer 2014).

Dalisa co-conceived Marrugeku’s Burning Daylight (2006) and Cut the Sky (2015) with Rachael Swain, co-choreographing both works as well as Marrugeku’s Le Dernier Appel (2018) with Serge Aimé Coulibaly for which she also received a Green Room Award (Best Performance 2020). Together with Swain she co-directed Buru (2010), Ngarlimbah (2018) and co-curated Burrbgaja Yalirra a program supporting the next generation of change makers and Marrugeku’s four International Indigenous Choreographic Labs. Dalisa is co-editor of Marrugeku: Telling That Story—25 years of trans-Indigenous and intercultural exchange (2021). Most recently Dalisa has choreographed with the co devising performers Marrugeku’s newest work Jurrungu Ngan-ga (2022) and co curated with Rachael Marrugeku’s Dance Dramaturgy in Contested Land laboratory (2022). Dalisa is particularly interested in exploring culturally informed methods in devised processes that combine different forms of movement including dance, acrobatics, traditional movements and circus skills to tell stories and create exciting new approaches to movement and performance. In her community, Dalisa is a Yawuru language teacher at Cable Beach Primary school and works closely with the wider Yawuru community and language centre to help revitalise Yawuru language and culture (2006). As co artistic director of Marrugeku and as a Yawuru language teacher in her home town, Dalisa is committed to the maintenance of Aboriginal languages and culture through arts and education.

A transcript of this episode can be found here.

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DanceX Season

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DanceX Season | DanceX Season |

THIS SEASON HAS BEEN SUPPORTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET FOR THE DANCEX SEASON TAKING PLACE IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA FROM 20 OCTOBER – 1 NOVEMBER 2022.

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Additional episodes include interviews with Antony Hamilton, Daniel Riley and Alice Topp