This year Melbourne is fortunate to see not one but four significant First Nations choreographies taking audiences into entirely different spaces. First was Marrugeku’s Jurrungu Ngan-ga / Straight Talk – a damning exposition on Australia’s denigration and incarceration of First Nations people and refugees. Next was the reprise of Broome-based Dalisa Pigram’s award-winning solo Guddir Guddir, about men’s brutality against women, and the suicide of children. Happily, an elegant scene from Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Terrain brought refinement and grace back to the stage in The Australian Ballet’s DanceX festival, almost predicting the excitement surrounding First Nations choreographer Joel Bray’s latest creation, Garabari, has brought to Arts House. Bray is Chunky Move’s inaugural choreographer in residence. Commissioned by Chunky Move, and presented by Arts House, Chunky Move and Joel Bray Dance, Garabari also has support from BlakDance through BlakForm.

Chunky Move’s Garabari. Photo © Jeff Busby

Internationally admired and awarded, Bray has, from the start, been a confronting artist, laying out his own story to unpack the dilemmas life has thrown at him. He resists convention and instinctively pushes culture and politics into his works, starting seductively with...