Jannawi Dance Clan’s Garrigarrang Badu, which has now finished its brief Sydney Festival season, is a touching tribute to the Dharug culture that once reigned supreme in a huge part of the Sydney Basin. The title refers to the salt (garrigarrang) and fresh (badu) waters that meet at what is now called Bennelong Point, or Tubowgule in Dharug.

Performers from all over the world get a kick out of appearing at the Sydney Opera House on Tubowgule but it is clear at the Garrigarrang Badu curtain call on opening night that the Jannawi dancers are ecstatic to be sharing these songs, dances, practices and evocations of Country in this place.

Jannawi Dance Clan’s Artistic Director, Peta Strachan, has referred to Garrigarrang Badu as a song cycle and that is apt. The work is episodic and underpinned by music that celebrates the Dharug language (key contributors are Matthew Doyle, the late Richard Green and DYAGULA). It’s particularly effective when women’s voices are heard with only clap sticks for accompaniment. The sound has an elegiac quality that joins history and present-day solidarity.