Stories of Water and Earth had its world premiere in Darwin Festival in August. It found its second performance in Redfern’s Woodburn Creatives thanks to the open arms of Backstage Music, which brought the Darwin-based Arafura Music Collective and Djapu poet Melanie Mununggurr to Sydney to join forces with new music mavericks Ensemble Offspring.

Melanie Mununggurr, Arafura Music Collective and Ensemble Offspring. Photo © Ollie Miller

It’s the first time that the 2018 Australian Poetry Slam Champion has collaborated with musicians before, but it’s a totally natural fit in this piece with music composed by Arafura’s Netanela Mizrahi (performing here on violin).

Exploring her connection to land, her Yolngu identity and experience as a mother of a neurodiverse child, as well as topics like the incarceration rates of First Nations people, Mununggurr’s well-crafted poetry is woven seamlessly into the music, which acts more in counterpoint than complement to her words – on occasions leaning into the emotions of her words, and at other times surging forward in parallel to the story. She’s got a fantastic presence as a performer, too, delivering...