At PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present, and to those emerging leaders in the community. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country.

Always was, always will be.

Galleries are open today, 10am–5pm. Our exhibitions are always free.

Vernon Ah Kee and Dalisa Pigram (with Marrugeku)

GUDIRR GUDIRR

GUDIRR GUDIRR

GUDIRR GUDIRR is a multi-channel video and sound installation directed by Vernon Ah Kee. Filmed on location in Rubibi (Broome) in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, this striking three-screen installation re-imagines the original dance performance created by Marrugeku as directed and co-choreographed by Koen Augustijnen and performed by co-artistic director Dalisa Pigram.

Gudirr Gudirr (the guwayi bird) calls when the tide is turning — to miss the call is to drown. Alternating between hesitant, restless, resilient and angry, GUDIRR GUDIRR lights a path from a broken past through a fragile present and towards an uncertain future.  

In considering the legacy of Australia’s history for Aboriginal people in northwest Australia today, GUDIRR GUDIRR asks: what does it take to decolonise Aboriginal peoples’ minds, unlock doors and face cultural change? The installation calls a warning to a community facing massive industrialisation on traditional lands, loss of language and major gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous well-being. Expressing a physicality borne of their shared Asian–Indigenous identity, Ah Kee and Pigram capture the cautionary call of the wader bird in an intimate gestural language of dance, portraiture and text-based imagery.  

Cultural and content warning: GUDIRR GUDIRR contains truth-telling about our history in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This video contains coarse language, depictions of violence, references to self-harm and youth suicide. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised this work contains the images of people who have passed away. 

Dalisa Pigram is a Yawuru/Bardi woman born and raised in Broome and proud of her Malay and Filipino heritage. Pigram’s has worked with Marrugeku since the first production Mimi (1996) and has been Co-Artistic Director of Marrugeku alongside Rachael Swain since 2008. Pigram’s solo work GUDIRR GUDIRR (2013) earned an Australian Dance Award e and a Green Room Award (2014). Pigram co-conceived Marrugeku’s Burning Daylight (2006) and Cut the Sky (2015) with Rachael Swain, co-choreographing both works. She also co-choreographed Marrugeku’s Le Dernier Appel (2018) with Serge Aimé Coulibaly for which she received a Green Room Award (2020). Together with Swain, she co-directed Buru (2010), Ngalimpa (2018) and co-curated Marrugeku’s four International Indigenous Choreographic Labs and Burrbgaja Yalirra [Dancing Forwards]. Pigram co-conceived with Rachael Swain and Patrick Dodson Marrugeku’s Jurrungu  Ngan-ga [Straight Talk] (2021), co-choreographing the work with the performers. Pigram co-choreographed and performed in Marrugeku’s new digital work, GUDIRR GUDIRR video and sound installation. Pigram has most recently co-created and co-choreographed Marrugeku’s Mutiara which premiered in Broome for Shinju Matsuri (2023) followed with seasons at Sydney and Perth Festivals (2024) and co-choreographed Nyuju as part of Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 (2023). In her community, Pigram teaches the Yawuru Language at Cable Beach Primary School and is committed to the maintenance of Indigenous language and culture through arts and education working closely with and for her community. Pigram is co-editor of Marrugeku: Telling That Story—25 Years of Trans-Indigenous and Intercultural Exchange (Performance Research 2021). 

Veron Ah Kee lives and works in Meanjin (Brisbane) is a member of the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples. Ah Kee designed the set and video content for the live dance performance of GUDDIR GUDDIR. Now he returns to direct this screen adaptation. Ah Kee’s conceptual text pieces, videos, photographs and drawings form a critique of Australian popular culture from the perspective of the Aboriginal experience of contemporary life. He particularly 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’, and effectively reposition the Aboriginal in Australia from an ‘othered thing’, anchored in museum and scientific records to a contemporary people inhabiting real and current spaces and time. 

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 Guy Boyce. Marrugeku’s patron is Yawuru cultural leader and national reconciliation advocate, Patrick Dodson. The company is based in both Broome and Carriageworks, Redfern. 

Bridget Ikin, through her Sydney-based company Felix Media, produces exceptional film and screen-based projects by outstanding contemporary filmmakers and artists. Working at the intersection of originality, social relevance and audience accessibility,  Recent work includes Angelica Mesiti’s Assembly (Venice Biennale, 2019) and Mother Tongue (2017); Gabriella Hirst’s Darling Darling (2019); Vernon ah Kee’s Guddir Gudirr (2019, for Marrugeku); Sherpa (2015; BAFTA Nomination).  

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