'Blackbird' is a compelling Australian story, told through a 90 minute theatricalised song cycle. It is also a challenging artistic journey for an emerging indigenous woman artist, and represents the outcome of a six-year creative mentorship guided by senior artists.
‘Blackbird’ explores Megan’s own journey, as she learns the store of her family’s history from her tough and emotionally remote great grandmother, Flora. Megan’s compassion deepens as she comes to terms with the forces that shaped Flora and the generations of women who followed her, as well as those who went before. ‘Blackbird’ creates six strong, characteristic voices as Megan presents the distilled experiences of six generations coming down in the end to her own experience, constantly transforming – even through the moment of performance.
'Blackbird' celebrates resilience, courage, humour and family. The hardest song for Megan to sing, and the one moment of utter despair in 'Blackbird' relates the story of Emily, Kitty's mother, one of the only Ngadjon-ji elders to remain living around Malanda (the Rainforest tribes were taken away to settlements off country) who was taken in 1955 at the age of 85 to
Palm Island, where she died.
By reaching back through an act of empathy and imagination to her foremothers' experiences, Megan brings them back home, for herself. 'Blackbird' links the 19th Century to the present moment through an unbroken chain of experience: from white contact experienced in the rainforest by Flora's Grandmother Emily, to the present. By revisiting these gripping
stories Megan (and the audience) discover the strength of her connection to this compelling history with enormous implications for her quest for identity.
Show times are 6.30PM Tuesdays and Wednesday, 8.00PM Thursday to Saturday. There are no performances Mondays and Sundays. Opening Night packages may be available closer to the date.
