Running for an almost three week season this November, Urban Theatre Projects are bringing their newest and most radical program yet to Barangaroo’s Blak Box. Momentum will open on Nov 1, an innovative sound work drawing its inspiration from David Bowie’s 1983 music video Let’s Dance. The installation will include work from a range of First Nations artists including Eric Avery, Troy Russell, Ursula Yovich and upcoming writer Joel Davison.
Curated by Daniel Browning (Bundjalung/Kullilli/South Sea Islander), Momentum seeks to reflect on the impact of David Bowie’s film clip, and why it took an outsider such as Bowie to bring to light issues such as dispossession, racism and domestic slavery within Australia’s Indigenous community at the time.
“The way he cast a number of non-actors, the cast of Aboriginal people, they’re the stars of this film clip and that always interested me, the kind of idea of the centrality of Aboriginal characters in a story…I don’t think we’d ever seen that,” said Daniel. “For it to come from someone like David Bowie was pretty extraordinary.”
In the process of creating Momentum, Daniel kept coming back to the Let’s Dance music video and reflecting on whether a four-minute video can really make an impact. He poses the question: have we lost momentum?
“I was always curious about the story behind the film clip and the kind of things he eluded to in the video…they were fascinating,” said Daniel.
“In many ways it’s just a film clip, and it depends on the level of your engagement with it. Some people, like me, are drawn to the power of each image, but I’m also conscious that for some people it means nothing. This work is really speculative.”
Nov 1-17, Stargazers Lawn, Barangaroo Reserve. $15-$25+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.urbantheatre.com.au
By Madison Behringer
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