Wearing beautiful, sculptural neckpieces made from an iridescent green material to represent particles as they move through space, the dancers skitter through the chaos that is the explosion of a star and the change it signals. Jennifer Irwin’s textural costumes grow as if they are living forms, always seeking to emphasise movement. With each wear they assume layers of paint and sweat. The stars overhead are reflected on the black gloss of the stage flooring, thanks to Elizabeth Gadsby’s set design. And on opening night, in the circle, this unfurled sky lore in the theatre is breathtaking.

The horizon is drawn by a curved, floor to ceiling forest of ropes, hanging from the rigging, connecting the sky with the earth, in emphasis of all things being connected. Because “Country includes, seas, waters, rocks, animals, winds and all the beings that exists and make up a place, including people. It also embraces the stars, moon, Milky Way, solar winds and storms, and intergalactic plasma. [Because what] we do in one part of country affects all others.”[3] Nine kilometres of rope, painted black ombre, and interspersed with neon drops to make spark and tension, has been used to suggest Wirangu and Mirning Country. Karen Norris’s suspended lighting sculpture follows this arc and delineates a library of knowledge in the sky to the life-sustaining source of permanent water, Yuldea Kapi. In Kapi Spirit, Lillian Banks and Kallum Goolagong are captivating and their movements fluid, as if through their limbs water flows.