GUDIRR GUDIRR

ABOUT THE EVENT

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.