Dance / Illume, Bangarra Dance Theatre. At Canberra Theatre, until July 26. Reviewed by SAMARA PURNELL.

Illume opens with a depiction of the night sky. The dancers are heard before they are seen. 

The darkness of the theatre and set created a vivid experience when flashes of bright light pierced the darkness. Bright white flexible tubing manipulated into patterns created a stark depiction of networks and connections.

Specifically, Illume is about light pollution and the experience of indigenous people being made to adjust from stars and constellations, with pitch-black nights, to city lights, artificial lighting and the obscuring of the sky.

Frances Rings, choreographer and artistic director, said that without reading the program one probably wouldn’t know that Illume was also about light as it dances across the landscape and is created by the white sparkle of the Manawan trees, the moonlight on the ocean and its whales on their migration north.

Goolarrgon man Darrell Sibosado was the collaborator with Bangarra and Illume is set in the Goolarrgon region, the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley.

Illume also presented segments on indigenous experience within the Missionaries. It graphically depicts struggle under forced labour and religious indoctrination. In the most emotive part of the production, monastic music combines with impactful choreography, blending traditional movement with religious gestures. The transition to fire was striking, unexpected and beautiful, laden with symbolism. The smoking ceremony of foot cleansing brought to mind Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.

The music calmed and men’s rituals around a fire brought a sense of peace, before women in highly textured costumes appeared to rise from the ashes and move to playful music, performing a dance about middens – the piles of discarded shells demonstrating thousands of years of inhabitance.

With a focus on modern staging, a striking set design by Charles Davis used stark white poles as symbols of modernity, street lights and fluorescent lighting. Video design by Craig Wilkinson created a backdrop of shooting stars that moved in the manner of an 80s computer game until it created motifs and patterns – perhaps cities or streets, with arrows forming periodically.

A warning before the show about flashes of light and loud sound was accurate – towards the end of the production, the volume of the music was intense. The soundscape composed by Brendon Boney was beat-heavy, with a consistent rhythm throughout most of the production.

Illume appeared to present less gendered dance routines with fewer solos or featured dancers, but rather had a uniformity across the ensemble, using lyrical contemporary choreography with a lot of circular, sweeping movements of legs and arms.

Costume design by Elizabeth Gadsby saw dancers in black aproned tops and pants with stripes in red, white and blue that echoed the patterns across the backdrop.

With opening and closing scenes performed between the backdrop and a translucent curtain (with projections of stars and then waves of light and colours), it gave the illusion that the dancers were dancing amongst the stars, and shimmering in the rocks, embedded within the landscapes, sea and sky, through time and space. Men’s painted bodies glistened and yellow light illuminated the ensemble and for a split second it seemed the path forward looks bright.

Illume is a visually striking work, with impressive set design, an intriguing video installation and a stark depiction of the glaring lights of modern design and the beauty of the natural world.