Poignant and pulverising: Marrow returns home
ADT continues its 60th anniversary celebrations by bringing Marrow back to Adelaide for a special season.
When Australian Dance Theatre premiered Marrow at the 2024 Adelaide Festival, it was against a backdrop of significant upheaval. Australia had significantly voted “no” during the National Voice to Parliament Referendum. A couple of weeks before the premiere, news came out of Broome that a man, who later was found guilty of two counts of aggravated common assault, had cable tied three young First Nations children for swimming in a pool without the owner’s permission.
As Daniel Riley was putting the final touches on a work that is ostensibly about the darkness at the core, or the marrow, of the Australian imagination, the news became too hard to ignore.
“Marrow has the incredibly generous contributions of the entire ensemble throughout the work,” Riley says. “We all approached the work with a lot of openness, which meant we needed to open ourselves up to the stuff that was happening around us and talk about it onstage.”
Marrow, now returning to Adelaide for a special season from 29-30 August at The Odeon in Norwood, has been touring nationally since May. The tour is the largest national presentation of ADT’s work in recent memory.
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“Touring Marrow around the country has been incredibly significant and meaningful,” Riley says. “To have been able to connect with so many audiences has been a privilege. And there has been plenty of interesting and important conversations around what defines Blak work.
“Marrow is different: it hits harder and closer to home. The work is breaking down those ideas of very specific Blak performance. It connects the ancient and contemporary in surprising ways.”
This connection is exemplified by Jaadwa composer James Howard’s propulsive score, which throbs at the centre of the work. During the development of Marrow, Ngarrindjeri Elder Major “Moogy” Sumner AM provided Eldership and connection to local customs and tradition.
He told the story of the Waatji Pulyeri, or blue fairy wren, whose deceit eventually led to the bird losing its flight and not being able to fly any higher than the shrub it which it lives. The story is a gentle reminder about the isolation, division and loneliness borne out of deceit and untruths. Howard took a recording of this story and pieced it throughout his electronic score for the show.
“To have Uncle Moogy’s words woven throughout the score of Marrow is incredibly special and a subtle nod to the wisdom and story that informed so much of the work,” Riley says. “The stories and ideas that form the core of our collective imagination have the ability to cause great division – and it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
“Howard’s score is poignant and pulverising. I think one critic called it a sonic chokehold, which is pretty excellent. But the music really thumps – it rattles through you from the very beginning of the show. It makes the show feel incredibly immersive and urgent. It’s hard and soft, the perfect accompaniment to a work that has developed into something that’s really quite hopeful and full of heart.”
Though undeniably contemporary and forward focussed, Riley says the work also connects to the founding ideologies of Australian Dance Theatre, which seeks to expand the horizons of contemporary dance and speak truth to power.
“Some of the earliest works staged by ADT were political – they sought to push us all forward through an art form that pretty much didn’t exist in Adelaide until the company was founded,” he says. “We’re thrilled to continue that tradition with Marrow, and to be able to continue to celebrate our 60th year by bringing this work back to Kaurna. We’re even staging it on the eve of the anniversary of ADT’s first ever performance, back in 1965.
“The work has shifted and expanded since the premiere. We have new company artists who bring their generosity and physicality into the work. Off the back of 12 weeks on the road, the work is ready to explode here on Kaurna Yerta for our audiences and community. We can’t wait to share it and continue the dialogue once again.”
Marrow returns to Adelaide from 29-30 August at The Odeon, Norwood. Tickets start from $25 and are available here.
