• Australian Government / Australia Council for the Arts
  • Brisbane Powerhouse Arts

Potent and all consuming... this is music to send shudders down your spine and bring tears to your eyes. The Age

Black Arm Band presents dirtsong

21 February 12:00pm - 1:15pm 3:45pm - 5:00pm QUT Gardens Theatre Music, Theatre Full Length All Ages

A powerful musical journey through Australia's cultural heartland

Set against a stunning backdrop of moving imagery and text inspired by the words of Miles Franklin Award winner Alexis Wright, dirtsong is a large-scale musical production to stir the soul. A collaborative performance of music, language, culture and identity, it features unforgettable songs performed in 11 different Aboriginal languages by some of Australia's most extraordinary musicians.

Drawn wholly from Aboriginal Australia, dirtsong mixes traditional approaches and contemporary songs, existing repertoire and newly commissioned music to conjure a sense of 'country' as not only a geographical place, but as encounters, memories, obligations and nature. This is one unforgettable performance that inspires the heart.

Image: Courtesy the Artist

Meet the artist

Black Arm Band

Black Arm Band is a national music performance company dedicated to interrogating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity, culture and experience in an international context. Black Arm Band is a flexible performance ensemble that since 2005 has grown into a major, fully independent, Aboriginal governed performing arts company that presents innovative large-scale music and theatre productions. The ensemble has toured extensively internationally with high profile performances on the world's main stages in Canada, the USA and the UK, as well as throughout metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.

www.blackarmband.com.au

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