Content warning: Gunawarra Re-Creation references sexual assault, violence, forced removal of children and genocide.
Scripted by proud Taun Wurrung playwright Isobel Morphy-Walsh, Gunawarra Re-Creation is a contemporary play grounded in an uninterrupted ancestral storyline, expressed through memory, song and dance, where past and present collide.
Drawing from the traditional Kulin story of Gunawarra (the black swan and how it came to have black feathers) the work follows three generations of women reconnecting on Taungurung Country after significant life disruptions.
"Growing up, my sister and I listened to our father telling creation stories, continuing rich oral traditions around fires, at bedtime, at community gatherings, and as part of ceremony," Walsh said.
"He told these stories to respond to life events."
From an early age, Walsh learnt that creation stories are living and breathing narratives, handed down through generations, and shared as frameworks for both the storyteller and listener to interpret through their own lived experiences.
"Being one of many Gunawarra, Black Swan, woman, I was inspired to share a version of Gunawarra's creation and how that connects to my family and I, in my first written play," she said.
Leading this new season of Gunawarra Re-Creation is award-winning artistic director Andrea James, a proud Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai woman, marking her directorial debut with ILBIJERRI Theatre Company.
James follows in the footsteps of the company's former artistic director, Dr Rachael Maza AM - a proud Yidinji, Meriam and Dutch woman - who originally premiered the play with Melbourne Theatre Company in 2024.
"We so rarely get the chance to remount new work in Australia, especially a play that is so generously gifted and richly layered," James said.
This new season has created space to delve deeper into the script and connect more profoundly with Country, uncovering further layers of cultural and spiritual healing.
"Collaborating with new actors alongside original cast members and drawing on what each artist emotionally brings, the new work production has renewed energy," she said.
"I have a play that truly flexes artistic muscle."
For First Nations audiences, the production invites people to find and carry their own version of 'Gunawarra' as they navigate life within our current world.
For non-Indigenous audiences, the play offers an opportunity to experience how First Peoples' stories remain alive and how ancestral narratives impart lessons that resonate within contemporary life.
As the play unfolds, audiences are imparted with a powerful sense of the strength, authority and wisdom carried by Blak women, and their extraordinary capacity to heal.
Gunawarra Re-Creation was developed through the ILBIJERRI Blackwrights Program with the support of City of Melbourne, Bowden Marstan Foundation, Equity Trustees and InPlace.
Gunawarra Re-creation was originally co-produced with Melbourne Theatre Company as part of Blak in the Room 2024.
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