A mock whale's rib cage lying on a barge, floating on the Brisbane River, sets the scene for an anticipated theatrical Aboriginal dance-and-music stage show.

The Baleen Moondjan production tells the yarn of connection to Country, a bond between a proud Elder and curious granddaughter, and the day a baleen whale ventured too close to the shore of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island).

Thirty-nine fibreglass whale bones – the largest up to nine metres long – were transformed after being transported from Adelaide in double shipping containers, reassembled downstream in a nearby Brisbane suburb and floated down the river to Queen's Wharf.

The ceremonial performance which has a genuine songline connection was first staged during last year's Adelaide Festival on the picturesque Glenelg Beach.

For creative visionary Stephen Page, it's a personal homecoming of sorts from a local Munaldjali and Nunukul perspective while directing in eyesight of the Neville Bonner Bridge, the Jagera Elder's landmark, for this year's Brisbane Festival.

The former artistic director at the Bangarra Dance Theatre has been an influential force for more than 30 years across 33 separate works, which includes segments for the company from the Sydney 2000 Olympics opening and closing ceremonies amid vast cultural stories of First Nations mob.

The show is Page's first serious commission since leaving Bangarra, the prominent Indigenous theatre company, back in 2021.

Signature elements which have defined his career are present in the work which extends to dramatic storytelling, striking choreography and haunting live music integrated into a stunningly designed world.

Baleen Moondjan recognises the intertwining relationships between all living creatures and the connection to earth, sky and sea.

The whale is also there to catch Granny Gindara's spirit and carry it out to sea in an ancestral celebration.

The visual and performance art premiered on Thursday night until Sunday in front of sellout audiences, while also grabbing the attention of bridge onlookers during its construction over the previous week.

"This is a great opportunity to bring Baleen Moondjan home onto our Country, but you need that mainstream support to keep our perspective and voice of First Nations stories continuing," Page said at the media launch on the eve of the first show.

Page was inspired to create Baleen Moondjan after spending time at the bedside of his Nughi and Nunukul mother, Doreen Day, who passed away in 2018, following her last four years at an aged care facility on North Stradbroke Island.

Suffering dementia in her final years, Ms Day reminisced the life of her own mother, grandmother and great-grandmother filled with oyster farming and the seasons when the baleen humpback whales would routinely test the community's totemic beliefs and practices.

Page's own grandmother, Martha Day, had grown up on Stradbroke at the once notorious Myora Mission, an Aboriginal station that opened in 1892 and closed in 1943.

Baleen Moondjan combines contemporary dance and narrative storytelling with songs which are performed in English, as well as Jandai, and Gumbaynggirr/Yaegl languages.

A cast of four actors, six dancers and two musicians bring the story to life amid a dazzling array of smoke, lights and of fire to create a breathtaking spectacle.

"The theatrics of being on water, which is really, really cool, but also just being back on the river connects us back to Stradbroke where the story originates from," Torres Strait Islands performer Zipporah Corser-Anu, from Saibai Island, said.

Several other locations for the stage show were under consideration including Dunwich on North Stradbroke, and a long list of parks in the suburbs of Manly and Wynnum which look towards the island.

But when the central location was available at The Landing in Queen's Wharf, Brisbane Festival director Louisa Bezzina agreed with Page that the river setting would be best.

"You've also got the most extraordinary physicality and dance, incredible musicianship and the breadth of musical styles that are a part of this show," she said.