When choreographer and proud Yawuru/Bardi woman Dalisa Pigram sat down with her pop – Senator Patrick Dodson - for a cuppa she never expected to come up with the idea for a provocative dance piece about the shameful incarceration of First Nations people.

Ms Pigram and fellow Marrugeku dance company co-director Rachael Swain then started to collaborate with former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani, and Iranian-Australian scholar-activist Omid Tofighian to explore not only the outrageous levels of Indigenous imprisonment but also the detention of asylum seekers.

The result is the mesmerising multimedia dance theatre piece called Jurrungu Ngan-ga (Straight Talk) which explores and interrogates "our capacity to lock away and isolate what we fear".

Combining complex choreography, searing and confronting dialogue and a blood-pumping musical soundscape, the show sets about to dismantle the systematic racism that exists within Australia.

"My pop made a clear connection to the way Australia treats its First People is very similar to the way it treats those seeking asylum," Ms Pigram told the National Indigenous Times.

"This then led to Rachael bringing to the table a collaboration with Behrouz and Omid because we wanted to learn from their cultural perspective.

"We wanted to learn about the systems that are in play that keep marginalised communities and those most vulnerable - like those locked up on prison islands and our countrymen that are sitting in gaols all over the place.

"My pop said, 'we are a nation of jailers. We are good at locking up what we fear'."

Ms Swain said dance is the perfect art form to tackle uncomfortable issues like Indigenous incarceration and the imprisonment of those seeking asylum.

She said most people might shut down when reading confronting stories in the news or watching it on TV, but art could open people's hearts and minds.

"Using all the tricks of the trade we really want people to think hard but sometimes we don't want them to think but feel first," she said. "So, we use music and song, lighting, sound and movement to work with all of their senses to let them feel their position in relationship to the change that is sorely needed in this country.

"We wanted to address the prison of the mind of Australia… to address the psyche that sits behind what Patrick said. We are we a nation of jailers and we lock up that which we fear.

"We wanted to paint a portrait of that psyche and to address ways to dismantle it."

The play which runs at the Black Swan State Theatre in Perth from September 15-23 has just completed a successful tour in Europe.

Ms Swain said audiences experienced a complex range of emotions from anger, outrage, sadness, hope and even joy.

"The show works at its best when the audience includes members of the multiple communities that reflect the artists and the work and the issues that work is addressing," she said.

"So, for example, in Berlin there is a really big refugee community, there is a big trans community so when all those people are in the audience their experience and reaction to solidarity, resilience, survival and the joy, their appreciation of the work is sometimes very vocal.

"They become part of the work, and the work is definitely at its best in that context."

Ms Pigram said the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders had to be continually brought into sharp focus in Australia because locking up young First Nations people and "hoping they'll get better" isn't working.

"We have to listen to those that are leading the research around this, and this country can't keep ignoring the advice it has been given from the leaders that do the work," she said.

"It's been years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths into Custody, yet how many deaths have there been and how many of those recommendations have been implemented? A handful? If we continue to do that what is the point?"