Ceremony Guide

This multi-channel video installation depicts dancer and choreographer Joel Bray gently dancing on, and responding to his ancestral Wiradjuri Country.

Using a special technique for layering images together, parts of Joel Bray’s body appear to be covered with natural textures including water, grass and rock. By layering these images onto his body, the artist is communicating the close relationship experienced by First Nations people between body and Country. Giraru Galing Ganhagirri is a Wiradjuri expression meaning ‘the wind will bring rain’, carrying with it an understanding of the interconnectedness of nature, and the knowledge that one thing follows another.

What is familiar in this artwork? What is unfamiliar to you?

Artists Voice

‘it speaks of the diasporic experience; how First Nations people carry the ancestral memory of their Country in our bodies, even when we live away”.

Where is a place you have spent a lot of time? What do you do in this place?

Thinking about this place where you have spent a lot of time, imagine all the things that are in this place.

Use your whole body to tell the story of the things that are in this place.

How would you use your body to tell the story of trees? Of the wind? Of water?

When you have a few movements, see if you can put them together to make a dance that tells the story of this place.