Geography: Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia
Year: 2017
Produced by: Urban Theatre Projects, Blacktown Arts Centre and Sydney Festival
Creative Team: Written by Andrea James, Peter Polites and Gaele Sobott; directed by Rosie Dennis
Synopsis: Home Country was staged across a multi-level car park in Blacktown, an area shaped by Indigenous continuity and successive histories of migration. Audiences travelled between stories concerning Aboriginal sovereignty and migrant family life. The production makes the audience’s physical movement part of the work, it reveals Blacktown as a place whose cultural histories are rarely centred in national theatre. The character of Uncle Cheeky hosts the audience as we meet Ali and Zaphora Migration is examined through the attempt to establish belonging on land where settlement is intrinsically connected to dispossession. The production asks how newcomers can describe Australia as home while recognising the prior sovereignty of First Nations peoples. It also moves attention away from the national border and border crossings and reflects home and cultural belonging.
Source: Urban Theatre Projects, production archive: https://utp.org.au/event/home-country Sydney Festival, production archive: https://2017.sydneyfestival.org.au/country