{"id":656491,"date":"2026-05-07T23:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656491\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:18:19","slug":"aboriginal-dance-company-brings-true-story-of-stolen-generations-survivor-to-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656491\/","title":{"rendered":"Aboriginal dance company brings true story of Stolen Generations survivor to stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The true story of a young, displaced Aboriginal man’s letters to an English academic has taken the stage at the Sydney Opera House in the form of dance.<\/p>\n

The final leg of Northern Territory Dance Company production The Other Side of Me is a contemporary dance piece portraying the struggles of the Stolen Generations.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Gary Lang says the performance’s story echoes many Indigenous people’s experiences. (Supplied: Northern Territory Dance Company)<\/p>\n

Artistic director and Larrakia man Gary Lang says it tells the story of a grown-up Aboriginal boy who was removed at a young age from his birthplace in the Northern Territory in the 1960s and adopted by a white English family.<\/p>\n

“It’s a story that’s happened to so many young Indigenous people, boys and girls,” he says.<\/p>\n

“I was a child of that time, too, you know, born in ’61, and thinking they could have come and taken me away from my mum, but they didn’t.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Larrakia choreographer Gary Lang says the performance visualises an internal conflict.\u00a0 (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

The man at the centre of The Other Side of Me, unnamed in the production, was raised in a remote hamlet in England where he crossed paths with Dr Laura Fish who became his pen pal and the recipient of his writings.<\/p>\n

Dr Fish, who died in 2024, initiated the collaboration between Northumbria University, where she was an associate professor, and Lang’s dance company in 2020.<\/p>\n

“When I read his letters to her, it’s like I could actually hear his voice and his written work was so beautiful,” Lang says.<\/p>\n

It’s our story<\/p>\n

The show translates into movement the emotional trauma of a man being stranded between two continents and two cultures and his search for identity and belonging.<\/p>\n

“What you’re seeing within the dance, it’s like the turmoil \u2026 it’s like two sides of the same coin,” Lang says.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The show tells the story of an unnamed Indigenous man searching for identity and belonging. (Supplied: Sydney Opera House\/Daniel Boud)<\/p>\n

The dance duet mirrors the inner conflict of the man’s journey growing up, in and out of jail, never returning to his homeland and ultimately his death in custody.<\/p>\n

“It’s about the man having his messed-up thoughts and living through his demons, and then you see another person who might be \u2026 his cell mate [or] the Indigenous spirit, like his ancestors that travel with him,” he says.<\/p>\n

Lang says the show, produced by BlakDance, which has toured 13 towns and cities across the country, has resonated with audiences.<\/p>\n

“One lady in Margaret River \u2026 she cried,” he recalls.<\/p>\n

“She said ‘I could never put my feelings into words, and what I saw is how I was’.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The show has toured the country and will finish its tour in Scotland. (Supplied: Sydney Opera House\/Daniel Boud)<\/p>\n

For others, Lang wants to create awareness.<\/p>\n

“It’s not about making people feel guilty, it’s about making people understand and knowing that this is an Australian story, it’s an Indigenous and non-Indigenous story, because it’s our story,” he says.<\/p>\n

The journey’s end<\/p>\n

This week’s Sydney Opera House performance marks a first for Lang who, prior to forming the NT Dance Company in Darwin in 2004, had performed all over the world.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never danced at the Opera House,” he says.<\/p>\n

“But 1778195888 my company is performing there, so yeah, pretty chuffed about that one.”<\/p>\n

Following a final performance in Sydney on Saturday, Lang and his dancers Dhunghutti and Worimi man Blake Escott and Alexander Abbot will continue to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK where the story began.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The production is currently performing at the Sydney Opera House. (Supplied: Northern Territory Dance Company)<\/p>\n

It was the outcome of a cross-cultural creative collaboration begun seven years ago between Lang’s NT Dance Company and Northumbria University.<\/p>\n

After performing at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Other Side of Me finishes its run at the Rise Festival, in Inverness, Scotland, at the end of May.<\/p>\n

The Rise Festival is an annual festival of contemporary dance and performance, and is this year honouring global Indigenous artists whose work connects land, story and movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The true story of a young, displaced Aboriginal man’s letters to an English academic has taken the stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,317440,8836,134,317436,66370,9967,317439,106006,317438,185583,8148,317437],"class_list":["post-656491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-contemporary-dance","tag-dance","tag-entertainment","tag-gary-lang","tag-gurindji","tag-indigenous","tag-northern-territory-dance-company","tag-northumbria-university","tag-nt-dance-company","tag-stolen-generation","tag-sydney-opera-house","tag-the-other-side-of-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}