In Estuary, choreographer Ngioka Bunda-Heath creates a First Nations duet of saltwater and freshwater Country. Drawing on recovered ancestral songs and archival material, the work explores connection, disconnection and reclamation through contemporary movement.
Estuary by Ngioka Bunda-Heath is a First Nations dance performance presented as part of the 10th season of Deadly Fringe at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
The work is a duet that traces the duality of saltwater and freshwater Countries — their connection, their rupture, and the deep yearning that remains.
Ngioka has been given permission to use recovered ancestral songs in language from the Queensland University archives. She’s remixed the recordings into a contemporary soundscape that honours the past while speaking to the present.
Culture was never static. It was always continual and a journey… and a living thing.Ngioka Bunda-Heath
Dancers Jackie Sheppard and Brooklyn Bond bring their own lineages into the collaborative process.
Together they shape a movement vocabulary that Ngioka Bunda-Heath describes as a universal language — one of the oldest tools for overcoming barriers and reclaiming what written history cannot fully hold.
Ngioka hopes audiences leave with a felt call to action — to honour Country, and to care for it while we still can.
