Marrugeku
RACHAEL SWAIN
Co-Artistic Director/Director/Dramaturg for Marrugeku
Rachael Swain is a director of intercultural dance theatre and a performance researcher. She is a founding member and co-artistic director of Marrugeku, together with Dalisa Pigram. She has directed Marrugeku’s productions Mimi, Crying Baby, Burning Daylight, Cut the Sky, and co-directed Buru with Dalisa Pigram. Rachael was previously Co-artistic director of Stalker Theatre where she co-devised and performed in all earlier works and directed Blood Vessel, Incognita (with Koen Augustijnen), Sugar, and Shanghai Lady Killer. She was dramaturg for Dalisa Pigram’s award-winning solo Gudirr Gudirr, as well as Burrbgaja Yalirra, and Le Dernier Appel. Rachael trained at the European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and The Amsterdam School for Advanced Theater and Dance Research (DAS ARTS). Her PhD in new dramaturgies for intercultural and Indigenous performance is from Melbourne University. Her first publication Dance and Contested Land: new intercultural dramaturgies, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018.
DALISA PIGRAM
Co-Artistic Director/Choreographer/Dancer for Marrugeku
A Yawuru/Bardi woman born and raised in Broome, Western Australia, Dalisa is a founding member of Marrugeku (1994) and Co-Artistic Director since 2009. Dalisa has been a co-devising performer on all Marrugeku’s productions, touring extensively overseas and throughout Australia with Mimi, Crying Baby, Burning Daylight (assistant choreographer/cultural liaison), and Buru (which she conceived, choreographed, and co-directed). Dalisa’s first solo work, Gudirr Gudirr, premiered in 2013 and has since played across Australia, Europe, the UK, Canada, and at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa. Gudirr Gudirr has earned Dalisa and Marrugeku collectively an Australian Dance Award (Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance 2014), a Green Room Award (Best Female Performer 2014), and was nominated for a 2014 Helpman Award. Dalisa co-conceived Marrugeku’s Cut the Sky (2015) with Rachael Swain and co-choreographed with Serge Aimé Coulibaly. Dalisa has curated Marrugeku’s four International Indigenous Choreographic Labs together with Rachael Swain.
SERGE AIMÉ COULIBALY
Theatre/Choreographer/Associate Choreographer for Marrugeku
Born in Burkina Faso, Serge Aimé Coulibaly trained with Amadou Bourou, then with Claude Brumachon at the CCN in Nantes, before founding his company Faso Danse Théâtre in 2002. His shows have toured in both Europe and Africa and have been presented at numerous festivals. He works with many artists as a choreographer or dancer, for example Alain Platel (Les Ballets C de la B.) and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. He is associate choreographer with Marrugeku where he has co-choreographed Burning Daylight, Cut the Sky, Miranda, and Le Dernier Appel, which he also directed. Serge Aimé Coulibaly teaches all over the world, lecturing and running workshops where he explores notions of responsibility and the role of the artist in society. He also explores and shares his artistic commitment at Ankata, an experimental centre he has set up in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, designed as a research and production laboratory open to all, at the crossroads of continents and disciplines.