Harmony and Balance

This generous-spirited, collaborative approach and innate need to ground the work and the dancers in place is typical of Rings and her choreographic style. Her approach to a new work isn’t like The Australian Ballet’s. In fact, the creative process behind a new Bangarra production is arguably unlike that of any other company in the world.

Now in its 37th year, Bangarra has developed a unique creative process that feeds into each work they produce. It involves listening to and learning stories from communities, conducting research and receiving guidance and permissions from Yolngu cultural leaders like Djakapurra and Janet Guypunura Munyarryun. Dancers and creatives will go back on Yolngu Country to observe the day-to-day rhythms of the community whose story is being shared, often simply sitting and listening quietly to Elders. And that’s before a single step has been choreographed. 

“What I’ve learnt stepping into this role is it’s ever-changing; each community is different and while the principles of the relationship are the same, how we create the work may be slightly varied. It might go through a family, or a land council, or a corporation,” says Rings, a Mirning woman. During the conception of her 2025 work Illume, the creative team embedded themselves in the small community of Lombadina on the West Australian Kimberley coast. There they focussed primarily on the family of Goolarrgon Bard visual artist Darrell Sibosado, ultimately bringing his story and multimedia works to the stage. The 2021 production Sand Song, co-created by Rings and former Bangarra Artistic Director Stephen Page, journeyed back to the Western Desert, the land of Wangkatjungka woman Ms Lawford-Wolf, to explore the community’s resilience, determination and success in maintaining its links to culture and country despite government-led displacement and disruption.

“How we create the work changes all the time, but the guiding principle is we never own things, and that’s a general First Nations philosophy. We’re all stewards, custodians who care for something, and we use our platform to work with community and share and amplify their message, [drawing out] the important elements of that story to transform people’s perception of who we are.”

Flora’s process is slightly different. This production isn’t embodying the story of an individual, community or historical event, but a journey through the evolution of Australian flora, tracing the profound influence of major historic and ongoing environmental events on the landscape, its people and the ultimate triumph and resilience against adversity.

Rings has collaborated closely with cultural consultant Matthew Doyle and research consultant and former dancer Shane Carroll. A descendant of the Muruwari People, Uncle Matthew has worked as a cultural consultant and songman with Bangarra on numerous productions, including Patyegarang (2014) and Bennelong (2017), and in addition to working with the National Institute of Dramatic Arts as Uncle-in-Residence, is a celebrated artist in his own right.

“Matthew is so interconnected to communities and people across Australia. His knowledge of the diversity of those communities, their connection to the natural world and to flora is vital for this project, because it’s not area-specific,” Rings says. “He has this vast encyclopaedic knowledge of plants’ purposes and significance, from tools to food, that he’s learnt and had shared with him for years.”

When it came to selecting her cast, Rings was given free rein from The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David Hallberg. She ultimately chose 19 classical ballet dancers to match her own company of 16, across a range of principal artists to provide leadership, stability and maturity alongside more junior dancers whose physicality, approach and individualism stood out.

Rings is choreographing in a particularly collaborative way for Flora, observing how both companies’ dancers interpret her movements, the history and significance of the story, willingly exploring and creating a whole new physical language as they do. What could have posed a challenging situation – with Rings required to be in three different studios teaching three different sections and movement simultaneously – resulted in a gratifying display of leadership and collaboration from the Bangarra dancers, who quietly stepped up and provided support.

“They’re a young company and there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that because there’s a high bar, so that pressure for this young generation to live up to that is a lot. But I feel they’ve taken it on with grace and amazing positivity,” says Rings, noting the combined companies devised extensive ideas and movement. “I’ve been incredibly impressed. Everyone is exhausted, but everyone is engaged and the commitment and energy they’re putting in has been inspiring to watch, and it takes a lot for me to be inspired!”

One element of this collaboration for which Rings is particularly hopeful is inspired by an experience that proved personally pivotal when she danced in The Australian Ballet-Bangarra collaboration Rites in 1997. Aged 27 at the time, she recalls taking a cocky approach to working with the classical dancers on Page’s choreography.

“You’re young, you’ve got your full-time contract, there’s a bit of ego, a bit of, ‘Oh yeah, they’re learning our work, our style,’” she recalls. All that changed however when she was warming up before the evening’s performance at the Sydney Opera House and noticed acclaimed principal artist Vicki Attard quietly pacing out the entire show, down to the smallest
articulation and gesture.

“She had this intense singular focus, I couldn’t stop watching her. It made such an impression I then watched her [from the wings] when she was performing and it was effortless, she transformed. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s what it is, the before and after, what you put in you then get out. It transforms you from being a dancer into an artist. That was the moment that switched everything for me.

“And I said to the dancers recently, ‘I want you to take it all in, not only the choreography, but everything else. Because this experience is going to teach you something you’ll take away that you’ll reflect on years later. We have completely different systems of working, this institution – The Australian Ballet - and Bangarra. It’s how we reconcile our different systems to work together and what we want our audiences to take away. That’s the legacy.”