In this era of climate wars, RISING is such a potent and topical word. We face a reckoning and Ghenoa Gela is here to tell us all about it in Gurr Era Op (‘the face of the sea’). As a Torres Strait Islander artist, her communities are at the coalface of climate change, with the ocean already swallowing up their island homes.
Gurr Era Op marks a turning point in Gela’s career. Not strictly dance nor theatre, the performance has a foot firmly in both realms. In development since 2019, with the help of two of Australia’s most impactful companies, Force Majeure and ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, the result is a commanding, thought provoking and ambitious work.
Gela performs alongside Taryn Beatty and Aba Bero; these three mainland-born Torres Strait women teach the audience a series of words and phrases from the Torres Strait language in the production’s opening scenes.Â
In particular the word Kai Kai, used to describe food/cooking/eating is used as a continuing metaphor. Shaped around this word are stories of culture, family and home in the present, past and future tense: displacement and diaspora.
Using themes and motifs of a universal nature is a successful choice in terms of fostering audience connection. We are swept up in the dark tide of this work as it reaches its final engulfing moments.
‘The ocean has already Kai Kai’d our homes and Islands’ is one of the haunting lines that stuck post-performance.
Ania Reynolds’ composition and sound design ricochet between field recordings and instrumentation. The roar of waves is haunting. Amid this are passages of live and recorded text. In the most effective of these passages, you can clearly tell that the words are connected to memory and offer a clear visual image.
The set design by Katy Moir plays with large-scale installation: towers of fishing nets and baskets are lit in UV light and a full spectrum of colour. During the performance these baskets are slid and dragged across the stage. In closing scenes, in an increasingly frenetic passage, each of the three performers continues to build a barricade in an ultimately doomed mission to prevent the rising tides.
The choreography works with and blurs the lines between traditional and contemporary. Anyone who has followed Gela’s career will notice motifs in this work that have featured in past works. Seeing this creative evolution up close is just beautiful.
This reviewer was born in Cairns and, as such, connected strongly with the proposition put forward, that ‘the further south one travels the less is known about the Torres Straits, and the further north you travel, the less people care’. This bleak truth is but one in this swirling cacophony of tragic and frankly unacceptable realities.Â
But the central message is one of climatic disaster. With large parts of the Torres Strait islands likely uninhabitable by 2050, the reckoning is here, is now.
‘The oceans will come to Kai Kai your homes next,’ Gela tells the audience in a blistering closing monologue. We are left speechless and unable to move post-performance.Â
Read: Music review: Snoh Aalegra, RISING Festival, The Forum
This is Gurr Era Op’s second outing, after being presented as part of Sydney Festival, and it’s clear that it will only continue to tighten and find its rhythm. There is no doubting the power and necessity of this work; however, continuity is somewhat lacking, and it can do with more polish as a whole.
Gela’s voice is important, and her work continues to question and interrogate. Gurr Era Op is no exception.
Gurr Era Op
Arts House, North Melbourne
Creator, Writer and Performer: Ghenoa Gela
Associate Director: Amy Sole
Artistic Consultant: Danielle Micich
Set Designer: Katy Moir
Composer and Sound Designer: Ania Reynolds
Sound Associate: Carl Polke
Costume Designer: Lisa Fa’alafi
Costume Associate: Tracy Datson
Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee
Production Manager: Mark Haslam
Impact Producer: Anna Weekes
Stage Manager: Krystelle Quartermain
Assistant Stage Manager: Tom Kelly
Performers: Ghenoa Gela, Taryn Beatty and Aba Bero
Tickets: $44-$49
Gurr Era Op will performed until 16 June 2024 as part of RISING festival.
