FIRESTARTER screens as part of the virtual Pan African Film Festival from 28th March – 14th February 2021.
Tickets at: https://www.paff.org/
Three years in the making, Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin’s FIRESTARTER chronicles the work and legacy of the Bangarra Theatre Company in Australia, the brainchild of three Aboriginal brothers – David, Russell and Stephen Page.
Bangarra was founded in 1989 from the energy of NAISDA (National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association) founder Carole Y. Johnson, along with NAISDA graduates, and Rob Bryant and Cheryl Stone. That spark continues to animate the company today – and FIRESTARTER takes us through the evolution of the dance company, which reflects on the changing attitudes and ideals that have helped Australia to evolve through the centuries.
It’s an interesting analysis and also contextualises the background of the contributions that the Aboriginal populace have made amidst tremendous challenge and conflict, with Bangarra’s own contribution to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
There is also a political context, with former Prime Ministers Paul Keating and John Howard (through archive footage) contributing with their own reflections on the issues that have faced Aboriginal citizens and perhaps, as some people comment in the documentary, a dismissive attitude towards the larger picture that lies within the larger continental Australia.
The fusion of traditional Aboriginal with more contemporary themes in dance, combined with uncertainty about how the combination of dance styles were received in the Edinburgh Festival at one point, merely highlights the fact that there is, as some people also state here, still a while to go before certain emotions and legacies are embraced on an equal plateau.
FIRESTARTER is not just a celebration of the Aboriginal culture, but also a tribute to a family who wanted to express their passion for art and storytelling through the medium of dance. There is much to appeal to a cross-section of people who are interested not only in the virtuosity of dance, but also people who have a willingness to discover new things about other cultures.
This is a movie that is designed to heighten and inform with great clarity about an oft-misunderstood culture in Australia that has only been touched on fleetingly in some locally-produced films – and succeeds on many levels for all that.
