Queensland Ballet’s commitment to its Bespoke program is important and necessary for the company, for choreographers and for the QB dancers. Bespoke isn’t the only place where new work happens but it is specifically and only for the new, and a place where boundaries can be stretched a bit.

This year’s Bespoke opened with the company’s first commission from a First Nations choreographer. Katina Olsen’s gundirgan, wise woman pays loving homage to Wakka Wakka woman Aunty Maureen Williams, from whose country Olsen also springs (she is Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri). 

Two powerful decisions support the work. The first was that there’s a gorgeously textured new score, played onstage by Southern Cross Soloists and didgeridoo player Chris Williams. Let’s not underestimate the importance of this. Commissioned music and live performers represent a huge investment. 

Touchingly, Williams, who composed the music with Seán O’Boyle, is Aunty Maureen’s grandson and Olsen brings the two together in a haunting image that reaches across time and space: Williams enters the dancers’ space to play his music directly to his forebear, here portrayed by guest artist Tara Robertson. 

The second powerful decision relates to Robertson, a First Nations woman who was part of the Bangarra Dance Theatre ensemble for eight years (Olsen also danced with Bangarra). Robertson is a magisterial presence on stage, a necessary focal point as Olsen refracts history through memory and allusion.

gundirgan, wise woman is essentially an abstract work. Swirling by themselves or around Robertson, a large group of QB dancers evokes nature, the past, community, work and aspiration. Their simple costumes (by Noelene Hill) are mostly white with touches of colour that whisper of land and water. From time to time the ensemble makes circular movements on the floor, an image redolent of the domestic work Aunty Maureen was set to at the age of just 10. 

What one sees onstage is far from the full detail of Aunty Maureen’s life and legacy. Olsen has made a piece of contemporary dance with lots of resonances and only a few facts. It’s rich – that score really is a wonderful partner in the piece – even without a pre-emptive perusal of the program note. But knowing more about Aunty Maureen puts gundirgan, wise woman into rewarding context. It’s worth making time for that read.

I was reminded of Olsen’s piece for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed (the Bespoke equivalent) in 2018. I wrote at the time that her Mother’s Cry was consoling in its vision of female energy, wisdom and unity. There is something of that vision in gundirgan, wise woman too.

Next up was the highly experienced Ukrainian-Dutch choreographer Milena Sidorova, who charms the audience with a cheerful look at mating habits as seen through the lens of avian behaviour. The women in a sparky cast of 10 wear pretty dresses (designed by Sidorova and Timothy Corne) in beige. The men, naturally in a work called Birds of Paradise, sport fine plumage.  

Birds of Paradise is made from the kind of body language used to attract a partner and extract a laugh. The dancers look sleek and dynamic (on opening night principal Patricio Revé in particular was given some high-octane moves) but the strictly male-female pairings give Birds of Paradise a somewhat old-fashioned air. Nevertheless, the work exists in the same crowd-pleasing universe as Christopher Bruce’s venerable Rooster (seen at QB only last year). It’s a lively change-of-pace piece that delights in men peacocking around to the strains of popular music and delights its viewers.

The evening ends rousingly with Papillon from Brisbane-based choreographer Jack Lister, who is no stranger to Bespoke. He danced with QB until moving to Australasian Dance Collective where he is now associate artistic director. Lister was on the bill at the first Bespoke in 2017 with the terrific Rational/Animal, made when he was only 22. This year’s Papillon isn’t quite as striking conceptually but Lister knows how to get the juices flowing, as does the composer of the exhilarating new score, Louis Frere-Harvey. The two are obviously simpatico and alert to the wonders and mysteries of life.

The butterflies of the title aren’t exactly the gentle, fluttery creatures one might first think of. Papillon takes a muscular, metaphorical look at a life cycle that requires larvae to fight their way into the light. There wasn’t a wasted moment in a work lasting a touch over 20 minutes. It was a story of struggle, emergence and flight, each section brought to energetic life by 10 of QB’s Jette Parker Young Artists who were joined on opening night by two Pre-Professional Program dancers. Their roomy layered pants in butterfly-worthy colours were designed by Lister and Zoe Griffiths and looked fabulous, as did all these young women and men.

Bespoke runs until August 3.