Ardna

Ardna is a new, unique collaboration withand Jason Tamiru from Yorta Yorta country. Ardna (Arabic for “our land”) is a storytelling and dance performance for primary school children to explore physical connection to land while being exposed to new practices in life.

HISTORY & BACKGROUND

 Although Aseel and Jason come from very different places, both have a uniquely intimate relationship with land and environment, being from cultures displaced from their homelands by violent colonialism.

Ardna will find common grounds between Aseel’s ,Jason’s and a collective of first nation artists identities. which are each defined by their lands. while sharing the power of these connections with the audience and encouraging them to connect to the earthy realities of our lives for our identities, rather than constructions of politics, nationality, or consumer culture.

The apocalyptic bushfires at the end of 2019 demonstrated the perils of ignoring our land, and the 23-hour-a-day lock-ins of 2020 brought home to us the impact of life without the natural world. Ardna explores what else we don’t even realise we are missing.

Ardna takes place in any open indoor/outdoor space, which is transformed into an island of bushland. Easy site specific setup where few embroidered cushions are placed on a rug that is cut in two halves, in between the two cuts Sand and salt are spread across the floor, there are small shrubs around the perimeter, smells of sage and saltbush evoke the Australian bush; branches of olives and vines leaves, from the Mediterranean countryside..

Meet the Team

Meena Shamaly

Musical Director

Taj Aldeeb

Actors

Kush Kuay

Assistant Producer