Archived

Beautiful
One Day

Created by Sean Bacon, Magdalena Blackley, Kylie Doomadgee, Paul Dwyer, Eamon Flack, Rachael Maza, Jane Phegan, Harry Reuben David Williams

  • Venue National tour
  • Dates 5 – 26 September 2015

For the first time Beautiful One Day headed home to Palm Island for a very special performance. Then it played as part of Brisbane Festival. Earlier this year, the production toured regional Victoria and also the Origins Festival of First Nations in London.

Beautiful One Day is a theatrical documentary about the irrepressible life and times of Palm Island. Three theatre companies (Belvoir, ILBIJERRI, and version 1.0) came together in 2012 over a shared sense of outrage at the injustices surrounding a death in custody in 2004. But, prompted by the Palm Island community, Beautiful One Day looks for a way to turn outrage into real understanding and new possibilities. At its heart is a determined struggle to understand the persistent heavy-handedness of white Australia.

In 1918 the Queensland Government established a settlement at Palm Island where, for the next 50 years, thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from across the state were forcibly resettled. In 2004, following the ‘accidental’ death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in a police cell, and frustrated by the state response, members of the community on Palm Island made a direct challenge to police power by surrounding the station and burning it down. Years later, the people of Palm Island continue to demand real justice, and all the while life continues.

An antidote to the relentlessly negative media coverage, Beautiful One Day interweaves the stories of Palm Island, the diktats of white Australia, and the voices of the community. Made through conversation, through argument, through long walks and frequent eruptions of joyfulness, this is a show about what an honest talk might really look like.

A co-production with ILBIJERRI Theatre Companyversion 1.0.
Indigenous Theatre at Belvoir supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

Team

Devisor/AV Designer Sean Bacon
Devisor/Performer/Cultural Custodian Magdalena Blackley
Devisor/Performer Kylie Doomadgee
Devisor/Performer Paul Dwyer
Devisor/Director Eamon Flack
Devisor/Performer Rachael Maza
Devisor/Performer Jane Phegan
Devisor/Performer Harry Reuben
Devisor/Dramaturg David Williams

Acting/Script Coach Kylie Farmer (Kaarljilba Kaardn)
Set & Costume Designer Ruby Langton-Batty
Lighting Designer Frank Mainoo 
Composer & Sound Designer Paul Prestipino

Videos

Palm Island images by Frank Mainoo
Rehearsal images by Heidrun Lohr
Production images by Heidrun Lohr

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