ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OMITTED

It is a great, great privilege for me to serve as your patron. I feel deeply connected to Bangarra and everything you represent in Australia's cultural landscape over such a long period of time. I'm looking forward to tonight very much, because witnessing Frances and Darrell’s special and physical exploration of light, I think, takes Bangarra to a new level. For me, tonight continues a very long, long association and engagement over many years with Bangarra.

Most recently, it was to visit the headquarters and see the rehearsal and to meet the entire team again, a thrilling moment in March this year. I was also thrilled to welcome a number of Bangarra dancers to Government House in Canberra, where the Go Foundation led young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in cultural awareness and training, as part of their Culture Connect Day. 

You've been part of our family life for a very long time. Simeon and I were in the audience in 1994 at the Belvoir Street Theatre, when Ochres was presented as a work in progress, long before it was reprised in 2015, when Stephen Page reimagined this iconic work on the 21st birthday of the show, when you were debuting as a performance, a creative group performing at Carriageworks, where I was the chair.

I've been a long-time admirer. And as an audience, you have given us decades of joy, and you help us understand, through the power of dance and theatre and now visual art, how we draw on 65,000 years of culture in this country. Earlier this year, I was very honored to open the newly named Lowitja O’Donohue Cultural Centre at the Australian National University, actually my alma mater. It's nice to be back at my university and to see this wonderful renaming of a cultural centre. You will know this, but Dr O’Donohue’s life of advocacy and activism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people left an extraordinary and enduring legacy. We will always think of her in that context, much of which is reflected in her extraordinary speeches, which I would encourage you all to explore more deeply. There's one she delivered in 1999 at Bangarra’s 10th anniversary dinner, and she described the company in this way. She said, ‘their fire is their spirit, their dance is their form of expression, their way of telling stories, their fire is an instrument of cultural renewal and replenishment.’ Isn't she right?

On national and international stages, your artistry brings audiences to understanding and invites them further into understanding, but always with the brilliance of dance. You captivate us with the electric performances we see in schools across the country. And with the work you've done for the Go Foundation, you share your skills and stories with such generosity, you deepen the knowledge of young Australians about First Nations, histories and cultures. I look at my almost 26-year-old daughter and think about the fact that Bangarra has been around for her entire life. Imagine if those of us born in the 1960s like me had had that gift as we were growing up in this country, to hear the stories told through this wonderful, wonderful company. We'd all be very different, and the country would be different. But we are here, and through things like your Rekindling Youth program you continue to inspire pride, kinship and strength in young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as well. And all of this is the fire of creativity, vibrancy and optimism celebrated by Dr O'Donoghue and so many, all of us who have been so fortunate to have witnessed Bangarra over its entire history. You bring it to us again tonight, in a history-making moment on the main stage of the Sydney Opera House, triumphantly with Illume, you're exploring the awe of light as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. You ask us if the deep wisdom passed through many, many, many generations of elders will be enough to illuminate a path forward through potentially dark futures. I thank you, because you give us great hope for the future. You're an extraordinary Australian cultural company. I'm thrilled to be here tonight.