Brisbane Festival is about to showcase the biggest Indigenous line-up in the festival’s history.

More than 180 First Nations creators and performers are taking part in a two-week program, the largest involvement of First Nations artists in the festival.

For multidisciplinary storyteller and performer Ghenoa Gela it is immensely significant that her Torres Strait Islander heritage is to be celebrated at Brisbane Festival in two show, Straight From The Strait and GURR ERA OP.

Gela will sing in the world premiere of Opera Queensland’s Straight From The Strait, which pays tribute to her uncles who in 1968 shattered a world record by laying down an astonishing 7km of railway track in a single day, a feat that remains unchallenged. Gela says it’s a privilege to sing about these worker’s achievements in this way.

“It is so exciting and inspiring,” Gela says. “It’s a fusion of contemporary and traditional. This is a totally different way of storytelling for us even though, for me, musical theatre runs parallel to our cultural way of storytelling. We’re elevating all of our storytelling within this space and taking it to a wider audience so they can experience us. It’s phenomenal.”

Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina says the quality of this year’s First Nations content was compelling and was a pleasure to feature.

“It’s very easy to do when First Nations artists are making such exceptional work, locally and nationally,” Bezzina says. “I feel like we have the most wonderful stories that need to be told. Having both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities with such extraordinary stories to tell in this community. It just makes perfect sense.  The broad range of First Nations program in this festival covers every artistic genre.”

Gela, an award-winning choreographer and performer, also presents GURR ERA OP, which is about four Torres Strait Islander women who battle the rising tide threatening their home, culture and identity. That work, and Straight From The Strait, have been years in the making.

“Ghenoa (Gela) is going to be very busy this festival,” Bezzina says. “GURR ERA OP is a wonderful and very important piece that uses strong dance and storytelling, and beautiful design to really highlight and showcase the enormous issues such as the need to be aware of and actually start to take some action around the rising sea levels in the Torres Strait.

“It’s all done through a female lens and it’s an extraordinary tour de force of very confronting and very real issues that we as a country need to learn about and understand.”

Another Indigenous artist at the festival is Cairns-based fashion designer Grace Lillian Lee, who flew to Jean Paul Gaultier’s atelier in Paris to collaborate on his ­Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show – the festival centrepiece.

“Grace Lillian Lee is an extraordinary multicultural and First Nations visual artist and fashion designer. When I was in negotiations to bring John Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show to Brisbane Festival she was the first person that came to my mind,” Bezzina says.

“She will have a piece of couture especially designed and made for the show. Also, The Dream Weaver Guardians of Grace, Lee’s first major solo exhibition, will be on at the Brisbane Powerhouse for the duration of the festival. That’s an absolutely exquisite installation with a range of sculptural works and video.”

Other Indigenous works include the world premiere of Meet Your Maker, about an Indigenous pop star who goes missing before the biggest show of her career (at Brisbane Powerhouse); and the Meanjin Songlinez concert celebrating community and Queensland First Nations artists.

Yidinji artist Paul Bong has created an exclusive sculptural installation as part of Brisbane Festival’s Lightscape – an immersive multisensory phenomenon of light, colour and sound in the City Botanic Gardens.

Queensland Theatre and BlakDance have co-created another world premiere with Dear Brother, a story of brotherhood and Aboriginal masculinity written by and featuring Indigenous artists Tibian Wyles and Lenny Donahue. Dear Brother explores the lives of young Indigenous men from Far North Queensland who travel south in search of opportunities and family connections. Donahue says he is hopeful they will tour the show to communities after Brisbane Festival.

After two sold-out seasons at Sydney Festival, Big Name, No Blankets also makes its Brisbane Festival debut, paying homage to the first Indigenous rock band to sing in language – the Warumpi Band.

Founding band member Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher is the narrator and he combines intimate storytelling with larger-than-life rock’n’roll songs, weaving in culture from Central Australia and Northeast Arnhem Land in two ancestral languages – Luritja and Gumatj – as the band navigates divides between bush and city, white and black, fame and family.

For Ghenoa Gela, reflecting on the contribution of First Nations artists is very satisfying.

“Making GURR ERA OP has been quite challenging in every sense,” she says. “We are trying to find the right story, trying to figure out the right way to tell the story, looking up to the motherland and the rising waters eating the islands. But we also want to make it universal so everybody understands that they’re a part of this as well.”

GURR ERA OP plays the Underground Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm, September 11-14. For details on the full First Nations program, go to:

brisbanefestival.com.au

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