Gunawarra Re-Creation, scripted by proud Taun Wurrung playwright Isobel Morphy-Walsh, is a contemporary play grounded in an uninterrupted ancestral storyline, expressed through memory, song and dance, where past and present collide.
Drawing from the traditional Kulin story of Gunawarra — the black swan and how it came to have black feathers — the work follows three generations of women reconnecting on Taungurung Country after significant life disruptions.
Leading this new season of Gunawarra Re-Creation is award-winning Artistic Director Andrea James, a proud Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai woman, marking her directorial debut with ILBIJERRI Theatre Company.
Andrea follows in the footsteps of the company’s former Artistic Director, Dr Rachael Maza AM – a proud Yidinji, Meriam and Dutch woman – who originally premiered the play with Melbourne Theatre Company in 2024.
This new season has created space to delve deeper into the script and connect more profoundly with Country, uncovering further layers of cultural and spiritual healing.
For First Nations audiences, the production invites people to find and carry their own version of ‘Gunawarra’ as they navigate life within our current world.
For non-Indigenous audiences, the play offers an opportunity to experience how First Peoples’ stories remain alive and how ancestral narratives impart lessons that resonate within contemporary life.
As the play unfolds, audiences are imparted with a powerful sense of the strength, authority and wisdom carried by Blak women, and their extraordinary capacity to heal.
Touring across Melbourne (Naidoc Week 8 to 11 July 2026) Geelong (17 to 28 July 2026) and Brisbane (Clancestry Festival 5 to 8 August 2026)
