The Other Side of Me

The Other Side of Me translates into dance the true-life story of a young Aboriginal man, who was born in the 1960s in the Northern Territory, adopted by a white English family and raised in a remote hamlet in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The ease and haste of the adoption process reflects the wider Australian federal and state government policies from 1910 until the 1970s to remove children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent from their families and culture – the Stolen Generations.

 The project draws on a collection of about 30 personal letters and poems written between 1990 and 1994. It offers insights into the mindset of a man in his mid-to-late twenties re-evaluating his life and trying to come to terms with his First Nations Australian origins from the other side of the world, some 14,662 kms away.

 A powerful and moving dance duet that navigates the limits of physical expression. Choreographed by Gary Lang, Artistic Director of NT Dance Company, the work communicates a story of personal trauma and poses questions about relationships between country of origin, identity, adoption, the criminal justice system and psychological health.

 The work is an international cross-cultural collaboration between Gary Lang’s Indigenous-owned Northern Territory Dance Company and Northumbria University’s Assistant Professors, Dr Laura Fish and Liz Pavey in the UK. The project uses dance to tell this complex story and provides an international platform for engagement with important global debates concerning dislocation, social justice, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and ensuing conversations within Australia and the UK about ‘race’, identity and equality.