Marrugeku

Marrugeku is Australia’s leading Indigenous intercultural dance theatre company, based in Broome, Western Australia and Carriageworks in Sydney. Marrugeku is dedicated to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians working together to develop new dance languages that are restless, transformative and unwavering. Led by co-artistic directors choreographer/dancer Dalisa Pigram and director/dramaturg Rachael Swain, they co-conceive and facilitate Marrugeku’s productions and research laboratories, introducing audiences to the unique and potent structures of Indigenous knowledge systems and the compelling experience of intercultural performance. Marrugeku harnesses the dynamic of performance exchange drawn from remote, urban, intercultural and trans Indigenous approaches to expand the possibilities of contemporary dance.

Dalisa Pigram 
A Yawuru/Bardi woman born and raised in Broome, Dalisa Pigram also has Malay and Filipina heritage. A co-devising movement artist with Marrugeku since its first production, 
Mimi (1996), she became Co-Artistic Director with  Rachael Swain in 2008. She has worked as choreographer, co-choreographer, performer and co-director on all of Marrugeku’s major works, including Burning Daylight, Cut the Sky, Le Dernier Appel, Jurrungu Ngan-ga, 
Burrbgaja Yalirra, Mutiara, and Ngurragabu. Her solo work Gudirr Gudirr received an Australian Dance Award and Green Room Award, and she received Creative Australia’s 
2023 Dance Award. Dalisa Pigram is committed to maintaining Indigenous language and culture through arts and education, working closely with and for her community.

Rachael Swain
Rachael Swain is a director, dramaturg and performance  researcher of Scottish/Irish/English descent. Born in  Aotearoa/New Zealand, she lives on Gadigal land, Sydney. She is Co-Artistic Director of Marrugeku with Dalisa Pigram,  directing and co-facilitating intermedial processes to create Marrugeku’s award winning productions. Rachael trained at the European Dance Development Centre, Arnhem, DASARTS Amsterdam and in film at UTS, Sydney. She  co-curates Marrugeku’s dance and dramaturgy research laboratories. She is author of Dance in Contested Land  (2020) and co-editor of Marrugeku: Telling That Story (2021). Rachael holds an ARC Future Fellowship (part-time) 
at UNSW, researching visual dramaturgies in intercultural performance.