Black Arm Band

Black Arm Band is a flexible musical theatre ensemble that performs on stages and in community contexts across the globe, as well as extensively across metropolitan, regional and remote Australia. In an international context, the group interrogates and promotes contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through the creation of large-scale music theatre productions, music, installations and multimedia projects. In seven years, the company has provided professional pathways and opportunities for many artists and performed to over one million people. Black Arm Band's current performance, titled dirtsong, inspired by the words of award-winning author Alexis Wright, mixes traditional approaches and contemporary songs, existing repertoire and newly commissioned music to conjure a sense of 'country' as not only a geographical place, but as encounters, memories, obligations and nature.