More than a political statement: Carly Sheppard’s White Face

The Next Wave Festival provides a supportive environment for allowing artists  to develop their creative work. Carly Sheppard explores her Aboriginality and racism in the dance work White Face.

By TODD SHILTON  with GEMMA CLARKE

Established in 1984, the Next Wave festival continues to celebrate ever-changing and interdisciplinary art through creativity and experimentation.

The festival features theatre, new media, literature and dance, as well as performance and visual arts. Exhibitions and events are scattered all over Melbourne, from private residences in Kensington to The Substation in Newport.

Part of the Next Wave festival is a focus on helping aspiring artists progress through its Kickstart program.

Artists develop their idea in a supportive environment, working – sometimes for years – on works for future festivals.

White Face, a dance work created by Carly Sheppard, was funded through the Next Wave Kickstart program. Sheppard is a descendant of the Wallangamma and Takalaka tribes in Northern Queensland, and the work explores her Aboriginality.

Part way through White Face, Sheppard assumes the identity of Chase, an ocker, foul-mouthed youth struggling with the sudden knowledge of her indigenous heritage.

“I used to hate Abos,” says Chase, shifting her feet and wiping her nose.

Confronting and mesmerising, Sheppard and supporting dancer Ryl Harris weave the story of Sheppard’s heritage and of the conflicts that define her spirituality and racial identity as a fair-skinned indigenous Australian.

In this way Chase becomes a mirror for Sheppard’s exploration – a view inside the shift in perspective necessary to include Aboriginality in an already formed cultural identity.

Rather than looking outward, White Face is an introspective study. Deeply reflective and powerful in its execution, Sheppard's and Harris’s struggle with each other characterises Sheppard’s own journey.

In a work defined partly by its silence, the intensity of the raw monologue that Sheppard delivers as Chase is shocking in its directness.

While still peppered with humour, the intimacy and the completeness of her transition makes it hard to watch.

White Face is not just a political statement about an Australia in the midst of resurging racial debate. To dismiss it as such would be miss the point entirely. Intense and thought provoking, White Face is an impressive work from a strong and introspective artist, one of many the festival is hoping to promote and display.

The Next Wave Festival ran from April 16 to May 11.