Burralgung ‘Brolga’ Dreaming

Burralgang ‘Brolga’ Dreaming was created as a personal empowerment piece. Brolga, was a girl born into a time when girls were not allowed to dance. One day she got up with the men and started to dance and everyone was captivated with her dancing. She wasn’t always a good dancer, she had to practice, and take self-initiative to grow in her skills and talents and create her own special pieces of movement. She soon became known as the best dancer on Country.

She captivated the eyes of many people including the warragul ‘evil spirit’. One day, the warragul swept Brolga up into a willy-willy’ dust storm’ to take her away for himself. But her community followed the tracks of the warragul to bring Brolga home. The Warragul realised her couldn’t escape with her so he swept her up and she disappeared. A Coolibah tree appeared where Brolga was taken and out from behind it stemmed a tall, beautiful, grey bird that danced gracefully as she flapped her wings and moved gracefully. This is when her community and Elders knew Brolga was transformed into what we now call a burralgang ‘brolga’ bird.

Brolga’s Dreaming is one of my favourite stories about going against the grain to follow our passions and explore who we are. I have been a self-taught dancer since I was a young girl and became known as a dance instructor when I was in year 8 at school. I also had the opportunity to manage and teach at the dance studio at PCYC in Dubbo for 5 years. Burralgang is also my personal totem and holds significance to me on a deeper level leading to my natural connection to movement, storytelling and flow through dancing.