Before he became a dancer, Nunukul and Yugambeh man Russell Page was a promising rugby league player. At the age of 16, overcoming an initial rebellion against the discipline of dance, he joined his brother Stephen at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA) dance school in Sydney and emerged as a breathtakingly original and compelling performer. With their brother David, Stephen and Russell formed Bangarra Dance Theatre, with Stephen as artistic director, David as resident
composer and Russell as the company's principal dancer.
In Tracey Moffatt's Some lads, Russell, along with fellow dancers Gary Lang, Matthew Doyle and Graham Blanco, animate Moffatt's makeshift studio at the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre in Sydney. In front of a painter's drop sheet, they turn the space of the image into a zone of dynamic possibility. An important early work in Moffatt's oeuvre, the series is equally significant as a tribute to the vision and influence of an important community of First Nations performers who themselves effected a profound shift in the cultural landscape of Australia.
Gift of the artist 1998. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Tracey Moffatt
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Tracey Moffatt (2 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Joanna Gilmour reflects on 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.
Despite once expressing a limited interest in the self portrait, the idea of it has figured strongly in much of Tracey Moffatt's work and has done so in some of her most distinctive and compelling images.
