Bran Nue Dae
1990 Australian stage musical
Bran Nue Dae is a 1990 musical set in Broome, Western Australia, that tells stories and of issues relating to Indigenous Australians. It was written by Jimmy Chi and his band Kuckles and friends, and was the first Aboriginal Australian musical. The name is a phonetic representation of "Brand New Day".
Background and description
The musical was originally directed by Andrew Ross and choreographed by Michael Leslie. It premiered at the Octagon Theatre in February–March 1990 as part of the Festival of Perth, and later toured nationally.
The musical won the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards in 1990. The following year the published script and score won the Special Award in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. Theatre critic Katharine Brisbane wrote in 1999:Bran Nue Dae in 1989 was a turning point in the short history of Aboriginal writing for the theatre. Twenty years of evolution: in writers, political activists, actors, dancers, singers and song-writers, preceded it.
Gail Mabo performed in the Sydney run of the musical in 1991.
The public source identifies “Bran Nue Dae” as 1990 Australian stage musical. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bran, Australian and stage.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bran Nue Dae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.