ILBIJERRI Theatre Company and Belvoir came together in 2011 over a shared sense of outrage at the injustices surrounding the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee. But, prompted by the Palm Island community, we looked for a way to turn anger into real understanding and new possibilities. The result is BEAUTIFUL ONE DAY – a theatrical documentary about the irrepressible life and times of Palm Island.
BEAUTIFUL ONE DAY has been performed in Sydney, Melbourne and across Victoria. In June the cast travelled to London to perform at the Southbank Centre as part of theOrigins Festival of First Nations. We are so proud to be sharing the story of Palm Island with audiences across Australia and now the world, but we want to show it to the most important audience of all – the Palm Island community.
In September this year we have been invited by the Palm Island community to perform BEAUTIFUL ONE DAY as part of the annual Palm Island Spring Fair. This will be a free outdoor performance open to the entire Palm Island community. We need your help to get there…
To give you an idea of the costs involved:
$30 is ferry ticket from Townsville to Palm Island
$150 is a night in the Palm Island Motel
$250 is a flight from Melbourne/Sydney to Townsville
$500 transports the cast to and from their home, the airport and ferry terminal
$3000 freights all of the costumes, props, lighting, sound and audio-visual equipment to Palm Island
$5000 hires all of the lighting, sound and audio-visual equipment we need to stage a professional outdoor production on Palm Island
As a company we have 25 years experience touring our productions nationally and internationally, however touring to Palm Island does present some unique challenges. This will be the first time ILBIJERRI Theatre Company has presented a professional production in a remote community. Palm Island does not have a theatre so we will perform BEAUTIFUL ONE DAY outdoors. We will need to bring all of the lighting, sound and audio-visual equipment we require with us. Over the past 2 years the experience of presenting TANDERRUM in Federation Square for the opening of the Melbourne Festival has given us good understanding of how to present a successful large-scale outdoor community event.