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Last Light—highlighting twenty years of Tracks and the Darwin Festival

by Roslyn Dundas

In This Article

Every year, for the last twenty years, Tracks Dance Company has been an integral part of the Darwin Festival. To celebrate this amazing milestone, the company looked to the sea and the sky of Darwin and created a dance work reflective of the warmth of Darwin and the popular local experience of ending the day with the setting sun. 

An audience sits on chairs in a circle around dancers dressed in white. Behind them, a large park tree is silhouetted as the sun sets over the sea behind them.Last Light was performed against a countdown into the night, with a cast of local professional and community dancers. Photos: Roslyn Dundas

Tracks Dance Company has developed a strong reputation for their site-specific and community engaged work. Recipient of the Australian Dance Award in 2009 and 2013 for youth or community dance, they have also been shortlisted this year and in 2010 and 2014. Their Darwin Festival works have highlighted unique aspects and places of Darwin. For Last Light, an outdoor park was the stage and the Arafura Sea the backdrop.

Imagine a runway stretching to the horizon, with you and the dancers wearing your own personal headsets, listening to an evocative and original soundtrack. Allow yourself to be drawn into this landscape wrapped in sound, whilst taking in images and actions, allowing your sunlit thoughts to melt away. Last Light will move you out of the day, past the blood-red sun hitting the horizon, and through twilight into the night. —Tracks website

A group of people gather in a park in front of the sign 2. HEADSETS

The Darwin Festival was originally conceived as a celebration of the strength of Darwin in the rebuilding following the 1974 Cyclone Tracy, taking place as the Bougainvilia Festival in 1978. In the 1990s the Festival shifted to have a greater focus on the arts, reflecting the place of contemporary Darwin.

Darwin Festival reflects Darwin’s position at the Top End of Australia, its unique Indigenous and multicultural population and its close proximity to Asia while at the same time showcasing some of Australia’s finest arts performers. —Darwin Festival website

Tracks are 'unashamedly local' and make great use of their home town and sites across the Northern Territory to explore dance, community and culture. The ongoing relationship with the Darwin Festival is a wonderful opportunity to view the company’s creativity as part of a unique Australian arts festival.