Australia Dancing - Blanco, Raymond (1961

Blanco, Raymond (1961 - )

Raymond Blanco is a highly regarded choreographer and leader in the development of contemporary Indigenous dance in Australia. His paternal heritage is Magarem of Mer Island and Injinoo (Queensland), and his maternal heritage is Erub Island in the Torres Strait, and Malay. Blanco was born in Townsville, grew up in Innisfail and spent most of his later school years in Geraldton, Western Australia. His entry into dance studies was at NAISDA Dance College in 1980. After graduating in 1984, Blanco embarked on a career that would encompass dance and choreography, acting in theatre, opera, film and television, dance in education and community arts.

At NAISDA Raymond Blanco became a member of the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre (AIDT), the student performing group for which he created his earliest choreography, Prison, in 1982. This work was performed at the opening of the new Australian Parliament six years later. His choreographic and directorial talents were recognised in 1988 when he created several works. A year later he was appointed founding artistic director of AIDT as a separate group under the auspices of NAISDA. He continued in this position when the group became an independent ensemble known as AIDT (The Company) in 1991. This was an elite ensemble of young Indigenous dancer-choreographers who toured the world to great acclaim, performing in many culturally diverse festivals and theatres until it ceased operating in 1999. Blanco's catalogue grew rapidly and in 1991 he devised a new direction for Aboriginal dance by creating some of his most important works including Jedda, set to music by Peter Sculthorpe, and commissioning others such as Small Town choreographed by Paul Saliba. He also contributed 'Green/Yellow' to the large and impressive collaborative work, Colours which featured Marilyn Miller's 'Purple/Blue'; Dujon Niue's 'Orange/Red' and Gary Lang's 'White'. Dancers included Breee-an Jordan Munns, Sidney Saltner, Waiata Telfer and Matthew Doyle. In 1992 Blanco choreographed Maralji, which was performed at home and overseas, notably in Nottingham, England where Blanco directed the Aboriginal participation in the International Theatre Workshop.

Throughout his career, traditional dances from different Indigenous communities have been constant and significant aspects of Blanco's creative practice. For instance, in 1991, he programmed dances of the Mer people of Murray Island in a program with Gelam choreographed by Dujon Niue. The following year Blanco created and directed Story Place, the opening ceremony for the Queensland Art Gallery's festival celebrating art works from Cape York. In 1993 Blanco created On the Spot, a homage to five black women, which premiered in 1994 at the New Zealand International Arts Festival and toured with sold-out and extended seasons in South America, South East Asia and Europe. 1996 saw Blanco creating two major works. The first was "Drums of Mer", the first length work based on Torres Strait legends in the inimitable style of Torres Strait Islander dance; it was a notable success and toured the Pacific. The second was MIMI which Blanco co-choreographed with Rachel Swain for the Marrugeku Company. In 1997 he produced Edge of the Sacred for the Sydney Olympic Festival of the Dreaming in collaboration with composer Peter Sculthorpe and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. A year later, Aji Aboro, commissioned by the French Government, premiered at the opening of the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea.

Other major works include Drums of Mer at the Seymour Centre, Sydney in 1996 and in 1997Edge of the Sacred. The latter was set to Sculthorpe's Earth Cry, Kakadu and From Uluru, played by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as part of a double bill incorporating the opera Black River (1989) by Andrew Schultz and Julianne Schultz. A year later Blanco's work on MIMI was highlighted in the Around the World in 18 days - City of London Festival. In 1998 the Sydney Festival commissioned Blanco to create a new, work Ngalyod. This work was created in collaboration with the French street theatre company Plasticien Volants and the Gulnbalanya community of Oenpelli, in the eastern part of Kakadu National Park. Ngalyod premiered in Melbourne before touring Europe successfully.

Blanco's subsequent collaborative work include Marrugeku's Crying Baby, and taking on the role of Artistic Advisor to the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony. In addition he conceived and produced the opening event for the 8th Festival of Pacific Arts. Here he was assisted by Marilyn Miller in collaboration with an established network of local dancers, community workers, teachers, elementary and high school children and others involved in New Caledonian performing arts. The spectacular event, which took place at Noumea's Magenta Stadium and was telecast live, reflected the diversity of Pacific cultures and the Festival's theme: "Words of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow".

Although dance remained the primary focus of Blanco's career, he was first exposed to wider audiences as an actor on the 1980s ABC Television series Dancing Daze and the children's series Goldfishbowl. Later he would appear in the 1993 docudrama Burning Piano based on the life of Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick White and directed by Jim Sharman. His early stage acting career included the non-singing role of Jacky in Richard Meale's opera Voss based on the eponymous White novel, and directed by Sharman in 1986. That year he also performed in Tony Strachan's State of Shock for Toe Truck Theatre, and two productions in 1988-1989, Munjong for the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust and Whispers in the Heart for Sidetrack Theatre. At Belvoir Street Theatre in 1997 he was associate director and choreographer for Cockroach Opera by radical Indonesian writer Nano Riantiano. Blanco and his cousin Sylvia Blanco were leading dancers in Jindalee Lady, a film directed by Brian Syron and featuring actors Lydia Miller, Michael Leslie, Justine Saunders, and dancers of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Some of Blanco's later productions such as InTentCity and 2Whyte put ongoing Indigenous rights and politics centre stage. InTentCity was based on the Tent Embassy established by Aboriginal protesters in Canberra 1972 and performed at the 40th Anniversary for Macquarie University at the Sydney Opera House in 2004. 2Whyte was was created in 2010 for the Centre of Contemporary Art, Cairns, where he was artist in residence.

From 2003 to 2005 Raymond Blanco was appointed Associate Professor of Australian Indigenous Dance and Culture and Artist in Residence at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has sat on many committees, been a cultural ambassador for the Australian Council for the Arts and a keynote speaker at several dance conferences. In 2011 he was a curriculum consultant to NAISDA College and later appointed the college's Course Coordinator, Dance for 2012. Raymond Blanco has received a number of awards for his contribution to Australian performing arts. First was the Inaugural Robert Tudawalli Award for Best Actor on Screen for his role in the play “Munjong”, filmed and released under the title Blackfellas. He was honoured at the 1993 Dancers Picnic (precursor of the Australian Dance Awards) and named Artist of the Year in the National NAIDOC 1998 Awards. In 2009 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the North Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Innisfail.

Other resources

Find more about Blanco, Raymond in:

Internet - Google
Libraries - Libraries Australia