Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Frances Rings.
The Wirangu and Mirning woman, 54, is a dancer, choreographer and the artistic director and co-CEO of Bangarra Dance Theatre. She has won six Helpmann Awards. Frances Rings: “As blackfellas, we wear a cloak of trauma .
.. Doing this, for me, is so healing.
It’s medicine.” Credit: Louie Douvis MONEY Is it true that you grew up wanting to be a dancer from a young age, but there wasn’t enough money for you to pursue it? That’s correct. I didn’t even realise that dance could be a career prospect, that you could make it your life, be paid for it and travel the world.
The dream! Only you didn’t know it could be one. I had no idea. But girls at my school did ballet, and I was like, “Well, I’m already a dancer” – in the backyard with my siblings, creating these little productions.
That was our play, our imaginary world, our escape – and, in a lot of ways, a tool for survival. Interesting. Most people think of dance as artistic expression, but you also frame it as a tool to protect yourself.
How so? Because you could be whoever you wanted to be. You could create whatever world: you could be rich, from a different country. I loved that.
When I was in year 11, dance was brought in as an HSC subject. That’s when I began formal dancing. Great ti.
