The Players
Theona Councillor
Theona Councillor is a Naaguja-Wilunyu woman whose ancestors are from the Greenough and Bowes Rivers. With over 20 years of experience in the music industry, Theona has recorded three albums, performed at numerous festivals, and facilitated many singer-songwriting workshops and cultural events that support and celebrate her Naaguja Culture. Extending these skills to the theatre, Theona is currently working on the creative development and co-production of Murla-na Bula Wula Bulangul – a thoonbijee or ‘opera' which tells the Councillor family's oral history of frontier violence that took place in Western Australia's Midwest in 1854.
Bruce Denny
Bruce Denny’s heritage is Yamatji down his mother’s side and native American down his father’s. Bruce started his acting career in the late 1980s, firstly in Community Theatre and then progressing to professional work both as an Actor, Director and Writer. Directing credits include Kangaroo Stew at the Blue Room Theatre, Dating Black for Yirra Yaakin Theatre, Presence at the Fly by Night Club and at Subiaco Art centre, The Monologue season for the Luxe Bar and Scherazade for the Oasis Resort. Assistant Director roles have included, FIFO and Woolah for Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company as well as working on the development of, If I Drown, Cracked, FIFO and Dating Black for Yirra Yaakin, and York and 1942 for Black Swan Theatre Company. Bruce has also directed several plays and musicals for regional theatre groups. Other theatre credits include The Sum of Us, Cracked, The Vignettes, Yirra Yarns and Woolah with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, several productions with WA Opera including Macbeth, Tristan & Isolde, Nabucco, Madam Butterfly, Carmen, La Traviata, The Magic Flute, Rigoletto and Aida and Do You Know Me with Epiphany Productions presented at Guerrilla Fest. Film and television credits include. Below, The Heights, Itch, Paper Planes, Gallipoli, Cloud Street, Bran Nue Dae, Leather, The Mickelburg Stitch, Leaky Boat, Surviving Mumbai, Sundowner, Speed Date, Storm World, Two Fists One Heart, Bush Patrol, The Hero. Australia the Story of us.
Peter Docker
Docker appeared in the web series Yokai by Brooke Collard, & Warm Props by Jub Clerc, and short films Blight by Perun Bonser, The Opportunist by Daniel King, and Harry’s War by Richard Frankland. On TV Docker appeared in Mystery Road, Jandamarra’s War, The Circuit, Weewar, Pozieres, Great Escape: The Reckoning, The Shark Net, Blue Heelers, Stingers, Neighbours, The Man From Snowy River, and The Flying Doctors. Feature films include These Final Hours, X: Night of Vengeance, Dying Breed, The Missing, Eightball, and Redball. In theatre Docker has played in Woolah, Conversations With The Dead, Panawathi Girl, Honey Spot, and So Long Suckers for Yirra Yaakin; Jandamarra for Black Swan & Bunuba Cultural Enterprises, Rock Hole Long Pipe for CANWA (Coolgardie), Holy Day & Scenes From An Execution For SA State, and MacBeth for MTC. Docker has also appeared with NT Arts, Deckchair, PTC, Barnstorm, La Mama, Carlton Courthouse, Melb Comedy Fest, Castlemaine State Fest, Ilbijerri, Kooemba Jdarra, Melb Workers Theatre, Melb International Fest, Hole In The Wall, and Griffin Theatre. As a writer Docker has published three novels: Sweet One, The Waterboys, & Someone Else’s Country. Two plays co-written for Yirra Yaakin: So Long Suckers & Lingo Lah Lah. And a range of other publications including WOOLAH (Yirra Yaakin – The last 10 years)
Dr George Criddle
George Criddle is an artist and writer with early settler heritage in Jambinu, Geraldton. George completed their PhD in 2021 titled, ‘Shifting Mentality: A Case Study in Going Home’ which followed their creative practice of communicating colonial silences to family. In 2023, George launched a self-published book ‘Summaries of a Settler Artist’s Journal: Letters to Elizabeth Criddle’ as part of the Big Sky Festival in Geraldton, a book which creatively documents individual and collective family learning about the Pelican Spring Massacre of 1854. George is now co-producing a truth-telling opera Murla-na Bula Wula Bulangul (now known asThunbiji) with Naaguja woman, Theona Councillor, and is a lecturer at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
Rubeun Yorkshire (Ingaarda Wadjuri/Wudjari Kepa Kurl/Naaguja)
Rubeun began his journey with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company in 2015. Rubeun immediately shone in his work in the Kaatijin series of plays for primary schools’ audiences. Rubeun was identified as a young artist who would give a great return on investment. For example – even though the fight choreography has not gone on to be the main element of Rubeun’s artistic practice – doing the course gave him an incredible confidence and self-realisation of his own talent and steadfastness in the face of challenges. One of those artists who can do many things and do them very well. Rubeun Yorkshire is a visual artist, dancer, stage combat choreographer, and actor known for his performance as Banquo in the award-winning production of Hecate (Yirra Yaakin). Graduating from WAAPA in 2010, Rubeun performed in Kep Kaatijin (2015), Boodjar Kaatijin (2016 – 2017), Djinda Kaatijin (2017) and Kaarla Kaatijin (2018) for Yirra Yaakin. Rubeun was a key collaborator on Noongar Wonderland (Boomerang and Spear) presented at the 2022 Perth Festival, co-choreographing a series of dances for Noongar-language dance tracks by Maatakitj (Clint Bracknell). He also performed in West Australian Youth Theatre Company’s award-winning Fringe World show, Rest (2019). He worked as fight choreographer on the productions Hecate (2020), Conversations with the Dead (2017), and Brothers Wreck (2024). Rubeun worked as the Community Liaison for the Songbird tour (2024) where his great cultural knowledge and amenable demeanour made him an asset to the cast and crew as well as to the communities in which we performed. Rubeun is an emerging leader who is greatly respected as an artist and as a strong Noongar Maaman. Rubeun is the only First Nations fully accredited fight choreographer in the country. Yirra Yaakin was able to support Rubeun obtaining this qualification through the Next Step Program funded by Woodside Energy. Rubeun has also completed a range of public art for corporate, major festivals and education institutions. His voice is featured on the ground-breaking language reclamation film: Fist of Fury Noongar Daa(2021).
Amanda Rowland
Amanda Rowland trained and practised as an artist in Melbourne from the 1980s. After an unplanned journey to the Midwest,WA in 2001 she was drawn back to live in her home state, in the City of Geraldton. During her 25 years in the Midwest, she transitioned from artist to teacher and graphic designer – finally finding her feet as a practitioner and writer in the changing world of Agricultural and Pastoral industries. She devoted 6 years to learning and writing about all things regenerative in soil and soul at a time when new land management practises were finding traction across all aspects of farming. She produced a podcast called Wildfood from the Rangelands after a time spent on Edah Station in the Murchison, that transitioned to Soil and Human Health. In her first days in Geraldton, Amanda wandered into the Walkaway Museum and met one of her Drummond ancestors, a man called John Nicol Drummond. This (6th generation great) uncle came from the Avon Valley to become the first policeman in the newly established colonial outpost of Champion Bay, now Geraldton. Thunbiji, the project, has been a gift for Amanda as a descendant of a settler family involved in frontier violence. A generous invitation to the ceremony on the site of the Pelican Spring massacre from the Naaguja family, the Councillors in 2024 has led to her involvement in this project. For Amanda, Thunbiji is an important signpost to a fertile cross-cultural future; one informed by a shared understanding of the past.