Yirrkala, April 2026
This Easter, we’re in Yirrkala for a Corrugated Iron holiday program. Yirrkala is nestled in beautiful East Arnhem Land, 22 kilometres away from Nhulunbuy/Gove. The population is around 650 and the local
language groups are Yolngu Matha-based.
I’m travelling with my good friend and colleague, Nat Lesley (Miss Nutella), who will be supporting our circus activity and running the dance program. We support each other’s artforms and pick up new skills along the way.
We have accommodation on the community, managed by the Arts Centre, walking distance from the Rec Hall. I have a room upgrade due to a mix up with the booking. Lucky me.
I have a large aircon space with a clock that stopped at 4.13pm, some time ago. A smile creeps across my face. That tracks. Time moves differently out here. We live in the now. Reflecting on my Yolŋu Matha studies, I know that the language structures time differently - not as “the future”, but as now, later today, or some time later.
Our program begins softly, with young people popping in to share some time with us to see what we’re about. It’s drop-in style, between the hours of 3-8pm. They come, check us out, have a little look-see and a play, maybe they’re interested, maybe they’re not. A couple of kids have some wins with some skills. The whispers ripple out through the community that something is happening in the Rec Hall, a Torres Strait Islander woman and some other lady, with some toys.
It could be fun.
The heat of the day makes it hard to learn new things, so dance goes well in the first instance. Familiarity. Everyone knows how to dance and move - that’s part of life, part of culture. Circus gear is less familiar. It asks you to step out of your comfort zone; it involves making mistakes, being bad at something for a while, needing concentration, taking focus. Not everybody wants to take that risk on first meeting. It’s 34 degrees with 73% humidity - they’d rather be in the shadows under a tree, hanging out with family and scuffling with siblings. As the evening drifts in, families rest in the cool embrace of the grass, with the welcome breeze dancing its comforting fingers through their hair.
Some come and stay a little longer, feeling out the safety of this space with these new blow-ins. Do they have a connection here? Nat is a clear entry point because she has culture, she's from the Torres Strait. One of the young girl's dad is from there. They’re maybe related? Within minutes, she has three young women bustin’ some moves in a smooth bit of choreo she’s spun together. They’re in and looking sharp.
Me? It’ll take a bit longer, but I’m getting some serious side eye and kids are asking where my parents are from. They'll let me show them some tricks of the trade, and stick with it a little longer, once they've sussed me out.
By 5.30pm, the dying embers of sunset are throwing a blanket of light through the chainlink on the side of the building and there is no place to hide from the heat. We get some reprieve from the intensity, chugging some Gatorade to replace all the sweat we've just lost over the last three hours. We're hiding in the dark of the store room for a hot minute.
Everyone else is back under the tree.
Sundown is a different story. The girls have started to experiment with backflipping, and now the younger fellas are interested. The tramp comes out, and it goes off, young folks jumping and flipping through the cool evening air. I look over and there’s a heap of new youngsters, bustling around Nat, clamouring for spinning plates. It’s a forest of arms and sticks, raised high, spell-casting plates into a cyclone of colour and movement.
There’s one young fella, a master flipper, who knows his limits, and his worth. He’s starting to relax in this space, stretching into his strengths and using it as a vehicle for his physical dexterity to have a quiet but clear voice. Others are watching, absorbing the detail.
By the end of the session the space is full of young people with dancing eyes and racing hearts, energising the space; balancing and flipping, groups congregating in the corner - running the new moves they learnt this afternoon. It’s electric.
At 8pm they leave, under duress, because the session is over. They're vibrating with physical energy and ready for some more fun on the basketball court. This night is only just getting started for them.
We, however, are on the floor. Heading back to our rooms for a well-needed shower, we're smiling into the night sky, breathing the air, a quiet, tide‑bitten breath that softens the edges of the day. We reflect on the golden moments, the quiet exchanges of humanity, the joy of a room full of movement.
A packet of noodles is all I can manage for dinner. There’s no internet, and the TV refuses to speak my language. My eyes are already half‑closed anyway. We were at the airport at 6am, and since then we’ve collected gear from a school, bimbled round Woolies, wrangled accommodation, met what feels like a hundred new faces, and run for five hours straight. It's been a long, but satisfying, day.
