DADDY. Dance-Performance by Joel Bray

From the sugar-sweet idyll of childhood memories to the glazed excesses of queer adulthood, Joel's story proves that a sweet tooth is a dangerous thing. Short-lived highs give way to the inevitable crash before the cycle begins again. And like a child in a candy store, an imperial hunger for Aboriginal Australia devours everything it encounters—land, women, and children.


Funny, provocative, and heartfelt, Daddy tickles the nerves of desire while simultaneously poking at the wounds left behind by colonization. Joel Bray examines one of the great paradoxes of our time: Why are we so hungry when we are offered so much? With a mixture of conversation, dance, and playful audience participation, Daddy is a sweet feast with a deadly aftertaste.



Director / Choreographer / Performer: Joel Bray

Composition and Sound Design: Naretha Williams

Lighting Design: Katie Sfetkidis

Set and Costume Design: James Lew

Collaborating Director: Stephen Nicolazzo

Collaborating Choreographer: Niharika Senapati

Dramaturgy: SJ Norman

Audio Technical Support: Daniel Nixon

Lighting Associate: Nicholas Moloney

Piano: Niv Marinberg

Voices: Josh Price, Jason Tamiru

Producer: Veronica Bolzon




Joel Bray is a choreographer based in Naarm (Melbourne) whose artistic practice emerges from his cultural heritage as a Wiradjuri man. His works are intimate encounters in unorthodox spaces, inviting the audience to co-create and explore the experiences of a light-skinned Aboriginal and contemporary gay man in an increasingly digital and isolated world. He uses his body to explore these themes – indigenous heritage, skin color, and queer sexuality.


Bray trained at NAISDA Dance College (Australia's leading training institution for young people from Aboriginal communities) and WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) before continuing his career in Europe and Israel with Jean-Claude Gallotta, Company CeDeCe, Kolben Dance, Machol Shalem Dance House, Yoram Karmi's FRESCO Dance Company, Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor, and Roy Assaf.


Bray's first work as a choreographer, Biladurang, won three Melbourne Fringe Awards in 2016. Since then, Bray has created numerous dance performances, including Dharawungara, Daddy, Considerable Sexual License, I Liked it BUT..., Garabari, Homo Pentecostus, and Monolith.


During the pandemic, Joel Bray created the 7-channel video installation Giraru Galing Ganhagirri about his return to his father's country, which premiered in 2022 as part of an exhibition curated by Hetti Perkins at the National Gallery of Australia.

In fall 2022, he presented "The Land Remembers", introduced by a specially developed performance, at the conclusion of the Songlines-Exhibition at the Humboldt Forum.



Trigger warning

The performer interacts with the audience. The performance deals with topics such as racism, discrimination, and sexism, as well as psychological and/or physical violence. Sensory stimuli: Flickering, bright lights and loud music/noises, heavy stage fog.



- Price: 20 / reduced 10 EUR
- from 16 years
- Hall 1
- Language: English