The Art House Presents
Preparing Ground
Co-directed by Marilyn Miller, Jasmin Sheppard & Katina Olsen

What the world calls climate change, First Peoples call colonisation. 

Preparing Ground, co-directed by Marilyn Miller, Jasmin Sheppard and Katina Olsen, is a powerful new language that dances the weight of history and the fire of resistance. It holds the warmth of family voices, quiet moments of care, and the heartache of displacement. 

This is a call to join First Peoples’ care of Land - an urgent act for our shared future.

Three women share the stage - their bodies carrying stories through cycles of resilience and reclamation. Projections reveal a landscape that is both sacred and stolen, while sound and movement entwine to evoke a connection to Country for the audience, and for the performers one that cannot be erased. Over 60 minutes, Preparing Ground shifts between past and present, tradition and disruption, asking us all to listen, to witness, to remember.

Developed over six years through collaboration with the performers’ communities on their Countries, Preparing Ground embodies First Nations storytelling sovereignty.

Weaving intricate choreography, vivid projections of Country, and a dynamic set that shifts and transforms, the performance examines the enduring impacts of colonisation on land, language, and community, this world premiere is an invitation to consider, what does it mean to belong to a land that remembers?

Through its mainstage performance and community engagement activities led by local First Nations knowledge holders, Preparing Ground centers local voices and truths. It is both a celebration of cultural endurance and a call to action, offering powerful insights for the present—and hope for the future.

Preparing Ground is commissioned by Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), BlakDance and Brisbane Festival, with support from NAISDA Dance College, The Art House Wyong. It is supported by the Australian Government’s Indigenous Languages and Arts program, and the Major Festivals Initiative, managed by Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with Brisbane Festival and Sydney Festival, with additional project funding from Creative Australia. Preparing Ground is also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, Sunshine Coast Council and the City of Gold Coast. Additional support has been provided by Bulmba-ja Arts Centre, HOTA (Home of the Arts), Brisbane Powerhouse and Judith Wright Arts Centre.