The title Prologue signals a beginning—this new moving image work by Canberra-born, Worimi artist Dean Cross marks the start of an unfolding story.

Shot on Super 8 film near Cross’s home on Walbunja Country (Braidwood, NSW), the work speaks directly to where it is being exhibited: the large video screen outside the Canberra Theatre Centre in Civic Square, and for its short duration, it brings a different perspective on landscape and place. It also signals a creative engagement by Cross with a moment in Australian cultural history when —the Australian Ballet’s first original production, The Display (1964), was premiered at the Canberra Theatre in June 1965.

The Display, choreographed and directed by Robert Helpmann with designs by Sidney Nolan and score by Malcolm Williamson became a landmark in our national cultural history and was promoted at the time, as the first work in ballet by an all-Australian team. Essentially the story of encounter between a lyrebird, a female and rival groups in a bush setting, The Display’s deeper meaning is an exploration and critique of Australia’s national identity, and it has since prompted ongoing reflection on how settler Australia acknowledges the lands taken from First Nations people.

Robert McFarlane Sidney Nolan and Robert Helpmann at Bonython Gallery, Adelaide Arts Festival c. 1964 National Library of Australia Courtesy the estate of Robert McFarlane

Helpmann, Nolan and Williamson were all expatriates living in London and wrestled with their own individual and complex relationships to their homeland. Like many artists of their generation, they had left Australia in search of creative freedom and wider exposure to the world, yet they all remained deeply invested in contributing to its cultural life.

Nolan, long fascinated by expanding painting beyond the picture frame, had already designed for ballets such as Icare (1940) and The Rite of Spring (1963). In developing The Display, Helpmann and Nolan watched Dancing Orpheus (1962), an ABC short film featuring the call of a lyrebird in a Victorian forest. Nolan’s designs included a shimmering forest backdrop and a lyrebird costume—now on display in the A Total Work of Art: Sidney Nolan and the Stage exhibition at Canberra Museum + Gallery.

Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) Costume for the character of ‘The Male’ (Lyrebird) Original tail and harness made by Hugh Skillen, in London, 1963. On loan from the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne, gift of the Australian Ballet, 1998.

Dean Cross also works across disciplines. Formerly a professional dancer, he later studied Visual Arts at the Australian National University. His creative practice includes dance, painting, photography, drawing, and moving image—often layered together in collage-like form.

Prologue continues Cross’s ongoing dialogue with Nolan’s work. In Sometimes I Miss the Applause (2022), he addressed Nolan’s designs for the 1963 production of The Rite of Spring which included Nolan’s hand-painted costumes, inspired by the body painting of unnamed Aboriginal people. In Sometimes I Miss the Applause, Cross disguised his own face with a copy of a Sidney Nolan self portrait.

Dean Cross Sometimes I Miss the Applause 2022 HD video with sound, 8:38 mins Commissioned Heide Museum and Gallery Displayed at Canberra Museum and Gallery 2022

The presentation of Prologue coincides with the Australian Ballet’s return to the Canberra Theatre Centre. It also anticipates a major solo project by Cross, to be presented in the Nolan Gallery at Canberra Museum + Gallery in late 2026.

Cross explains:

“This work is part of a process to deploy parallel modes of making—one drawn from Nolan and Helpmann’s methods, and another from Country and my connection to it as a Worimi man. At its heart is a question about where Western and non-Western creative practices intersect and diverge, and how new models can emerge that centre First Nations voices.”

In Prologue, the camera moves quietly through familiar country, where bushland meets fenced farmland. It resists spectacle, its ordinariness is its strength—a visual expression of deep knowing.

We invite you to return to Canberra Museum + Gallery in 2026 to see the next chapter in this unfolding story: Dean Cross’s ‘Epilogue’.

Supported by Creative Australia, the Australian Government’s Arts Funding and Advisory Body.