Gold Dust

Helpmann Winner Tara Jade Samaya performs dance solo ‘Gold Dust’ commissioned by Punq festival 2024 (Pop up North Queensland).

There is a faux Gold artefact resting patiently, radiating gravity and desire. Echoing Australia’s iconic Gold mining history, an unlikely fantastical character crosses between different points in time, genders and consciousness.
The promise and yearning for substance met with the ephemerality of dance. This divining ritual is forever seeking, consuming, relentlessly transfixed on her search, obsessed, and ever the explorer.
She traverses the Fish Lane arts precinct with a curious and visceral sound score seeping from the shadows, echoing the history of earth and metal.
Is she the seeker of gold, or is she gold itself? How does she measure her worth? Where does she search for value? And at what cost?