To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the company is performing Patyegarang, a work of historic significance at the Canberra Theatre from July 17-19.

Bangarra, founded in 1989 by Carole Johnson, an African American, has been under the artistic direction of Stephen Page since 1991.

Page says this new work “has been lingering in his mind for a long time".

It tells, in 70 minutes, the unique story of Patyegarang, a young Aboriginal woman aged about 15, who was blessed with intense and enduring courage.

“This young Aboriginal girl was from the Eora nation, the custodians of the land on which Bangarra has created and performed dance theatre works since 1989,” Page says.

“Bangarra honours the Eora through Patyegarang’s story celebrating the significance of this place and its first peoples.”

Patyegarang’s story tells of her meeting with British soldier Lieutenant William Dawes in Sydney when the first colonial fleet arrived on Eora country in the late 18th century. She teaches him her language and that is the beginning of a special friendship between Dawes and Patyegarang.

Dawes was an astronomer, mathematician and linguist who faithfully recorded his encounters with Patyegarang in his notebooks. The writings reflect Patyegarang’s rich, complex and different view of the world.

Dawes's notebooks were rediscovered in 1972 and are held in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

It may not be common knowledge that Dawes Point adjacent to The Rocks is named after him and, incidentally, is considered by some the No 1. place to live in Sydney.

Page says that any black history that we have not previously known about is knowledge for all Australians and he makes reference to the documentary, First Australians, on SBS television produced by Rachel Perkins.

“What was interesting from an historian’s point of view [about that documentary] was the fact that they presented it from a black historian’s point of view - going right back to the time of first contact and that has always intrigued me,” Page says.

“It was inevitable that in Bangarra’s choreographic repertoire we would acknowledge the wonderful complex diversity of issues that have inspired our stories. We have the opportunity to tell it from a black perspective through our medium of dance theatre and that’s a great thing.”

Another great thing for Page was working as an artistic associate on Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River seen in Canberra last year.

“Obviously the play didn’t talk about the Darug people - so calling them natives was more about the attitudes of that time,” he says. “What we wanted to do with the play The Secret River was to take an essence of that time and include the integral spirit of the people. The characters evolved with me working with Richard Green, a direct Darug Yellamundie Elder, who helped me, the director Neil Armfield, and writer Andrew Bovell, to speak the language in that play.

“When I was doing The Secret River I wasn’t interested in co-directing because I saw it as a white man camping story. If I wanted to do my version I would do a dance version and it just felt like I was being very honest in that process - that I would help creatively, culturally and collaborate.”

After that production Page became aware that in its 25 years Bangarra had “never told a Sydney story”.

Then he met Alana Valentine “who is a wonderful playwright and has museum artform knowledge and we had a yarn. She had undertaken extensive research on William Dawes. It seems there is no record of what happened to Patyegarang after Dawes left.

“Alana’s response was, ‘what a beautiful idea... if you did your dance version and through William’s writing and words we were able to awaken the spirit of Patyegarang.’ ”

The role of Patyegarang, which means grey kangaroo, is performed by Jasmin Sheppard, an Aboriginal woman of Irish, Chinese and Russian Jewish heritage. Her Aboriginal heritage originates from Savannah country - the Tagalaka and Kurtijar peoples from Normanton and Croydon in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Sheppard has a diploma in musical theatre from The Dance Factory and studied traditional dance with the Yirrkala and Lardil communities at the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association Dance College.

“She trained in contemporary dance and her knowledge about past traditional culture and her interest in reawakening that knowledge today has always been of interest to her,” Page says. “Her qualities have always been strong as an actress and song woman and she’s into spoken word and dramatic form.

“We have these moments where we have organic conversations about similar things and I just thought she’s so right. This wasn’t about having a neo-classical dancer do the movements to tell the story, it was more connected to the spirit and finding some interesting physical shape or form and she just seemed right.”

If you are familiar with Bangarra then you will have seen Sheppard perform True Stories, Mathinna, Belong, Terrain, Blak and also in Page’s Warumuk – in the dark night, a collaboration with the Australian Ballet for its Infinity 50^th anniversary production. Her first choreographic work, Macq, debued in Bangarra’s Dance Clan 3 in 2013.

Thomas Greenfield, a guest artist with Bangarra, will perform the role of Lieutenant William Dawes. It is only the fourth time that a non-indigenous dancer has performed with Bangarra.

The score for Patyegarang has been created by Page’s brother David, costumes are by Jennifer Irwin, set and lighting designs are by Jacob Nash and Nick Schlieper respectively and there is a cast of 15 dancers.

Bangarra’s Patyegarang tour, which was launched in Sydney in June, also takes the company to Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Patyegarang by Bangarra Dance Theatre is on at Canberra Theatre Centre from July 17 to 19 at 7.30pm with a 1.30pm matinee on July 19. Bookings: canberratheatrecentre.com.au or phone 6275 2700.