This new edition of the script and score from Broome’s trail-blazing musical Bran Nue Dae, written by the late Jimmy Chi and musicians from the Broome band, Kuckles, breaths new life into the Magabala classic.

Bran Nue Dae took Australia by storm when it premiered at the Perth International Arts Festival in 1990 — national tours followed. It won the prestigious Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award and was highly commended in the Human Rights awards the same year. In 1991, the book won the Special Award in the WA Premier’s Book Awards. A film adaptation with Jessica Mauboy, Erine Dingo and Missy Higgins was released in 2009. Set in the 1960s — the era of assimilation, the Vietnam war, Land Rights, the White Australia policy and the 1967 Referendum — it is a partly autobiographical story, one shared by many of Chi’s era.

Homesick Willy is expelled from his Catholic boarding school in Perth and embarks on the long road-trip home to Broome and Djarindjin, with a crew of irreverent, larger-than-life characters. He is in search of identity, love and belonging. On the surface a simple story, Bran Nue Dae explores darker truths of the era from an Aboriginal perspective. As Jimmy Chi once said, ‘The naked truth is ugly, but when he’s dressed in the fine clothes of the parable, then he becomes acceptable.

Jimmy Chi was born in Broome in 1948 to a father of Chinese and Japanese descent. His mother was the daughter of a Bard woman from the Dampier peninsula and a Scottish station manager. Jimmy was a composer, musician and playwright. He and his colleagues won numerous awards for Bran Nue Dae, including the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, and a Certificate of Commendation in the 1991 Human Rights Awards. Jimmy Chi pass away in 2017.

The band Kuckles (Broome Kriol for cockles) was formed in the early 1980s when Broome musicians Jimmy Chi, Stephen Pigram, Michael Mavromatis (Manolis), Garry Gower and Patrick Bin Amat were students at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) in Adelaide. ‘Milliya Rummara’, their best known recording, means ‘brand new day’ in the Yawuru language. Kuckles made an indelible mark on Australian music; its legacy lives on and original band members performed in the 2020 production of Bran Nue Dae.