This year’s Adelaide Festival programme made a commitment to put First Nations voices first; if outdoor opening show Baleen Moondjan is anything to go by, Ruth Mackenzie and Kath Mainland are on track to deliver. It’s a powerful piece by director and co-writer Stephen Page, who often describes his work as ‘contemporary ceremony’, and there’s something beautiful about the way that idea echoes around the audience as they get ready to watch. All around are little individual ceremonies: placing the beach chairs, laying out the picnic, spreading towels on the pristine sand as the sun sets and the tide moves slowly back. Even before the performers reach the stage, this feels like a place of communal ritual. 

In English and Jandai language, Baleen Moondjan tells the story of Moondjan, an elder, on the day her spirit crosses over to stay for a while with her whale totem, and shows the passing on of cultural knowledge to her grand-daughter Nundigili. It celebrates the sacred relationship of First Nations people to their totems and land, sea and sky through song, music and dance. This all plays out against the background of Jacob Nash’s jaw-dropping, monumental set of whale bones jutting into the darkening sky, enhanced by Damien Cooper’s stunning lighting design. It’s a huge stage and the cast fill it particularly effectively: there are only four performers, two musicians and six dancers, but their presence projects and multiplies. At times other-worldly, at times a display power, the whole cast moves as one, although Elaine Crombie’s Gindara is particularly majestic. The final scene, as her voice reaches across the ocean, will linger in our collective memory for years to come.  

Baleen Moondjan, Glenelg (Pathawilyangga) Beach, until 2 March, 8pm.