Stephen Page

On this podcast, we ask some of Australia's most loved writers, historians, thinkers, and performers to reflect on the libraries that have shaped them.

Today, you will hear from Stephen Page.

Stephen Page AO is a Nunukul Ngugi man of the Quandamooka peoples, and a Mununjali man of the Yugambeh nation, Southeast Queensland.

He was artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre from 1991 until 2022.

He was one of the State Library of New South Wales creative fellows in 2026, and Reclaim, the show he created, was performed in the Mitchell Library reading room in September.

I'm Stephen Page, and this is the library that made me.

I was born in 1965, number 10 of 12 kids.

My parents lived on the fringe of Beaudesert, Mununjali land of the Yugambeh nation in Southeast Queensland.

But there were lots of segments.

And one of the key ones was the artistic director was Stephen Page out of the Bangarra Dance Group.

And he just talked about how he was trying to express a modern, in a modern way, sort of the Indigenous character of Australia.

So in a very short space of 12 years, you're saying Australia's cultural identity shifted and embraced First Nations art and iconography.