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Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the sacred lands on which we work. We pay our respects to the people of the Kulin Nations and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past present and future.

We recognise all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first storytellers; and that knowledge transfer through storytelling is imbedded in the very DNA of this Country.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices or names of deceased persons in photographs, film, audio recordings or printed material.

Sermsah Bin Saad

Sermsah’s name in the Indigenous  community is synonymous with theatre, television, film, radio, festival circuits, opera, dance and choreography. He was top 7 Males on “So You Think You Can Dance Australia “ in 2008 and made history as the first ever Indigenous dancer introducing Traditional/Contemporary dance on commercial television.

Sermsah credits include touring & performing with Mitch Tambo on the tour Burn the Floor, Bran Nue Dae where he helped lead the dancers in the sequences, The Glitch – ABC, The Preacher – ABC, The Circuit -SBS, The Activist- Nadia Green, Half – Nexus Production Group, Reading Writing Hotline (voice over) Corrugation Road – Black Swan Theatre, Ngalyak & the Flood (International Tour) – Big Mama Productions, Pecan Summer – Short Black Opera, Let Love Rule – Archie Roach, Big Heart – TheatreWorks Love Drunk – Phunktional Theatre, The Visitors – MTC, Muttacar Sorry Business – Yirra Yaakin and wrote his own and performed his own play developments of The Lighthouse – Yellamundie Festival, Liyan – Melbourne Fringe & Seventh  Season – Yellamundie Festival. Above all his artistic achievements, Sermsah values his heritage. A proud Nyikina man from the Kimberley’s. He believes in ‘Liyan” a saying springing from his hometown of Broome/Derby WA meaning connection to country, spirit and instinctual knowledge.

Sermsah is an educator who teaches dance and storytelling through movement and theatre into schools/organisations to openly discuss the terrible atrocities of colonialism and the displacement of Aboriginal people in their own country. He says, ‘We have been subjected to this for too long and it  still continues systemically today. Enough is Enough. Sovereignty has never ceded.’