swim

by Ellen Van Neerven

Sizzling hot concrete. Rainbow towels on half-dead grass. On a hot summer's day, bodies of all shapes, colours and sizes journey to the public pool longing to do one thing …

swim.

Mununjali poet Ellen van Neerven is one of Australia's finest and most awarded writers (Throat, Heat and Light). swim is their debut work for the stage.

Genderfluid protagonist E negotiates the space between the men's and women's change rooms. They flex in front of the cute pool attendant. As they step onto the diving blocks, the words of their Aunty come to them—and suddenly, the crystalline blue tiles give way to much deeper water.

swim is delicate and tough, honest and achingly beautiful—and it muses on everything from the sovereignty of water to gender identity and the binding strength of culture and family. Told with cheek and heart by Baad/Yawuru performer Dani Sib (Bran Nue Dae), Griffin Theatre Company is proud to premiere this work on Gadigal Land at Carriageworks before it travels to Yugambeh Country (Gold Coast) for an exclusive season on Country at BLEACH* Festival.

82 pages, Paperback

Published August 30, 2024

About the author

Ellen van Neerven (they/them) is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, and non-fiction on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land. van Neerven’s first book, Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), a novel-in-stories, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. van Neerven’s poetry collection Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) won the Tina Kane Emergent Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize. Throat (UQP, 2020) is the recipient of Book of the Year, the Kenneth Slessor Prize, and the Multicultural Award at 2021 NSW Literary Awards, and the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award.

Reviews

[kiara skene · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars 100%
beautiful truly.

“
breathe
just breathe
breathe
just breathe
breathe
just breathe
breathe with the water
…
I swam through sexism
Glass ceilings
Double standards
Just extreme mental strength. I don’t crumble. I just keep powering through!
I am what it takes!
“

an authentically Blak queer perspective that we need more of.

[Molly]

After reading Heat and Light by the same author, I can't believe I didn't know their work would translate this well into a playtext. But alas, it was my skill issue.
A fantastic work.