Kamarra Bell-Wykes's new work, Before I Forget, is a powerful exploration of love, memory, family, culture and loss.

Bell-Wykes (Yagera / Butchulla), a theatre maker and arts specialist working across mainstage, academic, education and community arts sectors, formed A Daylight Connection in 2022.

The theatre collective's credits include THE BLOK! (Darebin Speakeasy/Fringe), A Nightime Travesty (Yirramboi/AsiaTOPA/Malthouse/Kia Mau), Chase (Malthouse/Hot House) and ECLIPSE (Rising).

Bell-Wykes's other significant theatre credits include House Arrest (Yirramboi/Malthouse), A Wake -A Woke Mob (MTC/ILBIJERRI), 37 (MTC), Romeo and Julie (Red Stitch) Because the Night (MALTHOUSE), The Score, Scar Trees, Viral, North West of Nowhere, Body Armour, Chopped Liver, Shrunken Iris (ILBIJERRI).

In 2021, Bell-Wykes won the Patrick White Award for Whose Gonna Love 'Em? I am that i AM (FCAC/ ILBIJERRI).

This year, she directed her own mainstage work Lazarus at Theatreworks.

Bell-Wykes is also co-author of First Nations Australian Theatre for Health Equity, a retrospective analysis of ILBIJERRI social impact work.

She recently spoke with National Indigenous Times about Before I Forget.

"Before I Forget is a fictionalised version of real events. It's about my mother Jeannie Bell and her early onset dementia, and the interruption that caused her incredible language reclamation work - but also as a mother and a grandmother and a sister," she said.

"The work is the universal story of mothers and daughters, and grandmothers. The ancestral line of women, the strength and resilience of the women before us and the incredible healing power and work that the current generations must do on behalf of the legacies we've inherited, both good and bad, culturally and family-wise.

"It's also a story about the acceptance of death and the understanding that we live on forever through spirit, the stars, the universe and our beliefs. The understanding that we hold the memory of each other and will continue to come back and explore these relationships - here on the earthly plane and also in the 5D dimensions when we go back to spirit."

At the heart of the play are three generations of women.

"I think now more than ever that matriarchal stories and women in general need to be protected, remembered and held sacred. As well as celebrated for our strength, survival and resilience - our power to create," Bell-Wykes said.

"We are in a major time of imbalance in what has become known as the toxic patriarchy and the divine matriarchy. And in fact, we are all divine and it's about us just coming back into balance, and we all come from women.

"I think that this story is just a celebration of the generations and generations of women that have come before us and will come after us. And this is one of millions of stories about women and their power to love."

Bell-Wykes said the moments humour in the story emerged naturally.

"It wasn't that I necessarily tried to find funny moments, it's just that my family is very funny," she said.

"I think Blackfellas in general are very funny and that we've always used humor, as humans do, as a way to survive. It's just a part of our cultural expression - we're very quick-witted! And then you add dementia on top of it.

"Dementia is a heartbreaking, hilarious disease that is so unpredictable and the brain does incredible things when it's trying to overcompensate. And so really, I have just told a truthful story. But I love to laugh, and all my works in some ways have that type of humour because as the play says, 'You can't cry all the time'."

Bell-Wykes wrote and directed Before I Forget. She described watching her characters move from the page to the stage through the performances of Roxanne McDonald, Melodie Reynods-Diarra and Tyallah Bullock as "quite surreal".

"I mean, it always is to work as a director on anything! And then with one that you've written, you think you know the story so well, but then you start to put it on the floor with performers - and they bring their own choices, offers, magic and spirit to the roles," she said.

"To begin with, it was quite a little bit confronting because of some of the similarities and reflections of my experience - with my mom's dementia, with being her power of attorney and having to put her into a home. Aunty Roxanne MacDonald knew my mother very well, and so she's really embodied some of her characteristics. Melodie also knows me really well; I've known Melodie for over 20 years. And Tyallah has similarities to my daughter.

"But this story is very fictionalised and it's a universal story. And so, what I'm loving is that now - they are characters. They're not extensions of people playing me and the people that I know and love - they are their own independent characters now.

"It's just a joy. These women have so much chemistry on stage, and they have an ability to laugh together argue and banter and dance. They're mesmerising. They're also such a beautiful group and a testimony to the spirit of women in general. And so, there's just layers and layers and layers and layers of girl magic going on. Blak girl power. Woo-hoo!"

Bell-Wykes had high praise for the cast and crew, and explored the impact of design elements on how she connects with the story of Before I Forget.

"The rehearsal room has been incredible," she said.

"Rehearsals are always a very intense time, and life is not without drama either - so you have to roll with all of the punches

"I think that through the design elements I've been reconnecting - it's through the design that the ancestors start to speak, revealing another layer of story through sound and lighting that you don't anticipate when writing the words on the page. Although you have some sense of it, to actually see it manifest is incredible and the layers of magic keep deepening. I can really feel my mum there, teaching, healing and loving through the work."

Bell-Wykes expressed hope that audiences will leave Before I Forget with healing and love.

"When audiences leave, I hope they feel they're remembering their mums, and that they feel some type of healing, some type of closure, love, joy, life celebrated, an acceptance of death. An appreciation for the hard times and for the good," she said.

"This work was an opportunity to actually have conversations and heal things that didn't get to happen in real time. Life isn't as simple or as tidy as a 90-minute theatre show where we get to make decisions and choices. But I think there's really beautiful healing in this work that everyone can take home with them."