A Territory icon, Lewis’s career spanned 40 years, beginning with his first role, and stand out performance, in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

The Murrungun man died from a sudden heart attack at his home in Katherine on May 10.

The news of his abrupt death sent ripples of grief throughout the country.

“He was like this enormous tree of energy and soul ... constantly branching out and capturing the minds and hearts of everyone around him,” long-time friend and Skinnyfish music producer Michael Hohnen said.

“Some people don’t give you much when you first meet them.

“But if you ever had a conversation with (Lewis), he just give you his whole world even if it was just for three or four minutes.”

A member of the acclaimed jazz duo Lewis and Young in the 90s, Lewis worked closely with Mr Hohnen to produce his albums Sunshine After the Rain, Munyngarnbi and Beneath the Sun.

“We recorded a lot of songs in the shed by his house in Beswick,” Mr Hohnen said.

“It was full of didgeridoos, guitars, saxophones, microphones and musical equipment.”

Most of the Munyngarnbi album was finished in the home, where Lewis invited male elders to join him in recording traditional songs from southwest Arnhem Land.

“He told me he wanted to do hundreds more of these kind of recordings in the future because he knew how healing music could be and it’s sad to think he’ll never get to do that,” Mr Hohnen said.

“He was inherently driven by his calling to create, to point where it’s like he don’t even have choice, it’s just who he was.

“He was a true creative and music was just one of his many outlets.”

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But it wasn’t just music that made Lewis a star.

Appearing in the Melbourne theatre scene, he made a name for himself.

Most recently he gained acclaim for his powerful performance in The Shadow King, an Aboriginal retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear which he co-created with Michael Kantor.

The former Malthouse Theatre artistic director was heartbroken to hear of Lewis’s passing and an informal smoking ceremony in his honour at the Melbourne theatre last week.

Hundreds of people attended to show their respect.

An “amazing man”, Mr Kantor said Lewis was “committed to finding a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous culture”.

“He walked with the spirits and you could feel it in him,” he said.

“When we started working together on The Shadow King, he quickly found a deep connection within this western Shakespearean story — he saw it as a dreamtime story because at its core it was about humans and nature.

“His performance resonated overwhelmingly with people.”

According to Mr Kantor, Lewis’s portrayal of Lear was “silly, wise, naughty and sad”.

“But he didn’t even need to act because that because he was that,” he said. “For him it wasn’t about acting like someone else but inhabiting the role.”

The play ran around Australia, eventually coming back to Lewis’s hometown of Katherine, where a stripped back performance was staged in the red dirt.

“He obviously was very proud to bring the story back to his community and they got it straight away,” Mr Kantor said.

The play also went back to the birthplace of Shakespeare, with a show at a theatre in England.

For Mr Kantor, Lewis will never be completely gone.

“His personality was a combination of tempestuous madness and deep clarity,” he said.

“He was a paradox of sorts, someone you can’t forget.”

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The first time friend and colleague Angela O’Donnell met Lewis and his wife Fleur was when she moved to the Territory to begin work on the Walking With Spirits festival in Beswick.

She discovered a man who was always looking to work with others, and someone who had already created an “incredible legacy” for his community.

“He was constantly looking outwards, constantly looking to collaborate and Walking With Spirits was a culmination of that,” she said.

“He would invite so many artists from around the world to the festival each year, including dancers from Africa, the Pacific Islands, India and New Zealand.

“The exchange of culture was just amazing, whether it was through song and dance or just sitting around the campfire and talking to each other.

“He was always looking to improve our understandings of each other and to celebrate our cultures.”

Ms O’Donnell believes the festival would not have continued without Lewis and Fleur.

Speaking to the NT News in 2017, Lewis himself explained why sharing cultures was important.

“All people ... are important with their culture and their stories,” he said at the time.

“Imagine flowers are like languages — they’re not all the same but they drink the same water.

“It’s good to dance in other people’s worlds and feel theirs. You can never really know it, but at least you have some understanding of the monstrosities and successes people go through.”

Ms O’Donnell said Lewis would be remembered as a pioneer for the arts, not just in the Northern Territory, but the entire country.

“With him there was always coffee, laughter and passion,” she said.

“It was rare to see him without a glint in his eye, that let you know he was already thinking about his next big project.

“Being with him was beautiful chaos.

“For him to be gone, and so suddenly, is heartbreaking.

“It’s a massive loss — we won’t know the likes of him again.”

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While fans and friends will always mourn the death of the iconic Territory star, it is his wife who feels the biggest loss.

In an online statement, Ms Lewis wrote about how much she would miss her husband.

“For the best part of 20 years, you’ve been this huge, wild, crazy storm in my life,” she said.

“You were a cyclone that never made landfall, get real close then wheel back out to sea, gather your strength to come hurtling back at us.

“I can’t imagine any other life.

“Usually, the second we knock over one production, you’re talking about the next, while I collapse, exhausted, on the couch.

“It will be different this time.

“The next gig is flying around in the stars, making a bit of trouble, adjusting the a constellation or two, no script.

“You’ve only just begun.”

A funeral ceremony for Balang T.E. Lewis will take place at Djilpin Arts at the Ghunmarn Cultural Centre in Beswick on Monday from noon, followed by a burial on Tuesday at noon.

Balang T.E Lewis’s family has given permission for the NT News to publish the accompanying photos for this story.