Roman Berry will be bringing his solo performance work Not Very Berry to Waterside for Adhocracy 2023. We caught up with him to discuss memories, creativity, and much more.
Firstly, tell us about Not Very Berry – what’s the core concept of the project and how did you conceive it?
The idea for Not Very Berry was conceived as a response to have more diverse narratives, that platforms the intersection of culture, identity, and personal growth. The concept emerged from the desire to shed light on my personal challenges, my journey of self-discovery, growing up and living in Australia, especially coming out as a Filipino gay man, in Adelaide. I got very excited when the expression of interest from Vitalstatistix on Adhocracy was posted, as I have been sitting on this idea since the middle of the pandemic, and this initiative prompted me to take action.
Part of the process will be retracing personal odyssey, capturing struggle and triumphs, walking down memory lane through images, and focusing on pivotal moments, to ignite a spark towards a narrative, structure, and form towards my first ever solo ‘hybrid’ performance.
This project very specifically utilises a Filipino folk dance called ‘Tinikling’ as part of its process. What led to your fascination with this practice, and how have you adapted it for the work?
I’m fascinated of the rhythmic and vibrant movements of TINIKLING. This is a traditional Filipino folk dance, that uses two bamboo poles tapping and beating on the ground, with dancers stepping in, hopping, jumping and turning in between them, as they dance gracefully. It requires enormous concentration to do the movement. These movements are integral to the development of Not Very Berry. I’m utilising them as tools, powerful metaphors, symbolising the challenges of life, weaving through complexities of identity, acceptance, and cultural integration. Through this lens, Tinikling dance becomes an important backdrop to the story of self-discovery, steering a fusion of cultures, while finding oneself amidst the diaspora.
You refer to the work as ‘semi-autobiographical’. What is the intersection between fiction and biography here?
I’ve coined it ‘semi-autobiographical’ because, in a way, Not Very Berry is a work that is inspired by real-life experiences. Part of the challenge of the development is to find ways to introduce and merge fictional elements. The intersection between fiction and biography lies in the fact that, while the core themes, emotions, and some events in the story might draw from my own life and experiences, there’s also room for creative imagination and narrative exploration. And that’s why I’m so thankful for programs like Vitalstatistix’s Adhocracy, because it champions creatives, theatre makers and artists to experiment, to make mistakes, to test and collaborate. The semi-autobiographical approach of the work helps me to navigate the delicate balance between personal authenticity and creative storytelling. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction and letting the creative process to grow.
Where does Not Very Berry go after Adhocracy?
Having had a few days of researching, collecting images, anecdotes from friends and family, I am hoping to get Not Very Berry developed further by engaging the Filipino Australian community more. From the process so far, I have had a lot of further provocation to explore within the context of balancing cultural stigmas and biases, of being part of the LGBTQI family, within the Filipino Australian community. Hoping to also have other creatives and collaborators to further craft a narrative, structure and form, as mentioned earlier, towards the first ever solo ‘hybrid’ performance. Hoping to then take to festivals, independent theatres ands regional theatres.
Anything else audiences should know?
In the intimate presentation and sharing of my discoveries and findings from the development, I would really appreciate people’s feedback on the process. There will also be a chance to participate and try the Tinikling Dance.
Find out more about Not Very Berry at the Adhocracy Website.
In the lead up to our final presentation for 2022 – Sightings, a new performance and portrait of place – creator, director, and choreographer Gabrielle Nankivell dropped past to talk about heat on the road, points in time, and Grandma’s shortbread…
Firstly, tell us about Sightings. I know that much is unknown right now, but what should audiences expect?
Sightings is a strange and lovely project. It’s an evolving map that charts the travel of getting to know a place – on foot, through debris, in conversation and across all the messiness of witnessing and composing reality-based fiction. As a performance it’s something like a cabinet of curiosities, a backyard cinema, and a collective ritual rolled into one. Audiences should expect an invitation to explore – to wander, look, touch, read, sit, try, make, watch…
Weirdly, it contains all the things I use to make dance performances, but which don’t usually end up in the performance. I guess I’m usually more associated with epically physical contemporary dance outcomes – I’ve performed in plenty of work like this and most of the commissions I receive are with intensely virtuosic contemporary dance companies – Sightings sits a long way outside of this world.
You’ve been developing this piece for several years now – what has changed along the way? What’s been surprising about the process?
Figuring out how to work on this project has been quite a process, we’ve tried lots of approaches that have totally failed! Finding the right medium/s-language/s with which to manifest it has also been a story of trial and error. One of the things I realised changed along the way was that we were creating the blueprint for a site-specific performance making model rather than making a standalone performance – i.e.: the performance can’t exist without the residency. This was a huge surprise for me as prior to that I had mostly used the opportunity of residencies as seeding grounds for future works and as a time to take stock of where my practice was at.
Learning a lot more about time has been a surprising side-effect of the Sightings process, especially since I come from the very labour/time intensive world of choreography. In a residency situation it’s tricky to balance the lead-time required to implement an encounter or adventure with the time required to actually fulfil it. Some ideas require a lot of comms, and therefore time, to secure access to a site and/or people. Because we are working with people, individual personalities, ways, routines, and relationship with time need to be respected – this can be a bit of an intangible thing until you are in it. Some mediums are more labour intensive – working with analogue film for example, processing and conversion time has to be considered and then there’s time for editing… It’s been an invigorating experience to work in a paradox – intensely planned and organised but also meandering and offering time to the abyss.
What does it mean to be bringing this piece specifically to Yerta Bulti-Port Adelaide? What do you hope to discover about the Port?
Yerta Bulti-Port Adelaide holds a lot of mystery for me. It’s absorbing and reflective at the same time, like heat on the road or fog on the river, mirage-like perhaps. The yarns, myths, and tales – held and told by earth, walls, people – make it dusty and shifty and full of life. I feel like it’s a natural environment for tuning and receiving. If we do that well, hopefully the performance will reflect a very real-feeling fiction or imprint of place.
We hope to discover the Port exactly as it reveals itself in this particular point of time.
The work utilises both mixed-media and crowd-sourced stories/locations – how do you and your team wind that all together into a performance piece? What should people do if they want to get involved?
Collectively our occupation is some kind of imagination fabrication, we’re all quite into getting our hands dirty, figuring out how things work and general tinkering. Any chance to try something we’re not particularly familiar with is exciting, therefore it’s pretty easy for us to get on board with the eclectic range of enthusiasts we meet along the way. These encounters tend to generate a variety of material – found or made objects, photos, videos, written material, physical skills.
Sightings is a process of following – guided by what we’re offered and what we find, rather than just something we impose. The ‘enthusiast’ spirit really seems to suit the project, it allows for a different kind of finesse in the content we are producing – one where warmth, care and effort are perhaps privileged over glossy, high-end noise. Think the difference between a handmade photo album and a ‘For You’ memory compilation made by your phone, or Grandma’s shortbread versus Arnott’s Shortbread Creams… I think it’s a project where you really feel the alchemy of the people and the place involved.
If people want to get involved they can provide us with some breadcrumbs via the ‘Participate’ link on the Sightings website, https://sightings.cargo.site
Anything else audiences should know?
The Sightings team are artists who work across dance, sound, writing and visual design. We spend a lot of time making live performances but are equally invested in developing research projects where we can learn more about the places and people we meet through the itinerant nature of our work. We welcome reflections on the performance so if any audience members feel inclined to leave us a handwritten note, have a chat or drop us an email following the season – we would love to hear from them.
Daley Rangi stopped by to wax poetic with us on all things I Don’t Owe You. This is the resultant dialogue.
Firstly, tell us about ‘I Don’t Owe You’ – what’s the project all about and what inspired it?
To preface, I struggle to talk about my work, so please take the following with a grain of salt, or your preferred mineral compound. This work feels like just one of many access points to a vital, ongoing conversation about bodily integrity. Everything I explore has been explored before, by many ancestors and kin. But while it still needs to be said, I’ll say it. Nothing inspires this bodywork better than being harassed, threatened, and attacked for having facial hair whilst dressing or appearing otherwise ‘feminine’, breeding a discomforting feeling of owing, of debt, of extraction.
Perhaps the work may act as a gentle reminder that gender is still an endless game of survival for many, an intangible paradox of joy and rage, violence and freedom. Perhaps the work is about the semiotics and rituals of gender, and perhaps the signed systems and labour that comes with it. Perhaps it turns the lens of ‘gender’ away from the colonial, in search of something more beautiful, more human, more ancient. Perhaps, despite the violent overtones, it’s a work about care, connection, and community. I’m not interested in hyper-individualism. That’s not the answer.
The piece is described as being ‘endurance-based’ – what does this mean for an audience, and how does it evoke the overarching themes?
To be utterly transparent, I’m still working that out. I feel a sense of endurance just existing, many days of the week, as do many of my kin, as do many humans, probably. I think endurance works, which most often involve the body, are, or should be, less about the ‘shock’ factor of what the artist might be doing, and more about the chance to slow down and examine ourselves and each other, maybe change or adapt our collective behaviours towards the kind. We each have a body we can share, or show, or use to shock, I’m more interested in what lies beneath the skin.
Humans are instinctively born to engage with other beings, I suppose I’m just providing a framework for some deeper engagement. An ideas trampoline, impossible futures made possible by action. Sure, yeah, I wanna push people off a fence. Choose a side, either side, but just feel something, do something, anything. It’s less about making audiences uncomfortable, but rather about using my own body and stories and battles as the archaeological site to dig up some truths that relate to everybody.
As this is a long form piece, what will you be presenting at Adhocracy, and how will it differ from the final form?
It definitely won’t be anything extended at Adhocracy, rather a testing ground, an experiment. After reading this, grab a writing tool, and throw down a few sentences starting with ‘I don’t owe you…’. The ‘you’ can be whoever you want, maybe even yourself. It’s quite freeing to exercise the release from expectation and embrace boundaries. For example, “I don’t owe you, the audience, a carefully-crafted, well-executed showing of a curious new live performance work at Adhocracy”, but I’ll do my damned best to share one with you. Side by side my projects wax and wane in what they’re responding to, and what forms they crave, but there’s a soft thread you can pull on. Resistance, and resilience, and how complex these two things are and continue to be.
Where does ‘I Don’t Owe You’ go after its appearance at Adhocracy?
It would be pleasant if I knew. Maybe one day we’ll all sit together and watch the sun rise on a better world, and maybe a word or two I once wrote (or a 24-hour endurance bodywork I once performed) is warm dust on that morning breeze.
Anything else audiences should know?
Don’t be afraid. Come say hi. Pluck a beard hair or two. Share the labour.
We chat all things protest and We the People related with multidisciplinary artist Katie Sfetkidis.
Adhocracy – Vitalstatistix’s renown annual arts hothouse – supports the development of new art and performance. It runs September 2-4. Full details, including program, HERE.
First of all, tell us about ‘We the People’ – what’s the core concept of the project and what inspired you to pursue it.
The core question is “how has the pandemic changed the way we protest and the way we think about protesting”. It’s a response to the feeling of colliding set of crises – be it climate change, social and economic inequality, colonisation, housing instability, the treatment of refugees, to name a few – set against the issues of public safety.
The work was inspired by my experience of being in lockdown in Melbourne CBD over 2020 and 2021. It gave me a lot of time to think deeply about issues that I care about, whilst also feeling like I couldn’t participate in public demonstration in the same way, mainly due to public health concerns, but also shifting public attitudes towards large scale public demonstration and the use of the police in response. I started wondering if there were other ways that we could gather that could circumnavigate some of these issues. I was particularly inspired by the ways people were using digital technology to both connect with others and share ideas within local and global communities and I began to wonder how one could harness the emancipatory powers of digital technology to create a public demonstration that could exist both in a digital realm and IRL.
As an artist, I think it’s really important to civically engage. This work brings together my interest in feminism and the history of activism. In general my practice is influenced by what has come before and ‘We the People’, in a lot of ways feels like an extension and mash up of a number of projects I have worked on over the past few years, including ‘The Feminist Poster Project’ (2020-2021) and ‘The Women’s COVID-19 Time Capsule’ (2020-2022).
This piece explores the intersection between more traditional forms of public demonstration and the digital realm – how has this changed in recent years?
I think the pandemic has had a huge impact on our relationship to technology. Video calls and online gathering spaces are much more common now than they were two years ago, and social media has really been used to drive global social movements, and this has sometimes translated into large scale in person demonstrations – e.g., Black Lives Matter.
What is so exciting to me about these online spaces are the possibilities they open up for new encounters. For many people, in the early days of the pandemic, video streaming platforms allowed people to access a world and events that had been inaccessible before, perhaps because of chronic illness, disability or cultural and economic reasons. It also allowed people to connect across time and space in different ways.
I am interested in how this might translate to public demonstration. For many reasons, there are people who can’t attend a public demonstration; this could be because of health, age, access, work and family commitments or public safety. I wonder how digital technology can offer an alternative, and a way to bring different groups of people together across space and time.
This seems to be a project that is very interested in the role of ‘political ephemera’ (banners, flags, placards and so on). How will you be depicting that?
Visual material is really important to any public demonstration and will be key to this work. This could be placards and posters, which already feature quite heavily in my practice, but I have dreams to also create some bigger pieces; puppets etc, along the lines of the Burning Koala from a recent Extinction Rebellion demonstration.
At this stage, I am planning on incorporating previous pieces from ‘A Feminist Poster Project’ into this new work and make new signs, banners, and flags. I really love the idea of flag waving as something that is visually striking and can incorporate movement into the piece. It’s also a key feature for many older activists I have come across in my research and I am keen to unpack this more.
The process of creating this ephemera is just as important as their visual impact. Whilst at Adhocracy, I am inviting people to come and create new posters and banners in the studio that can feature in the work. These creative exercises allow time to think through ideas or talk them through in a communal setting, which works to build community.
Where does ‘We the People’ go after its appearance at Adhocracy?
In my dreams, ‘We the People’ will be a global event, occurring simultaneously in sites across the globe. In the short term, I will be undertaking another creative development in Melbourne later this year and continuing to talk with activist communities across Australia. At this stage I also hope to spend some time in NSW and Queensland early next year.
Anything else audiences should know?
‘We the People’ is just as much about the journey as it is about the final outcome. Like many past projects, I am seeking to engage with women in the community to highlight their efforts and facilitate an exchange of ideas. I would encourage anyone up for a yarn or just wanted to listen to drop into the open studio/workshops.
We sat down with artist Catherine Ryan to discuss The Two Body Problem.
Adhocracy – Vitalstatistix’s renown annual arts hothouse – supports the development of new art and performance. It runs September 2-4. Full details, including program, HERE.
Firstly, tell us about ‘The Two Body Problem’ – what’s the core concept that you’re exploring, and what inspired it?
‘The Two Body Problem’ is an experimental performance lecture that I have just begun to develop. The core concept is a simple speculative question: what if we had not one, but two bodies? What if every human consciousness had a spare body that it could use, instead of always being tied to the same one? How would this change the decisions we made? Would we take care of both our bodies and spend equal amounts of time in each one, or would we just spend time in the ‘good’ body and leave the other one at home? And what is a ‘good’ body, anyway?
As for what inspired it, in the most literal sense, like many artists, I have a huge document in my phone’s Notes app, full of half-baked ideas and questions that have popped into my head. One day, I was scrolling back through this vast collection of musings when I came across this question about what it would be like if we had two bodies. I don’t even remember when I wrote it. Was it something that I scrawled while I was out late one night, perhaps? I’ll never know. But it seemed compelling, even in the harsh, more critical light of day, so I started to draw more connections from it.
I have a background in European philosophy, so it occurred to me that there are swathes of thinkers who have considered the potential duality of the body. Early Christian theological disputes about whether God and Jesus were different bodies or not. Mediaeval political theology about the two bodies of the King. Cartesian accounts of dualism – the idea that the mind is separate from the body. And more recently, discussions within Queer theory about whether or not we can speak of there being a body, prior to its existence in language, or considerations within disability studies about the difference between impairment (which is in some sense ‘inherent’) and disability (which is socially derived).
And importantly for me, not only have philosophers and theorists written about multiplicity of the body – pop singers have sung about it.
The phrase ‘experimental performance lecture’ is a fascinating one – how does this differ from the more traditional concept of a lecture and how are you subverting the academic?
The performance lecture, as a type of performance, has a history that goes back several decades, to 1960s conceptual practice, which emphasised process over finished product. Early notable practitioners of the mode include Robert Morris and Andrea Fraser. Central to this type of work is its existence between the frames of performance and academic address. Performance lectures explore the gaps and tensions between theatrical performance and academic and pedagogical contexts. They often play with authority – the authority of the figure standing in front of you as “the expert”, presenting indisputable facts about the world.
In my performance lectures to date, this playfulness has often manifested in my choice to use cheesy, well-known pop songs as entrance points into the consideration of political or philosophical questions. My techniques have also included the interruption of authoritative textual address by singing, dancing and humorous over-analysis of pop music.
You’ve identified some intriguing pop music artefacts that you’ll be utilising – what inspired their selection?
One of the ways that I often work when making performance lectures is to select a small group of pop songs – usually songs that I like myself – and then use them as unusual ways of entering into questions of a philosophical or political nature.
One of the first tracks that inspired this project was SOPHIE’s Immaterial Girl. It’s a stunning track (and it’s awful that SOPHIE’s untimely death means that we won’t get more of her incredible work). Against a hyperactive synth riff, a chipmunky voice sings about whether she would exist and be gendered without all these things that she enumerates:
“Without my legs or my hair
Without my genes or my blood
With no name and with no type of story
Where do I live?
Tell me, where do I exist?”
What a question! She seems to be asking whether gender can be considered as this radically abstract thing that doesn’t need a body at all.
I then started thinking about how there are all these songs about the materiality of the body. There’s Beyoncé’s 2006 track Get Me Bodied, for instance. This song opens with Beyoncé dramatically intoning “9… 4… 8… 1… B-Day!”. These numbers are the date that Beyonce was born – the 4th of September 1981, her birthday, or B-Day. In the context of the song, this is the day that Beyonce got a body, or got bodied. Does this mean that, prior to 1981, Beyoncé existed in some form, without a body? Was there an eternal, incorporeal form of Beyoncé floating through the universe before this? How tied is Beyoncé to her body?
These are the sorts of questions that inspire me. Also, these are excellent songs, and it’s fun to think with them.
Where does ‘The Two Body Problem’ go after its appearance at Adhocracy?
Somewhere, I hope! This is a first stage development so the piece will need more work after this before it’s performable and tourable.
Anything else audiences should know?
I’d love for them to come along to some of the workshops I’ll be running over the Adhocracy weekend. As part of the development in Adhocracy, I’m planning on running some casual discussions about the opening philosophical provocations of the project. These will be small group discussions where we can think together about questions like: Can you imagine having two bodies? What would you do if they were very different bodies? Would you change how you lived? I’d love to consider some of these questions with new groups of people.
Vitals spoke with sound artists and composers Cat Hope and Jason Sweeney, about their extensive experimental music practices and their current works in development with Vitalstatisix.
Cat Hope is a composer, sound artist, performer, songwriter and noise artist. She is a classically trained flautist, self-taught vocalist and experimental bassist. She is the director of Decibel new music ensemble, musical director for the Australian Bass Orchestra, and currently Professor of Music at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia where she is Head of Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music. She is developing her new opera Speechless with Vitalstatistix and Tura New Music, and will present showings of the work-in-development with us on 28 and 29 July.
Jason Sweeney is interdisciplinary practice in the last 17 years has been in the emerging, risk-taking and constantly developing fields of digital art and technology, music, sound installation, performance art, interactive community art projects, online art, curation, experimental film and screen culture. As a composer of electronic music, he has also been releasing music internationally with two bands, Panoptique Electrical and Pretty Boy Crossover via the record label, Sensory Projects. His new work, Climate of Cruelty, has been commissioned by Vitalstatisix for Climate Century.
Vitals: For those not familiar with experimental music and sound, and new music, can you each tell us a little bit about this field and its influences and communities in Australia?
Jason Sweeney: To be honest, I came to this world of experimental music through playing in bands and the DIY culture of pop/punk. I imagine Cat will be able to give a really good potted history of this field better than I! I’m just lucky enough to be exposed to this rich culture of sound and music through different events and festivals, past and present, such as Liquid Architecture, What Is Music?, TURA and the incredible work that such artists as Gail Priest have been doing to collect and anthologise the Australian history of experimental music.
Cat Hope: Australia has a wonderful and rich history of experimental sound and music practice that is acknowledged internationally. I have written about how important it is for a healthy cultural fabric here. Every state in Australia has a community of experimental practice, but how much the different strands – improvisation, sound art, new music – come together or stand apart depends very much on each state. Where I come from, Perth, they are intertwined making it a great place to make music focussed on sound.
What kinds of platforms are there for your music and art, say in public, commercial, independent and/or academic worlds?
CH: I found that experimental music isn’t really a commercially viable activity in Australia. It survives in funded, academic and community environments. It pops up every now and then in public forums – public art or large scale festivals. But it is difficult to get it reviewed or discussed outside academia. It’s a shame, because often, it’s really fun!
Work by established experimental sound practitioners such as Amanda Stewart (voice), Jon Rose (all manner of violin) and Ross Bolleter (ruined piano) is very engaging and rewarding.
JS: A great deal of my sound-based art works have existed online via net projects. It’s sort of how I began to get really interested in sound art. So there was an immediate portal to creating works that were audio driven, interactive and publicly accessible. But since those beginnings I’ve connected to different spaces and opportunities that are either by commissions or self-driven.
Right now, a lot of my focus is on being a musician who plays gigs and releases music – it’s where it all began really. Somewhere along the way I got swept into the art world but I know that my real home is in music venues and in the ‘industry’ of bands and recording artists. And it’s a great challenge because since I first started playing in bands way back in 1991, so much has changed and labels are fewer and those that have remained are less able to take risks.What’s more, it’s an incredibly saturated world of new music, new bands, new recording artists – which is exciting but daunting for both maker and listener. But I’m swimming in that pool and hoping to come up for air soon.
Cat, Speechless is a very ambitious new work and it is your first opera. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
CH: I have always loved opera, but until recently could never imagine writing one. It just seemed too old and stuffy for me, even new ones I had seen. I’ve spent time living in Italy and that helped me to love the form and the way it can entangle everyday life.
Then I began to think of the reasons opera was important to me – its large scale, its interrogation of important themes around the human condition, the formulae and it how it all works together. That helped me realise I could make an opera – one of my own, relevant to my time, my experience, the important themes of the current human condition of which I am a part.
I needed a bit of courage and confidence that my own way of making music could make something meanings. I think it will be the first animated notation opera.
Jason, you have a new collaboration called Winter Witches. Could you tell us about that?
JS: Winter Witches is a live band and recording project that I do with my partner, Em König. We actually started using that name as a DJ duo but over the last 6 months have transitioned to focusing purely on song-writing, performing and being an active band on the live circuit.
Our music is driven by the intimate collaboration between Em and I.
He and I spend most of our spare time writing, rehearsing and developing new material at our home studio. We’re developing live sets all the time and we’ve got a bunch of gigs coming up this year. We’re also writing our debut album which is currently under the working title “Masc”.
Jason, Winter Witches’ project Climate of Cruelty is addressing a huge issue, and one some find hard to talk about or accept – the human consumption of animals, and the cruelty and environmental destruction this causes. It may seem daunting to make an artwork about this – how are you approaching it?
JS: Well, it’s certainly daunting. How do we commemorate and memorialise the animals that have died at the hands of humans in order to literally feed our insatiable desires? Both Em and I are passionate animal rights activists and practicing vegans so it’s sometimes hard for us to simmer down the heat on our fury when it comes to this subject – but doing it through music is actually a perfect way of communicating this often dark and despairing material.
I suppose our task as musicians and song-writers is to keep a focus on the commemorative aspect of the work. We want to keep the work as open as possible to allow audiences to listen and to reflect upon this difficult subject.
What we don’t want to do is just pour guilt upon our listeners but rather open up their ears, hearts, minds and eyes (through added visuals and the performative aspect of the work) to the present sadness – but also find potential hope that one day we as humans will realise we don’t need to partake in industrialised animal suffering in order to satiate our cravings.
It’s also just a cold, hard fact that the livestock industries and factory farming practices are contributing far more to emissions and environmental destruction that any aspect of transport or other industries (the ‘popular’ culprits of climate change). So we’re finding ways to incorporate animal memorials set against some facts that may shock and surprise our audiences… hopefully into beginning a process of understanding and moving towards personal change.
https://soundcloud.com/winterwitches/swollen
Cat, what has drawn you to make a work about children in detention? Why is the work wordless?
CH: ‘Speechless’ is my response to people who have had their voice taken away. The work is not really about them, and I am not speaking for them, rather – I am trying to express my own response to some of the terrible things that are happening in Australia. I have felt so helpless in the face of them, this is my attempt to act in a personal way.
‘Speechless’ is a ‘noise opera’ that uses the report Gillian Trigg’s oversaw for the Human Rights Commission, ‘The Forgotten Children: National Inquiry into Children in detention’ as its basis. But the work responds to people who have lost or are challenging their ability to be heard in Australia more broadly – from women, to indigenous people, to refugees. I was keen to know how music – without words- speaks, in this specific instance. Through my own attempt to respond, can it offer others a way to respond too?
Cat, this year you have moved from Perth to Melbourne to take up the position of Head of Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music – congratulations! You’ve been forging some new directions and initiatives at the School – can you tell us about this?
CH: Yes! I have started by introducing quotas for the performance of music by Australian’s and women into the final year recitals of all performance students.
I am striving to make Australian music– including the study of the complex, rich, mixed fabric that defines it now and in the past – a key to the school’s identity.
Through this I hope to create graduates who engage with a music making that is linked to who we are, how we fit in the world, and enable greater equity of opportunity for all that take part in the making of Australian music.
Jason, you have a body of work that addresses silence and quiet ecology. In the face of distressing global politics, increasing levels of anxiety, and social media addiction, what is the field of quiet ecology offering?
JS: Essentially the field of quiet ecology is offering both a physical manifestation and a conceptual realisation of ‘quiet’ that in order to survive as a species we need to keep finding the balance between calm and chaos. It’s been a long-term project that has allowed me to engage with a global community of quiet seekers, a wide and diverse range of people who are invested in pursuing a better world through advances in ethical and smart architecture, explorations into acoustic ecology and sound preservation, silence/quiet as imperative requirements for introverts, and to help those with acute anxiety and the treating of mental illness.
My hope is that this work has a low-volume resonance into the future and contributes to the ever-growing desire for a quieter world.
Cat, this is the first time you have worked with Vitalstatistix; Jason you have worked with us many times! You will both be undertaking residencies with us as part of the development of your works, later this year. Residencies and labs are a big part of what we are offering artists this year. How are residencies valuable, and what are are you looking forward to about working with Vitals later in the year?
CH: I have done a number of residencies during my career, and their value really depends on what else is happening in my life at that time. But the common factor they all offer, if you are open to it – is focused time. With my new position, this residency is so valuable – it gives me a block of time away to really focus on this project. I can’t imagine getting it completed without a residency opportunity.
I am looking forward to being absorbed in making work with a great team of people for two whole weeks!
JS: Residencies are so important for artists and projects. They allow a slow-burn approach to creativity, rather than just rushing out product.
They allow collaborations to unfold and find their shared language. You can really start to understand who your creative family is through residencies.
Both Em and I are looking forward to having dedicated time to work with Jennifer Greer Holmes, Geoff Cobham and Sebastian Tomczak and to really begin to build Climate of Cruelty into something beautiful, compelling and strange.
What are you each listening to at the moment?
CH: Well, you will be surprised to know – contemporary opera! This includes works by Anne Le Baron, Eryk Abecassis, Thomas Ades, Hermman Nitsch, Fausto Romitelli, Gerogy Ligeti and my usual rotation of obscure Ennio Morricone albums and songs by Low. Oh – and a revisiting an old favourite, Adriano Celentano’s Prisencolinensinainciusol.
JS: My favourite albums at the moment are ‘Party’ by Aldous Harding from New Zealand and the new album by Venezuelan musician/producer, Arca. For me they are the best albums to be released this year. I’ve also just recently been introduced to the wonders of Ivo Dimchev who is an incredible queer musician and performance artist from Bulgaria. He’s all over Youtube. Some of his songs will break your heart.
Vitalstatistix spoke with artists Nicola Gunn and Steve Mayhew about their thoughts on theatre making and collaboration, other obsessions, and their current projects with Vitalstatistix.
Nicola Gunn makes contemporary performance that combines text, choreography and visual art in a self-generated impulse to tell a story or explore a form. In June she and collaborator Tamara Saulwick will undertake an Incubator residency with Vitalstatistix developing an ambitious new performance called Super Imposition. They will present showings on 30 June and 1 July.
Steve Mayhew is a director, dramaturge, curator and creative producer with many interests including regionality, dance dramaturgy and digital theatre. In 2017 he is working with Vitalstatistix to produce a series of projects co-presented with Performance & Art Development Agency, an organisation co-founded by himself and Vitalstatistix Director Emma Webb in 2015. This year Steve is also co-curator of the 2017 Australian Theatre Forum, alongside Alexis West.
Vitalstatistix: Tell us about something you are currently obsessed with?
Nicola Gunn: I am thinking a lot about shame and humiliation lately because of another work I’m making. But I generally have the same three recurring thoughts that I suppose you could say I’m obsessed by – and those thoughts are about work, getting old and dying alone.
Steve Mayhew: Wow it’s pretty busy inside my brain at the best of times… Here’s a list…
Vitals: You have each travelled quite a lot in recent years; what kind of perspective does this offer you about the arts in Australia (if any)?
NG: Our funding mechanisms are good, comparatively! (Although it might also depend what Australian state you live in.)
SM: I was in Paris, a place where art and culture just oozes out of everything, on November 8th 2016 the day Trump was elected and I began that day in a bit of a daze, not wanting to get out of bed and transfixed to the Deutsche Welle TV station’s German influenced indignant and shocked commentary.
I eventually dragged myself outside and found myself surfacing from a Metro station and I suddenly felt this compulsion to visit the little Statue of Liberty that I had a sense was nearby. You see 40 years had passed since I had last visited Paris as a child of 7 years and so I was having this almost déjà vu recollection of knowing exactly where I was. I quickly located it on Google maps and I wasn’t far away at from where it stands at the end of the Île aux Cygnes, so my 40 year retained memory was pretty good!
I got there and then I looked up at Liberty almost apologetically and asked ‘what the fuck happens now?’
I then walked to Palais de Tokyo to see an immersive and participatory work by Tino Sehgal that (PADA commissioned) artist Chris Scherer was working on and performing in. A part of the work involved me talking to a child aged about eight years in which she asked the very simple question “What is progress?” that led me to reflect expansively on what had happened in the world that day, she passed me onto a young man who carried on the conversation and after a while he passed me onto a woman about my age who passed me on to an elderly woman who was in her 70s. All the while we carried the conversation as we walked and talked in this huge picture-less gallery space. Finally the woman left me standing alone once she conveyed her happiness at being able to live by the beach and not worry as much about things, suggesting that maybe I should to.
Walking back to my apartment after that experience I recalled Nicola’s moral conundrums and complexities about the duck in Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster.
I suppose this story is a long way round of saying that the type of art experiences I love, and the life I aspire to lead, is one where one is informed by the other’s permeation. I suppose when you travel you can be more susceptible to having that type of experience just occur, whereas at home in Australia I often feel I have to separate it, section it off and MAKE TIME for it.
Vitals: Nicola, tell us about Super Imposition. What is the work exploring and where are you at in its development going into the Incubator residency with Vitals? How are you approaching your residency and the opportunity to show the work-in-development in front of an audience at the end of the fortnight?
NG: We’re coming at the project from slightly different perspectives around the idea of ‘controlling the narrative’ – who gets to control the narrative and who gets to decide what’s in the public’s interest, as opposed to what’s of interest to the public. Primarily we’re interested in the confrontation of our practices with that theme in mind – and what kind of work it might generate.
We watched this amazing interview of Helen Mirren by Michael Parkinson from the 1970s and Helen Mirren said, “You are who they say you are and you are who they think you are.” Or something like that. Helen Mirren said something like that in an interview with Michael Parkinson in the 1970s when he asked her what she thought of all the media headlines alluding to the fact her sensuality and her ‘figure’ overshadowed her acting ability.
Parkinson asked Mirren if it was true, all these things said about her in the press, and that’s what she said. “You are who they say you are and you are who they think you are.”
Vitals: Nicola, this is your first collaboration with Tamara Saulwick. In the past you have made series of works through collaborations that explore form as well as ideas (such as your recent works with dance artist Jo Lloyd, Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster and Mermermer). Can you talk to us about how you approach these types of collaborations – is it like a duet or a duel or a bit of both?
NG: Oh um probably a bit of both. Collaboration is hard and I don’t agree with this idea that a collaboration is about finding accord or consensus; I think it’s often the conflict of materials that is most interesting.
Vitals: Both of you tend to play multiple roles in any given project that you are working on. Nicola, you explicitly state that you take responsibility for each of your productions from concept to realisation. Steve, you often blur lines between artist and producer.
NG: I’m not really sure how to answer this. I make performance as a writer, director, designer and performer and it’s always been like this for me because that’s the way I choose to work. I don’t want to be defined by one role. Of course, I would love an administrator to take on the day-to-day running of my company (of one) because I am inundated by grant writing, budgets, tour producing, pitching and it’s beginning to be a bit overwhelming and I fear my artistic work is suffering as a consequence.
Unfortunately our funding system hasn’t quite caught up with contemporary practices; I won’t be recognised as a company or eligible for organisational or structural funding until I become incorporated and get a board. And this, I’m sure, comes with its own set of problems.
SM: In the year I graduated from university (OMG 26 years ago!!!) I realised that I could be much more than just a theatre director and that it was actually only a very small part of how I could participate in art making.
I’ve purposely made decisions in my career so I could gain experience in the so called ‘non-artist’ side of the arts – you know managing arts companies, programming festivals, producing art works and art projects and programs. I’ve done it to understand the environment we operate in and the leadership that is required to navigate it.
I suppose you could say I’ve approached those roles with a certain ‘artistry’ combined with ‘strategy’ – call it ‘creativity’ if you will. I’ve done creative residencies and collaborate with other artists so as to satiate my ‘creative’ and ‘artistry’ chops.
I’ve approached making the recent soundtrack for the work in progress Cher in a similar way to how I have helped produce it and assisted in giving its dramaturgical shape. Whenever I do anything with anyone I ask the same questions of us all: WHAT is it? WHO is it for? WHY is it a thing? WHERE is it? WHEN is it? and HOW should we do it? Oh … and … none of these questions have to be answered in full immediately or from the start, it’s often in the making that you find these answers.
Perhaps it has always been this way for many artists or perhaps it reflects something about current economies and modes of art making – what do you think?
Vitals: What are your thoughts about theatre in Australia at the moment? How do you feel about the function of theatre, or art, or how it might critically engage with the world? How is theatre being reimagined? What are some trends and interests and dilemmas for theatre makers that you are experiencing or hearing about?
NG: Recently I was invited to a meeting to discuss ‘the lack of opportunities in theatre available to women, people of colour and gender diverse theatre makers.’ Unfortunately I was unable to make it, but would be interested to know what the outcomes were.
The kind of things I have been thinking about recently are the lack of opportunities for career progression as an independent artist in Australia. The idea of continually applying for project funding every year is an extremely depressing and demoralising proposition. So what does career progression look like for an independent artist?
SM: All I can say is that everyone must pay attention to the First Nations companies that have recently received four year funding through the Australia Council across the Theatre, Dance and ATSIA Sections. Yirra Yaakin, Ilbijerri, Marrugeku, BlakDance, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, Moogahlin and many more. These companies are overflowing with excellent ideas and stories to share, often in art forms that converge, blur and combine.
Vitals: Steve, this year you are co-curating the biennial Australian Theatre Forum, which will be held in Adelaide in October. Can you tell us a little about ATF in general and how you and co-curator Alexis West are approaching this year’s Forum?
SM: I’m really excited about co-curating ATF with Alexis – we’ve had some great laugh and tear filled discussions working on it.
Three days is just not enough to really give justice to all the amazing thinkers and makers out there to have their voices heard (especially from our First Nation’s artists listed above).
An incredible amount has changed since the last one at the beginning of 2015 – funding and organisational landscapes changed overnight in May 2015 and then again in May 2016. So we’re thinking we will begin there: looking at the last two years, examining and celebrating our actions and the foundation it is providing for us as we move forward.
ATF will be held alongside OzAsia and this also gives us the opportunity to invite an Asian point of view for comparison and influence as a part of our very ‘Australian’ discussions and issues.
There are some important discussions we believe we need to nurture through the forum, such as the evolution of an AMPAG framework and the retrieval of the women in theatre discussion, to name only two.
The EOI process for independent artists is now open and we really encourage them to apply NOW. We want to structure the forum so that a number of independents are leading the discussions. We are also inviting all the festivals, small-to-medium and major theatre organisations to bring and support an associate artist or producer to attend, encouraging the future leadership of our sector to be a part of the conversations now.
Vitals: What do you value about Vitalstatistix in the current arts landscape? What role can small organisations play in supporting independent artists and art form development in these lean, interesting times?
NG: Vitalstatistix has played an intrinsic role in supporting four of my projects now, through either residencies or presentations. One of those works will be touring to Europe, Canada and Chile over the next 12 months. The support artists receive from organisations like Vitalstatistix is not just project-based but it’s a long-term investment in an artist’s practice. I personally value the space and time Vitals offers: for me, creating in a residency model away from my home city is the most productive way to make work.
SM: Vitals is SO important to Adelaide and South Australia in these times.
It’s one of the very few organisations in this state that is constantly engaging with individual and independent artists practice, giving them a solid and safe platform to take risks and innovate.
People have to realise that this platform is very VERY different to a theatre company that is run by an Artistic Director who is fundamentally leading a development or rehearsal processes with a group of independent or freelance actors, designers to their vision.
Vitals’ current platform provides a multiplicity of voices, actions, experiences and strategies that are creative and artist led. It effectively acts as circuit breakers for these times where a certain kind of self (and often government led) aggrandisement in our arts and cultural landscape creates an ever infuriating and ridiculous caudal lure.
Vitals: What are you each reading or listening to at the moment?
NG: I just finished reading Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit and before that, I read The Faraway Nearby by the same author. At the same time I was reading Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I’ve been listening to this Canadian podcast called Someone Knows Something about unsolved crimes. I have a weakness for true crime. I’m terrible with music. I still listen to the radio.
SM: This year I have been impressed with these ear worms…
This piece about why some countries drive on the left side and others on the right is actually quite an interesting overview of empires, wars, swords and camel trains…thanks to Sascha Budimski who posted this on his Facebook page recently.
Vitalstatistix spoke with artists Chris Scherer and Larissa McGowan who are both developing solo dance works through a partnership between Vitalstatistix and Performance & Art Development Agency (PADA).
Chris is a South Australian-born cross-disciplinary artist and performer currently working between Berlin and Australia. Larissa is a SA-based choreographer and dancer, who has worked and toured widely with Australia Dance Theatre and now works independently.
Vitals: Could you each tell us about your artistic practice?
Larissa McGowan: I am a contemporary dancer and choreographer and I love challenging myself to find new body pathways. I am always working to develop movement that I haven’t explored before. This is always going to be a challenge as the body wants to develop and learn your natural body pathways. I find it difficult yet exhilarating to challenge it.
My artistic practice is always made more interesting by using a collaborative process. I work closely with a director and a dramaturg to challenge my ideas and to develop a stronger overall concept or vision.
Dance is a visual and ephemeral world that allows us to feel things through our body. I love being able to evoke a feeling for an audience through the emotive qualities dance can offer.
Chris Scherer: My artistic practise is always jumping around and is super specific to what I’m working on/with. My story is basically this: I danced as a kid and then quit when I became more interested in theatre as a teenager. I went to acting school at AC Arts and then, once I had graduated, decided to go through the dance program to get in touch with my body again.
The goal at the time was to do more experimental theatre, not to become a dancer… and then it kinda just happened. I was really into making films and devising work and then I moved to Europe. It was only when I was there [in Europe] that I realised I had a pretty flexible skill set.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked in a traditional artistic form, like dancey-dance or a classical play (which I’m starting to think could be kind of fun) but it does make it hard to articulate a clear practice. I just do what I do, I don’t think I can be any more articulate than that. Whatever I feel like the work needs, I give it a go. What do they say? Jack of all trades, master of none?
V: You are each developing solo works about iconic artists who inspire your own artistic practice. Chris, your work Duncan responds to the philosophies of dance pioneer Isodora Duncan; Larissa, your work Cher explores the persona and characters of this singer, actress, icon, and ultimate pop chameleon. Could you tell us about these women and why you are investigating them?
LM: As a woman, I am constantly drawn to those iconic female figures that have somehow paved a way for empowering us. I love how Cher has been able to move with the times. She has remained relevant by doing this and has repeatedly reinvented herself through various personas. She is able to transform by breaking convention and challenging the system while remaining a constant in a male dominanated entertainment industry. She has qualities that rings true for me as an artist and help me question my ideas, work and presence within my industry.
CS: I have been researching Isadora for quite some years now. In 2014 I made a dance work with AC Arts students called Izzy D, which was actually shown as a double bill alongside Larissa’s work.
I find Isadora to be such an incredible woman. The more I read about her, the more she inspires me. Isadora was really such a radical and pivotal artistic figure in history. Her work is hugely significant for many reasons, but to me, I am continually impressed by her commitment to, and belief in, her work. She really had a dream for dance.
She was a social and political radical. She practiced free love, advocated for women’s rights and was a living symbol of revolt and revolution. She was an educator and an intellectual.
V: How are you each exploring these women through the art works you are creating? What is your approach?
LM: I feel like Cher is more of a totem for the overall theme of the work. The work is forming ideas around reinvention and changing with the times. The work can explore all of these things and play with gender roles; power and dominance; popular culture and identity.
I think this will be a work that shows transformation and power but also over-the-top entertainment. And with the range of stimulus to work from it will be a crazy experience – I am particularly excited to play with auto-tuning.
CS: I’m using the work of Isadora Duncan as an artistic score. I’m looking at her contributions to art; her influence on other artists of the time and her work as an educator. I’m trying to capture her radical, intellectual and political qualities. And I am really trying to honour her ideology, and working method, while generating something suited to a contemporary context in my own artistic voice.
I’ve been inspired by Isadora, but in Duncan I have tried to use an expanded choreography that questions what her work could have been now.
Isadora encouraged her pupils to have a sense of authorship – so I have taken plenty!
V: You have both spent time working and training in South Australia; what do you think is particular about being here as an artist?
LM: I think SA has an excellent range of artists from many fields and this allows for a more collaborative way of working. For a close-knit community it really thrives on developing ideas and finding unique ways to put art out there.
SA is the festival state but this also happens all year round on different scales and I believe people here are keen to see work of any level.
CS: I love the sense of community in South Australia. I have always felt really supported by peers and people working within the industry. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Adelaide is smaller (than say Berlin) and a lot of artists have come through the same institutions here. I think it generates a warmth and long-term relationships within the industry. Well this is my experience – to be honest I don’t know what people say behind my back! 😉
V: What are some current key influences (ideas, collaborators, other artists, other forms or experiences) on your practice? What excites you about dance globally at the moment?
LM: I have recently been interested in popular culture themes to help an audience understand, or be more engaged in, the abstract world of contemporary dance. Movies, music, video games – anything that connects us to our own reality or has become a part of our everyday life – I am able to combine these themes with an abstract style of movement.
I am also still fascinated by the human body and how it moves. So I guess I will always come back to making movement that tests how far the body can actually go.
CS: Over the last few years I have been ping-ponging between a theatre context and a visual art context in the work I’ve had as a performer. Although there is a vast difference in what I do, and how I do it, I have to remind myself that my body doesn’t really morph that radically. Working in this way has been a major influence in the type of work I am making with Duncan. I have this diverse performative history, and now I am just selecting what to pull out. I can’t deny that working with colleagues, and for employers, has really helped shape the work I am making. Their influence is too strong to ignore.
What excites me about dance at the moment is that it is super open. It can be anything.
V: Your creative development with Vitals/PADA will end with a public showing of your work-in-development. What are the benefits of putting work in front of an audience while you are in the process of making it? How does it contribute to your process?
LM: It is always a blessing to test ideas on an audience. I feel a work is only finished, or fully put together, once it has been observed. Art is about connecting and I can only develop my ideas further after constructive feedback.
CS: For this process specifically, having a work-in-progress showing for the public really shifted the way I approached the development with Vitals/PADA. I have spent many months working on Duncan, but I was really caught in my head. I was working through it conceptually, doing a lot of research – diving deeper and deeper in an attempt to build what I hope is a strong ideology – but once I got to the studio I knew I had to apply it.
This really was a major step and was super hard. I don’t know if I would have made this step if I didn’t have the push of having to show something. Of course I have been in this position before, but with this project specifically it was a major challenge. When you are working alone, sometimes a strong push ‘like now I really have to do it’ is what you need.
V: You have both worked with larger institutions, as well as having your own independent practice. What is the value of working with smaller organisations like PADA and Vitals –what do you get out of a relationship with an organisation?
LM: It is extremely necessary to work with smaller organisations. I feel like the work is strengthened even more by the people curating them.
The close relationships between independent artist and smaller organisations often means working much more closely together on a project, the artist’s vision, and the overall outcome. I also like seeing my work performed in places and spaces I wouldn’t normally use. Smaller organisations are truly amazing at finding a way to make art happen.
CS: I love working between larger and smaller institutions. Firstly the type of audiences you reach are very different. You only have to look around at the audience within different sized organisations/venues to realise that.
Generally speaking, I have found that when working with smaller organisations (such as Vitals/ PADA) the artistic community is more concentrated in these venues. This is always nice, especially in terms of constructive feedback and for a sense of community and support. The support from within the organisation is also important in facilitating the project to the final stages, rather than just programing finished works. Additionally, working closely with people within smaller institutions has helped me clarify and refine my ideas.
On a practical level, the types of support I have received from Vitals and PADA would not have been possible from larger institutions. Whether the programs are there or not, I am still developing my practice and my career is still evolving. But in saying this, I think working within larger institutions and for ‘larger’ names has also given me experiences that have made opportunities available in smaller institutions. Somehow for me, this has gone hand in hand.
V: How do you feel about the role of artists and art in the current conservative global climate?
LM: Hmm, I have personally found it very challenging to make work and develop ideas with the funding opportunities currently available. I would like to know that my work has a way to be seen and toured after developments or small performance outcomes. I always feel sad knowing that a work only has a certain life span due to lack of money or assistance for independent artists.
I also feel like dance has become so commercialised that contemporary art is becoming a style that people just don’t go and see because they think they don’t understand it. I hope people can become more informed about art and the positive impact it can have on a healthy mind, and creativity and a wider view of the world. It can teach us to be open and question our own feelings and opinions about the world.
CS: We gotta keep going!
But, really, it is one of my motivations for making Duncan. Given the dominant ideology of our times: neoliberalism, I’m interested in addressing notions of individual freedom, democratic artistic space and the lineage of revolutionary trailblazers.
V: What’s up next for you, after us?
LM: I have a second stage development of a work called Owning the Moment. The work looks at our needs and desires to acquire things. It allows the audience to bid and remove parts of the work from the show; allowing them to change the viewed performance for the entire audience. I’m making it in collaboration with Sandpit – we are currently exploring how this acquisition can be made possible with technology.
CS: I have some really nice gigs coming up – I can’t talk super specifically about them as they have not been publically announced – but I have work in Bulgaria, Russia and Switzerland taking me through to the end of the year. After that, who knows?
There are also shows in Berlin with Schaubühne, where I am a guest artist, and I have a few new projects up my sleeve. I plan on getting stuck into my own work between travels as I try to keep up with making while working for others.
You gotta mix it up!
Vitalstatistix spoke to artists Emma Beech and Ashton Malcolm about what they hope to get out of their yearlong residencies with Vitals this year.
Both Emma and Ashton are Adelaide-based theatre makers and actors who have a continuing relationship with the company. This year Emma Beech is Vitalstatistix’s Shopfront Studio artist and Ashton is one third of Points in the Plane along with Josephine Were and Meg Wilson.
Vitalstatistix: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re hoping to develop with Vitalstatistix this year?
Emma Beech: In a change for me, I am looking not to develop a new work but to develop some new ideas and new ways of engaging with Port Adelaide and its people. I’m also looking to see how Vitals and its Port location could interact creatively with other companies internationally. What are those Port towns across the world doing? How can we speak with each other through art?
Ashton Malcolm: We are hoping to come out of this year with a clearer idea of who we are as a performance making collective. We love working and experimenting together, and have been collaborating as a trio for the past few years. So it feels like the right time to focus on our identity as artists and how we would like to shape our work and our collective going forward. And maybe we’ll even come up with a name!
V: What does it mean to have a yearlong relationship with the company?
EB: It means supporting the company, it means bringing a new set of eyes with a lot of fondness and seeing what myself, Emma Webb and all the others in the mix can cook up for the company in the present and in the future – in these highly un-plan-able times. How can we keep bringing what we do and the place we do it (Waterside) to life? The year is a chance to have one hell of a long conversation.
AM: I am so excited and feel very lucky to have a yearlong relationship with Vitals. Vitals have always been a shining light for me. Ever since I was at uni studying drama, Waterside was a place to see experimental work, to meet contemporary artists and to build new ideas. It is also where Josie, Meg and I first collaborated, so it feels very fitting (and rather romantic) to be there again this year, as we grow and develop into a more established collective.
V: Emma, how do you feel now you’ve had some time since Life is Short and Long wrapped up? And how do you think using the shopfront will shape your engagement with the Port this year?
EB: I feel like I’ve done the very best I could with the artistic process that I have, and I have now come to the point of putting my practice in a very attractive box and putting it on the shelf. I’m proud of what we made and did, and now is the time to soak up ideas, put out some ideas and work with others on what they are doing – to allow some space for me to come back to my practice at another time.
I see it as a whole year of working for and with the company, doing what needs to be done as guided by [Vitalstatistix Director] Emma Webb.
The shopfront: from working in that space during Life Is, many people passed the door to ask me where the shops were, what was I doing, to collect mail and gain access to the hall. I think the presence, any presence, will remind people that this space is very much alive and kicking and even kicking goals. I’m excited to be the interface.
V: Ashton, how do you juggle collaborating and working independently?
AM: It is always a matter of pulling out diaries and finding any time to be together that we can! We are all very driven and hardworking, which is part of why we work well together, but it also means that we are all very busy! Usually though, we block out some time throughout the year to develop new projects and to present work. Applying for grants together is helpful too because it forces you to plan timelines well in advance! The best thing though, I think, is how honest we are with each other and how much we support each other’s individual careers. When independent work comes up we tell each other, we celebrate our personal joys, and we do our best to be flexible and make it all work.
V: How do you balance the competing demands of your creative work with non-artistic pursuits?
EB: Ahhh, I don’t really. I’m writing this after a big day on the home front with my eyes bulging from their sockets. So I wouldn’t say balance. I’d say it’s the thing I have to do, want to do, and so I squeeze it in and around the other incredible life I have running around at knee height. So I don’t balance, I squeeze.
AM: I am in a very fortunate position at the moment in that I spend most of my time working on creative pursuits. When I’m not acting or making work, I work at the Starlight Children’s Foundation providing positive distraction for sick kids. That is highly creative too so all of my different worlds seem to compliment each other quite well, which helps. I’ve also had to become very good at compartmentalising – every morning I check my diary and whatever I am doing that day gets my full focus. If I think too much about balancing it all, it just gets way too stressful!
V: What do you get out of working with Vitalstatistix that you don’t get out of working with larger companies?
EB: A sense of continuity, a sense of community, a sense of possibility, a sense of being regarded and a sense of building something together. But also sometimes, a sense of how much harder it is for small company to have to pull together outcomes that are of as high a quality as the big companies. A sense of struggle. I do value that challenge.
AM: I’ve worked with Vitals a lot over the years and what I’ve always loved is the incredible freedom to take creative risks, to make brave work and to be unashamedly who I am. The great strength of a smaller team is that you get to know everyone very well. Vitals gave me my first big acting job out of uni (Cutaway: A Ceremony) and I’ve always felt like myself there.
They allow artists to be all that they are, to develop and grow, and to embrace their complexity. As a young woman, this kind of space can be a very hard thing to find- both at work and just generally in the world.
V: What else are you working on this year?
EB: I’ll be working at the SA Museum, I’ll be brushing up my straight acting skills because I love the idea of someone handing me a script instead of conceiving the script, writing the script, getting funding for the script, and then performing the entire script. I’ll be working on getting fit and eating really well and being nice to people.
AM: It’s going to be a very fun and busy year! I’ll be working with Vitals again in May to develop Rebecca’s Meston’s new work, Drive. I’m also making and performing in Patch Theatre Company’s new work, Yo Diddle Diddle, performing in a return season of McNirt Hates Dirt in the Dream Big Festival, and touring Grug with Windmill Theatre Company.
V: Do you see your art and processes as political? What do you think is the role of arts is in politics?
EB: I never have seen my process as political; I see it as social. Social may well be political but my first call is social. Social, because talking to people is connecting and connecting to strangers in this way is not a regular daily thing for most people but the practice of it – for all and sundry – could bring some big changes in the way we all do things.
People say the social is political but I think the political is social, and if we really knew how to speak and if we really knew how to listen, we could be doing a few things quite a bit better.
I don’t know if art does have a role in politics – art is art and it can be political and the act of making art is counter cultural, but where politics and art meet for me is uncut and unclear, and relates differently to different artists and different artworks.
AM: Yes. Especially the work I make independently, and with Meg and Josie. I am and always will be a fierce feminist, so that undoubtedly comes through in all of my work. I actually think it is kind of impossible to live in the world as an aware, engaged, human and not have that affect your work. If you are a politically engaged human, who is making work for a contemporary audience, then it can’t help but be of this world and time, which means it is bound to be politically and socially engaged. I think the role of arts in politics is to playfully provoke, to question, to open conversations. In my dream world, people would see a show and then spend the rest of the night in the foyer bar not talking about how good the actors were or how big the set was, but rather about the ideas raised.
Vitalstatistix spoke to dance artists Atlanta Eke and Erin Fowler about the changing face of local and national dance practice.
Atlanta is a Melbourne-based choreographer and dancer who is developing her new work I CON with Vitalstatistix in November. Erin is a choreographer and dancer, co-director of creative hub The Mill, and recently participated in Vitalstatistix’s Aeon residency.
V: Could you each tell us about your artistic practice?
Atlanta Eke: I am a dancer choreographer working in Australia and internationally. My work with dance is currently project specific, and has been for some years. I work in collaboration with fellow dancers, artists and arts administrators in variety of contexts. Having recently had opportunities to present work in exhibition spaces, I am interested in how an exhibition space and timeframe can be utilised as a resource for developing dance.
Erin Fowler: My practice is based primarily in dance and music but has a strong focus on collaborative and audience driven/immersive work. As founder and co-director of The Mill I have the privilege of being surrounded by over 38 artists from a wide range of disciplines and am constantly inspired by their creative projects and passion. I am always looking for ways to place myself out of a ‘normal’ context. For example, I find myself a lot more free and uninhibited to create work when I am surrounded by artists of a different discipline, or am in a different country or culture, which has certainly been a big part of my practice over the past few years.
More specifically, as a choreographer, one of my biggest influences has been my experiences in China training in traditional martial arts including tai chi and kung fu. Tai chi allowed me to experience a more internal sense of energy in the body and this led to a continuing fascination with the energy systems of the body and how they can be expressed through the external medium of dance. I am interested to see if these subtle energy states and shifts can be perceived by an audience.
I also approach choreography as if I am writing music. I think my brain works more in that sense than in physical generation of movement.
I see patterns, harmonies, polyrhythms through movement and am almost mathematic in my approach.
V: Atlanta, you have presented your works in black box/performance and white box/gallery spaces, as well as sites such as Cockatoo Island. Your work has been described as performance art meets dance. How do you feel about these descriptions?
AE: Is it like Juliet’s contemplation on Romeo’s status as a Montague? “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Or is it rather more like “roses really smell like poo poo-oo”, Outkast’s revelations that Caroline thinks her shit don’t stink?
My work is with dance and choreography. Performance art, by the very nature of its title, requires an audience. I practice dance mostly without an audience. As my work is presented in a variety of places, a part of my role as choreographer is to consider how these places can produce different opportunities for an audience to experience a dance.
V: Do you think there is a specific, new interest in experimental dance in Australia, or do you think it is simply that artists are making works in different ways and more readily working across disciplines? Or perhaps both?
AE: Dance is a collaborative process, especially the relationship between dancers and choreographers. The Keir Choreographic Awards was the first opportunity I had to work with artists outside of dance, this was an invaluable experience. The chance to realise ideas beyond the limitations of the body is very exciting and now the impetus for ongoing collaborations with composer Daniel Jenastch, video graphic artists Ready Steady Studio, visual artist Claire Lambe and lighting designer Matthew Adey from House of Unholy.
There are a plethora of reasons for the increase in the variety of contexts dance is presented. I could speculate that a growing number of visual artists are intrigued by dance, and interested in working choreographically. Maybe all alone in the studio, they long for its collaborative nature.
Dance will continue to expand its horizons. Australian dance is currently generating an enormous amount of interest, from local audiences to major international presenting platforms, as a growing number of independent Australian dancers and choreographers are producing genuinely experimental work with great urgency.
V: Erin, you recently participated in the creative development of Aeon, through a residency with Vitalstatistix. Aeon is described as “a listening manoeuvre”, a participatory experiment of sound, movement and group dynamics. Tell us about that experience and the process of working with a multidisciplinary team of artists across sound, choreography and social engagement.
EF: Aeon was a fascinating experience of a multidisciplinary project that brought artists together from a really exciting range of backgrounds as well as places. For me, it was a joy to be able to enter a project purely as an artist, rather than having to facilitate or manage aspects of the project, which has been my main activity over the past few years through The Mill.
The experience unfolded and became more and more comprehensible to me as the two weeks progressed. It taught me the value of patience and time and of allowing things to emerge organically rather than forcing an outcome which I think I often fall victim to, especially when you work in low budget contexts where you feel a pressure to deliver an outcome immediately.
It also really fuelled my fascination with audience driven works and how to lead, guide or prompt audience members during a performance. For this project we weren’t able to speak which made it more challenging in one sense, but also really interesting for me as a dancer to see how we can push this non-verbal communication. It’s also interested in this phenomenon of the crowd and how people’s behaviour, even at a reasonably experimental and open-minded event such as Adhocracy, is still governed by responding within a perceived range of “appropriateness”.
V: Atlanta, what is your experience of working across the ecology of dance platforms in Australia (larger dance organisations through to independent artist-run-initiatives)? How important is this ecology of different sized organisations, with different artistic and curatorial approaches, to developing the careers of artists like you?
AE: I continue to work across a variety of contexts and each dance is shaped by the conditions of its production. I have learnt an enormous amount through continuously navigating different territories for the development and presentation of my work. The opportunity to work with a diverse range of organisations has benefited my practice at large and provided each individual work a unique time and place to be realised.
A multiplicity of experiences is essential and an indispensable element to a sustainable career as a dancer and choreographer.
V: Erin, the independent dance sectors in Sydney and Melbourne, for instance, feel very different from here. There also seems to be flux and change in the dance sector in South Australia. What kind of platforms, initiatives, organisations and development do you think is needed here in South Australia?
EF: It is definitely an interesting time for dance in South Australia. I am really passionate to develop our independent sector so that we can properly celebrate, promote and champion the work of our talented artists and provide platforms for them to make and work in SA, rather than having to find supplementary work interstate or overseas as is often the case. The flow on effect of that happening is that there are few independent work opportunities for dancers who then also feel the pull interstate and overseas. It then becomes challenging to feel like there is an active and energised sector outside of our peak festival seasons.
That said, the industry has been coming together in really exciting and encouraging ways over the past year or so, and I am hopeful that this will lead to some positive developments to support our SA dance artists.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the various problems and challenges and think it’s one particular factor or another that is the cause. There are definitely a string of things that I think need to happen to support the sector more sufficiently. For example a dance-specific hub in the CBD to support independent practice, more pathways or opportunities to present work in an experimental, contemporary arts venue, etc. However, I think as a first step, the sector coming together and articulating their needs and vision from within, rather than waiting for it to be dictated to them, be it through funding decisions or initiatives can only be a good thing.
If we can empower artists to create opportunities for themselves, to go after big ideas, and make things happen for themselves, then we are creating a culture of self-sustainability and independence that I think is going to be required of us more and more in the future.
V: Atlanta, I CON continues your interests in simulation, popular culture and the corruption of the present tense, which we also saw in Body of Work (your performance that Vitalstatistix presented at this year’s Adelaide Festival). Tell us about this new work.
AE: I CON is a performance interrelating the two themes of death and illusion to ask the question; what is contemporary? I CON is in long-term development, the first stage of development in 2014 was supported by Lucy Guerin Inc and Arts House.
I CON will explore methods of impersonation, learning how to impersonate artists who have died and artists that in dying have become iconic, beginning with Ian Curtis 1956-1980 (age 23). It is study of how artists of a particular time in history are perceived in the present day and ways in which they are immortalized through a culture of nostalgia and reproduction, in order to question the possibility for contemporaneity today.
V: Erin, tell us about the projects you are currently working on.
EF: I have a few of projects on the go at the moment.
I was fortunate to be invited to work with Australian Dance Theatre for their Ignition season earlier this year and created a short work, Epoch, inspired by Garry Stewart’s theme of history. It was an awesome opportunity to work with such talented and responsive dancers. We only had a few days but they worked so quickly and it was a really great experience. I am really excited to be able to undertake a second development with the company at the end of the year.
I’m also planning a second development of my solo work, Femme, which I developed as part of the Mill’s Choreographic Futures Residency in 2015 under the mentorship of Swedish based dancers Israel Aloni and Lee Brummer. The work has been a very personal exploration that touches upon ideas of beauty, self-control, perfectionism, anxiety and surrender. It’s a very vulnerable exploration of my relationship to my body, myself as a sexual being, and my own self expression. It draws on a number of personal experiences including my time as an international model during my teens, where external image was the main focus of my work, and which was an experience that affected me more than I perhaps realised until recently. Beyond that, it’s been a challenge I have set for myself to really find my voice as an artist, to not self-censor and to embrace my own expression.
The Mill is also about to undertake a residency in Indonesia at Ramah Sanur – a creative hub in Sanur, Bali. I am really excited about this project as Amber Cronin and I, along with six other artists from Australia and Indonesia will be collaborating to make a new multi-disciplinary work for a festival context over the four weeks. The Mill is really invested in long term, genuine international exchange, with projects in Sweden, Canada and now Indonesia so I am really excited to take the first step with this one in November.
V: For each of you, how do you feel about feminist performance and art? Do you feel there is a new generation of the feminist art movement? Do you think about these questions choreographically?
AE: My experience of feminism is that it is neither a tradition nor an aesthetic. Feminism renews itself all the time by necessity. It exists within a multitude of contexts and understandings that have never shared a collective consensus defining what it is and what it does. I am a feminist, therefore my work is inherently so.
EF: I think my perspective on this again comes back to some of my Daoist/Chinese explorations and recent work in Kundalini Tantra. Both of these fields see feminine and masculine energies present within everything – from individual beings, to the planet. I believe we currently idolise an unhealthy version of masculinity valuing outcome/progress/the individual/competition (patriarchy) leading to violence (war), greed (climate change) and inequality. I believe it is of benefit to all to shift our society and culture to cultivate more feminine traits such as introspection/intuition/community and feeling. When these qualities are valued in our society as much as our idolisation of what believe is an unhealthy version of masculine qualities then I think we will be in a much better place.
I see art reflecting this frustration with inequality in a whole range of ways. Some choose to respond to by “fighting” back, or “growing balls”, essentially playing within the masculine structures, and I see a definite place for this. In the past I have been driven and passionate to do this both personally and through my work.
Choreographically, my thinking on this has led me to create from a much more intuitive place. At the end of last year I burnt out from overworking, trying to prove myself and taking on way more than I could manage. When I work from this place my creativity freezes. And so it’s only since tapping into my feminine essence and giving those qualities value over achievement and “fighting the system” that I’ve been able to create freely. Perhaps that’s my current version of feminism!?
I am a fan of Beyoncé as someone who is completely in the mainstream and who is “allowed” to embody a range of female archetypes that most pop starts are not. Beyoncé is one of the few in my mind who can be highly sexual and provocative, intensely powerful and independent, vulnerable, a mother, and is still able to perform for the president. I think this is a healthy role model for young women to not feel like they will be boxed into one or another.
V: Each of you has worked with Vitalstatistix this year for the first time. Like Erin’s organisation The Mill, one of Vitals’ functions is as a community for artists interested in new ideas and forms. What is the value of organisations that create this space for artists, particularly those that prioritise development programs?
AE: The emphasis on development programs at Vitalstatistix is imperative to the production of my work. Vitalstatistix provides the time for the rigorous research required for strong conceptual framework and the space for experimentation and contemplation in the creative development. Vitalstatistix provides a multidisciplinary meeting place where things are made possible. Organizations such as Vitalstatistix that foster community, offer a range of initiatives, value experimentation and address intensity of experience are perpetually crucial to my work.
EF: It’s crucial that these organisations exist, particularly in South Australia. It’s wonderful that we have access to so many amazing festivals and international artists through being the festival state but I find that pathways for the development and intensive making of work in SA is less strong. I would love to see residency programs attached to each of the festivals or more pathways for local artists to engage with and be presented in these programs. This would also help with building an audience that can better understand the developmental stages of making work, or work that is more experimental in nature and aren’t just expecting big budget main stage works all of the time.
V: How is each of you feeling about the future of the arts in Australia at the moment?
AE: The future of the arts in Australia is already here, historically excellent and infinitely expanding into the unknown.
EF: The last 18 months have had some pretty distressing moments. It’s been frustrating and disheartening to feel like at a broad cultural and political level, our country doesn’t see the value of the arts. That the clichéd lazy bludging artist stereotype is still alive is tiring. But, to quote a cliché “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
During this time I have also really felt the artistic community band together, think more strategically, articulate our value and become more generous and community driven to support each other. I think if this can continue, combined with the support our sector deserves, then the future of Australian art is exciting and something I want to be a part of.
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