From one phase to the next
About 10 days ago I didn't know where I was going to live. I got a call from Anthea from Nedlands Library who told me to give the mayor of Nedlands, Max, a call, as he'd an idea regarding where I could live. A few people had listened to the very candid interview I gave Julia from the Nedlands library (as part of an oral history project they have)... and I think word got round that I was at a bit of a loose end.
Max recommended I get in touch with the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA, and see if they'd space at the Mattie Furphie house. They did...
However there wasn't much I could do at the time because my flight to Sydney was boarding and the line was just about trailing to its finish. It was Saturday, the day just after I'd finished up with the workshop at Strut with Sarah Dowling.
Our feet on the Friday after we'd finished our last improv... we were getting drunk at a beer garden, doing our fabulous moves we'd learnt during the workshop in front of the non-dancers of the crowd. Love an audience.
Daph and I spent a good deal of Saturday morning together... it was great to get to know her better and take some goofy photos of us and talk about the way our minds work and how we can mesh that together in collaboration.
Daph, laughing at something stupid I said probably.
But I was flying off to Sydney to do a workshop with Dean Walsh and Guy Whitworth.
The flight to Sydney was uneventful, but when I got to Sydney terminal, I scabbed a ciggie off another passenger... she gave me a vogue - something long, thin and without much nicotine. Just as well.... I'd started smoking a bit during the dance workshop, and it is a hard habit to re:kick once re:taken up. When Dean came along to pick me up I felt guilty about my odour that had surely adopted a smokey overtone to it, but he'd seemed not to care.
The following few days were something extra-ordinary.
Dean was working on a grant application for ArtsNSW - a fellowship for artists with disabilities (Dean has aspergers), and I had the pleasure of helping him out with some sections, and working quietly alongside him. It was lovely to be able to work on my own stuff whilst he worked on his. I'd hoped we'd spent that Sunday doing other things, but in the end, we did precisely the sort of thing I enjoy doing - solving problems, discussing the arts, and being generous and supportive.
The next day we were in the studio with Guy Whitworth for our project The Gaze.
I'm on the floor "moving authentically" after doing some deep listening of aquatic sounds, which helped me reconnect with my body in a different way than I'd experienced before. This was part of Dean's Prime Orderly methodology.
It was a workshop that extended my approach to movement, particularly after just having done Strut with Sarah - my body was really primed to get into more new movements (although, as you can see from my bandage, I was not fully healed from the previous couple of weeks).
Dean and I experience a wonderful synergy, which allows us to work deeply with each other. Good thing we can, as the work we're developing explores our respective childhood traumas, which have similarities but vast differences as well, and how those traumas relate to who/how we are today. Working in that territory is going to be easy with him... and it's already got its first public outlet in January during the 2017 Sydney Festival for Really Good Sex.
A couple of days later I got back to Perth and fixed a move-in date for my next residence - Mattie Furphy House.
Mattie Furphy House - the writer's residency I've moved into
I was really nervous meeting Peter Bibby to confirm move in arrangements. I don't identify as a "writer", although I do publish a hell of a lot of writing through Limelight and I often write my own lyrics, and text based composition.... but I don't feel like a "writey writer" (as much as I don't feel like a "dancey dancer").
Talking to Peter, though, helped calm my imposter's syndrome a bit... he's written for heaps of different contexts and in different ways... it doesn't make him less of a writer. I'd intended on writing text based scores in 2017 anyway, as well as physical theatre involving text, music, movement... and potentially a chamber opera... all these seemed to add up to me feeling more legit within a writer's residency.
So we agreed I'd move in.
This was a huge weight off my shoulders, as you can imagine... but there was one more thing I needed to do before leaving Gallop house - and that was a photoshoot with Dan, who'd been really keen for a while to shoot me whilst living there.
Alas, the others are full nude - so I'll post them elsewhere.
It was great, we got into some interesting territory with some of the techniques I'd learnt in the previous dance workshops - and just feeling totally free and creative was great.
It was a nice way to leave.... that is, after the MASSIVE cleanup.
The house is now empty, it looks ready to receive its next guest - Mace Francis!
It was quite an experience leaving yet another residence... that's 12 times in 10 years I've moved house... I don't think it'll slow down.
So I'm now on the bed at Mattie Furphy House... listening to some Bjork, writing to you about this transition of physical space, but also of my artistic output. I've been writing music for over a decade now, yet the past few weeks I've been a dancer and model mostly, and written some music for sure, but within the context of multi-artform performance. I'm working so hard on so many things at once, and it's all beginning to come together.
Next year Dean and I will perform in this Sydney Festival for Really Good Sex in January... then I'll be performing in Guy Whitworth's Mardi Gras exhibition on March 2. In May I'll have a performance with the Australian Art Quartet, and in June with The Song Company. All the while, I'll be developing The Gaze with Dean, Key Moments with Wendy Sharpe and Ben Opie, Connect/Disconnect with a number of artists in Perth, and some awesome ideas with Dapheny Chen in Singapore.... whilst navigating new exciting waters with Limelight magazine.
Lots of strings to this bow. Lots of feathers to that cap... or are there? For me it all boils down to the same thing - having vision, being able to assess and change it for viability, communicating it, and managing it.
That's it from me for 2016 - next time I write, we'll be well into this writer's residency. I'm going to start mixing things up and start publishing a few more creative works on here, rather than simply letting you know what I'm up to and planning!