Transcendence

“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. ...Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.” - Ludwig van Beethoven

Robin Spielberg's TEDx talk brought me to tears. She told stories about her experience of music's power to heal, to provide catharsis, to soothe anxiety and change the brain. Around 13 minutes into the talk, she describes how she went into a nursing home to play. Disappointed at the quality of the piano, the lack of applause, and lack of responsiveness of the audience, she decided she was just going to go into the lala land of her music and get through the hour. As she was leaving though, a nurse came up to her, and told her that it was amazing, all of the connections she made. The nurse described how one of the patients, hearing her play 'Moon River', had been singing along, speaking for the first time in years.

For me, vital, life-giving importance of art lies in its powerful ability to connect to our human experience. It transcends in a way the best efforts of the prefrontal logical mind cannot. It transcends the individual narratives of our lives, speaking to us as though the creator intimately understands our inner world. 

As a choreographer, I would probably wouldn't pick myself to be the performer that breathes life into the work. But I am grateful for the chance to shape and share in the numinous experience that is music and movement. In that moment, I am uplifted by that which comprehends mankind, but mankind cannot comprehend. 

Not that anyone needs another opinon

The greatest victories are not over land, won with guns and bombs, but in changing beliefs, and transforming hearts.

The tensions between Ukraine and Russia sadden and worry me, but I am hesitant to speak out against one or another country. I would never take sides in the middle of a couple's quarrel. Situations are so often more nuanced and if we are not party or privvy to this, judgement or mediation would seem beyond my scope to have an opinion on. 

I am heartened though, by the global humanitarian aid efforts and moral support sent to Ukraine. In an abusive relationship, whilst you wouldn't punish the abuser, you would definitely want to empower the victim to leave the relationship. 

I do have an opinion on cancel culture. Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you have to unfriend, block or shout them down. The great American value of democracy and freedom of speech seems to have been forgotten by many allegedly democratic parties today. Respectful disagreement, entertaining opposing views, and even conflict are part of healthy emotional growth. As is learning non-violent communication techniques and realising that no one is perfect, or right, not even yourself, and being willing to be changed.

What I am heartened by are people who recognise that regardless of politics, Russians are humans too, and need basic necessities, and as much as I may not condone how Russia is behaving, why is there a need to punish all Russians, even those living overseas? Do people think that doing that is going to sway Putin?

At the end of the day, when it comes to conflict, it often isn't about who is right or wrong, but what is the best outcome for everyone. Desperate people pushed into a corner can do dangerous things.

In the meantime, I celebrate the Ukrainians who continue to live, love and work harmoniously alongside Russians. There is a kinship of the human spirit united in a common cause, be it in the pursuit of art, or science, or even food, which unites us despite our political and social differences. As a lone voice in the outback, I hope we continue to remember that we are all humans, all experiencing life, and find empathy and love for each other in that.

Non-sands and breeze-blocks

The sands of time make a heavy trove
a chest unlocks and heaves
a sigh -

I see you
in the glimpses between 
in sunlight and blue skies
in white sand and surf
in counting knots
in sweet abandon
in memory and music

I close my eyes, or leave them open
it matters, not
as it dissolves today and ten years ago - 
I edit my life 
in a blink.

I am happy 
and thoughts of you
in breezeblocks
are best left unaltered;
would that they could be washed away
by the tide of time
and the keeping of a life
much richer for having had you in it
but all the more so for not; 

Cognitive dissonance swells 
memory cements
as life informs wisdom
and impulse slips by
a chest unlocks and heaves
a sigh.

the art of letting go

being a grown up
the super ego prevails
heartbreak of the id

I think I found my new earworm

Adelaide Fringe 2020

In a creative process littered with malapropisms, Kath & Kim references and camaraderie, the world premiere of Retrieve Your Jeans came together with professionalism and creative flair.

Through the subtle humour that draws from the performance of the everyday, the performance does what all good art should - reveal something about our human nature, retrieves our homophonic genes; through vignettes on how we interact, the solitude of human struggle and how we find refuge in community.

Or not. Retrieve Your Jeans neither puts on airs nor endeavours to be philosophically prescriptive. The piece is equally successful as a child-friendly, everyone-loves-Toy-Story, heartwarming departure into another fantasy world, one where we find the struggles of everyday life endearingly funny. 

Free this weekend? Bring your mates, or bring your kids, and find out how washing machines, laundry lines, and folding denim can evolve into a whimsical piece that draws you in and leaves you wanting more. And still have plenty of time for a good dinner, or drinks after.

Full disclosure of bias: I was a fly on the wall during the production.

I'm not sure when exactly,
friendship is a funny thing, creeping up on you slowly
you get used to having someone around,
when they are around long enough,
they become
a permanent fixture in your heart.

I'm not sure when exactly,
that Sadness and I became friends.
But, in any event,
we are close.

I'm sorry I can't laugh and
talk of nothing all the day long
with friends who don't know Sadness
the way I do.

I don't hate you, Sadness
I wish more people weren't so afraid of you
I find you
perfectly beautiful
a lonely and often quiet soul
and all the more beautiful for it.

I don't blame you, Sadness
for your all-consuming nature
and the wall of unavailability
we've built around us.

I just wish more people could
know you like I do
revel in you like I do
enjoy you like I do
and see really,
how you co-exist with Joy,
and not not invite you to parties.

Movement is life

What it is about art, that the impetus for production is repression and deprivation? War, sickness, separation. Death. Unresolved love. Crises of the spirit catalyse art. The more we repress the subconscious it seems, the more active it becomes, the more its activity seems to bleed into consciousness and find an eventual manifestation.

The other day I was having a conversation with an Israeli about how much I loved the Israeli approach to movement, and how much respect I had for their movement techniques such as gaga and Feldenkrais. I reflected on how dancers here possess a totality of movement that seems to come from a much deeper attunement to the mind-body connection. She said with a sense of humour that it was because in Israel, where we are surrounded on all sides by the intensity of conflict, war, and crisis, we search for something else to focus on with greater intensity. We search within ourselves.

Perhaps it was environmental pressures that selected Israel to become the mecca of contemporary dance it is today. Richard Wolpert hypothesises that the mind was made to move; that the nervous system was evolved to allow complex movement, citing the example of the sea squirt, which digests its own nervous system for food once it has settled on the rock it will call home. It no longer needs to move, so it no longer needs its brain.

The humble sea squirt, incidentally,
may also present a potential treatment for mesothelioma.

There is something deep within us that needs to move. Whilst it stretches the metaphor to say the sedentary lifestyle is eating our brains and causing strokes, even in the language of evidence based medicine, we know this to be true.

We are in a generation which venerates the mind and dismisses the body. Yet the language of movement is impossible to quantify and analyse through the language of cerebral science alone. It needs to be embodied to be fully understood. That is what dancers do. Research movement. The connection of movement to the body, the connection of moving bodies to each other, the connection of movement to rhythms.

As the world turns to the advancements of medicine and technology for the elixir of health and youth, there is a need to return to the arts. To come back to what is within us, the fundamentals of who we are, and embrace and enjoy what it is to be humans - minds made to do, and to move.