Bangarra

It was YB's birthday on Tuesday and, to celebrate, we went to Luna Park on Saturday. As it is her last year in her twenties, she decided it was fitting to go to an amusement park and act like kids, going on silly rides and stuff. I'm not one for rides but Luna Park is such a good opportunity for pictures.

The highlight of the trip was Coney Island; DB pondered that we were old skool... but how can you beat silly mirrors and slippery slides. As we entered the building I raced ahead to take happy snaps of the girls on the various rides and a random guy came up to me, thinking the girls were some kind of celebrities or something, and asked me if I was a professional photographer. No I'm not and no the girls were just having fun. DB and I decided to try out the big kids slide, which is crazy high, as we were about to slide down we questioned what the hell we were doing up there but, after the first go we were immediately back up the stairs for a second go. Fun. Later a group of us tried the Wheel of Joy, where you sat on top of a spinning cone and tried to stay on the longest. I slid off fairly early but DB was challenging for a win when she stacked it and did a full forward roll over her tiara and got a couple of bruises. Awesome!

None of the other rides at Luna Park quite matched Coney Island, except maybe the Dodge 'ems, which is classic. YB decided it was more fun to try to avoid being bumped, which only just made her even more of an appealing target! We also tried some of the games. The first was a sort-of race where you tried to roll balls into holes, each hole makes your chariot fish go a certain distance. Three Bangarra dancers had a go and we got third-last, second-last and last positions. We have shamed our company. Later on JS and I tried the Clowns; I initially thought that high scores are good and felt dejected half way through when I was only on four when we found out that we should actually aim to get a LOW score. Consequently I did pretty well and got a Cat In The Hat, which I gave to JPB. He loved it...

I was at the Lord Roberts for a bit of a Lamb Burger when I checked my phone. There's a message from my sister up in Darwin asking me if I was going to be on Dancing With The Stars next week. Almost immediately it dawned on me: DB and WB, the poster children are going to be on DWTS. When the rehearsal director pulled the couple aside just before lunch we all joked that they were in trouble (that they had to go to the Principal's office because they were naughty children, or something like that) and, because they were the poster children, they were simply required to do another publicity thing for True Stories. Nothing special.

I thought that maybe I just missed the announcement that they had this gig, I try not to think too much about work things during lunch, I rang to confirm. Maybe WB was to do Moth with DB; boy there would have been hell to pay if that was the case. But, no, they're going to be doing new choreography, which is far more appropriate considering that we're opening in Melbourne pretty soon.

Anyway, it's pretty exciting for them. And the rest of us have been fielding enquiries from friends and relatives for the last couple of days: "no, we're not all going to be on the show, just the poster children". But we'll all be down at the local pub eagerly watching twist and tangle into the various headstands, lifts and one-arm-cartwheels-on-partner's-bended-leg movements.

Oh, and why on Earth is Tim not in the final??? Him and Nat are easily the best couple in the entire series, there is no justice in the world.

Four Years
We had just finished our first quick regional tour around NSW, presenting a program of bits and pieces pulled together from repertoire. Just about half of the company were new dancers and so there wasn't much there to really stretch us, it more like Introduction to the Life of a Touring Professional Dancer. When we got back to Sydney, Moth was one of the first pieces that Stephen worked on for Bush and it featured the auntie/nephew partnership of DB and ST. Not quite Fonteyn/Nureyev, it was still quite enduring, and Moth became a signature duet for both of them and was performed numerous times both in Bush and on its own for one-off corporate gigs and stuff. CK and I were the official understudies but, back then, there wasn't a really concrete idea of the understudy beyond "just in case someone gets injured but it probably won't happen so don't worry about it". Besides, in Bush it really wasn't practical for me to do it anyway, considering I'm in the piece immediately prior to it.

Like all living things, Moth grew over the four years along with the dancers. For four years I kept an eye on it, noticing the changes made to it along the way. But even with the departure of ST from the company last year, there didn't seem to be any chance of me ever performing this duet as Bush has been to just about everywhere in the country (with the glaringly notable exception of Perth).

Four minutes
So there I am, settling into first plie immediately behind DB's right shoulder, waiting for the first of many abrupt strings that are the little flutters of my moth-shadow wings. The stage is small, rough and rickety. We are in the Paddington Town Hall, it had been a hot and humid day and, with the venue having no cooling system, there were large aluminium tubes connected to air-conditioning machines pumping cool air into the hall. A few moments into the dance I overbalance and almost fall over. There are people watching from their tables right next to the tiny stage and their gaze is putting me off.

This is my official Moth debut. Not Sadler's, not the Kennedy Center, not the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. But here. After four years. It was surreal, as if I was lying. "Hah! You've come to see Moth but, instead, all you're getting is this."

It was about halfway through the duet when I get a connection with DB and it starts feeling like a dance. Dance like nobody is watching, and for a moment it was true. But then I almost dance DB off the stage and my hand nearly hits the projection screen and I'm back in the stuffy old venue, on the rickety old stage. I was so conscious of making noise, as every landing from a jump was a loud thud on this stage and with people less than a metre from the front of the stage it was absolutely possible that they could hear my breathing. I am a shadow, I'm supposed to be quiet.

Four minutes later, we were taking our curtain-less calls. Maybe it'll be another four years before I do that again.

BTW, the event was for Yalari, an organisation that gives indigenous kids the support to get through secondary school. Even Robbie Williams had donated something to the silent auction: he's a good sort, isn't he?

Elma Kris never fails to impress with her authoritative presence. Patrick Thaiday, especially in the blanket sequence, is powerful in his dancing and his ability to create a sense of character. The veteran performer Sidney Saltner has lost none of his attack and commitment. Deborah Brown and Jhuny-Boy Borja dance the pivotal blanket duet with engrossing intensity.

(from The Sydney Morning Herald)

Oooh! How exciting! Sounds like a good show!

DB had the car window open, the wind through her hair, as we flew down Warringah Road, to the sounds of Opus III's It's a Fine Day. A couple of hours earlier I was thrashing her around in her blanket. All was forgiven on the trip back home from Glen Street for Clan.

After all the troubles I've had with his body over the last year (even the last couple of weeks) I'ves finally gone and done the program that I was originally supposed to do prior to my calf injury. Because of the back sprain, I hadn't had much of a chance to really flesh out my characters in the program. The mechanics were generally fine but the next level of performance was missing right up until opening night where, apparently, I was well on the way to finding it again. Welcome back Jhuny.

We had an excellent reception on Opening Night but, after a school's show and more teching prior to opening, we were all pretty exhausted. Was still exhausted today and, for me, it wasn't as sharp tonight. For instance, in String I did my solo with my fly undone. Not to mention the kicking of the wing (which, in this program, is a hard timber frame) in Power.

Tomorrow the pressure's on. Got friends in the audience and JPB is coming too. I'm not nervous.

See you at Glen Street.

Had a pretty eventful week. My back that I sprained last week hasn't given me too many problems but that's because I've had quite alot of treatment on it (and getting a back rub about every second day isn't something that I'm going to complain about much...) What's been frustrating is that rehearsal director is erring on the side of caution and not pushing me in rehearsals much, which is bad because I really do need the practise! And if my back fails now, it'd probably be better to know sooner than later. On the plus side, wow have I got a great team to support me and my ageing body, I think I'm getting great treatment from the two guys that I'm seeing, my osteo and my masseur. They've been indispensible. Got one more massage before the opening of clan which at this moment, according to the Countdown block on this page, is only two days, twenty hours, 52 minutes and two seconds away!

I had a massage on the Tuesday and the guy that I see is in Woolloomooloo. Great. The place is jam-packed with people saying hello to Mary, I've never seen so many people down there. Afterwards I had to go back to the Opera House to see a show at 7:30 which, of course, happened to be the time when the OTHER Queen was docking. Cabbed it but Macquarie Street was jam-packed with cars and people. Made it to the show just in time, though I guess it didn't help that I was busy taking photos.

Snuck into The Studio late for David Hoyle's SOS, while he was busy bitching about the two Queens and encouraging us to take matters into our own hands and blow them up. Ooops! I had my camera hanging off my neck and hoped that he wouldn't ask me to show him the pictures that I'd taken. Brilliant show by the way, he urged us to "kill, if necessary" people like John Howard and the gay clones, to blow up those big floating bits of metal the Queens, to level the Pyramids of Egypt (he much preferred the modern Sydney Opera House, which he was thankful to be performing in). We the people of Australia that, apparently, waited for the pedestrian crossing lights to turn green, had to be wary of being complacent because life here is so easy, that the most we have to worry about is kids on skateboards knocking us down on the street. Singing is his forte but there was, er, contemporary dance and abstract painting in there for good measure.

[On the Friday, David and two other guys got gay-bashed in North Hyde park by a group of ten guys. Bloody appalling. But, with only one more show to do for this season (and it might be a bit morbid to say this but) it would have been intriguing to see his last show, to hear what he had to say about it. Apparently he didn't dwell too much on it though.]

On the same idea of Australians being too complacent, we went and saw The Gates of Egypt. Could barely keep my eyes open for the first twenty minutes though less because of the show and more because I was pretty tired. But the show itself was pretty ordinary anyway. Yes, we the people that wait for the lights to turn green and only need to worry about wayward skateboarders must not become apathetic citizens of the world but... I just don't know. I'm supposed to care more about what's going on in the world, yes, but I certainly couldn't care all that much for the play.

Though this week we did have a chance to show how much we do care about what's going on in the world, with the arrival of Dick Cheney. "Kill, if necessary" is what we were told by David Hoyle and, I'm telling you, if I had a rocket launcher I would have shot down a couple of helicopters. They were giving me the shits. On the Friday morning the noise from the helicopters over the harbour was disrupting the meditative mood of our morning yoga class. Sounded like we were in a war zone (sorry for the hyperbole). 350 Anti-war protesters clashed with the police as they marched down George Street, disrupting traffic but apparently it's okay for ONE person (the US Vice-President, yes, but still just the ONE person) to cause road closures through the city. Put him in an unmarked car and make him wait in traffic like the rest of us, I reckon.

Last night we had a cocktail party, which was modestly attended but there was good food and, with less people arriving than expected, there was more alcohol to go around. Wasn't feeling too well the day after.

And finally, my parents called me up about the website I'm doing for their shop (Johnny's Electronics). The layout is pretty much finished and all I need is content. Dad asked if I had a couple of spare weeks to fly up and take photos for the site. AS IF! Have you seen our Bangarra schedule? Besides, there's nothing stopping him from taking the pictures himself and emailing them to me...

And now it's next week. Gotta go to bed now.

I have to sort out my resume. Woah! When did I last write one of those? I dug a couple out of my backups, they go way back to 2002. Double woah! I guess I didn't need a resume to get into Bangarra.

And the things you need to do to update it! I had two: the first one was written in the vain hope that I could get the kind of job (and pay) I had before all this dance hoo-ha began but, being at the wrong end of a IT jobs slump (and despite having had such a position only the year before) it was fat chance I was ever going to be a software engineer in too much of a hurry. Tried to update it but decided that at the moment I don't have much of a need for a resume that describes the developmental outcomes for the implementation of the blah-blah-blah system or whatever.

It was more straight-forward to modify the dance-orientated 2002 resume but, still, as if I need to specify my landline number (like as if I ever use my home phone except for calling for taxis and take-away). And does anyone care what I got in high school now that I'm THIRTY? (not like it was all that necessary at TWENTY-FIVE, I guess...) And there was a distinct lack of URLs that now seem quite necessary. Sepcifying in my resume my Bangarra performance history was a bit convoluted, too. There's been three different versions of the Clan program; only Unaipon is the common thread, the others have works from other programs. When spelling it all out on my resume I felt like I was repeating myself. But not really. Sounds confusing and, considering it's all on the first page, its not a good thing.

Like as if you need resumes nowadays anyway. Its all about the networks and ready portfolios and showreels and stuff. Don't tell us, show us. Not as if I know, I haven't looked for a job in quite a few years now...

Tags: resume, Bangarra

I was ready to take on the world and kick arse in the show that calf-injury took away only to have my back go. One minute I'm feeling back in the swing of things, the next I've my feet up and I'm lying on the floor with a heat pack on my back. Not happy.

All I know is that I felt a bit of a *twang* in the middle left of my back. Wasn't doing anything in particular, with a partner who weights nothing at all. A bit like when the calf went. At least it doesn't feel as serious as last time, it just feels like I've got a stiff back, but I need the practise!

I've got the chance to get a back rub and crack (though doctor is not too keen on the latter...). And I've had a bit of extra time to fiddle with this site's layout (though I haven't uploaded much of the changes yet, still experimenting). It's not all bad news. Yet...

Tags Bangarra, dance, injury.

Yesterday we did a run-through of all the material we had created for EK's new work for Bangarra. By the end, she got quite emotional, seeing it all come so far. It's such a big thing for her to see Torres Strait culture being embodied and alive, which is what her piece is all about.

Mind you, by the end I was needed a bit of a back rub-down, despite getting a massage only two days earlier. Some people get sore backs from traditional TSI dance, I get a sore neck and traps. Also, Sydney has been quite humid lately and I think I sweated out an ocean. Lovely.

Afterwards we had a bbq. It was SS's last day and we celebrated by eating lots of seafood. Yummy.

(Haven't done a dance update in a while so here goes...)

It's now our fifth week of rehearsals at Bangarra in 2007, with about three weeks to go until we open Clan in Glen Street. The Christmas celebrations are stubbornly clinging to my stomach in the form of extra kilograms but at least I feel like a dancer again, it took awhile but I'm back. And inspired from the awesome program of dance we had in Sydney for the festival. We're spending more time on EK's new work for True Stories, though, while we have guest artist traditional dancer in residence. I don't see that there'll be much of a problem remounting Clan in the three weeks, though, because we have found time within EK's schedule to rehearse most of the show. Can't wait, too, I'll finally be able to perform all the roles I had in this program pre-injury so look out!

We've gotten alot of work done for EK as well and its all starting to get a bit of a flow (well, at least the first half anyway). It's a strongly traditional work, based on sacred objects from Murray Island in the Torres Straits, and the work-load is beginning to show in my legs: I have THUNDER THIGHS!!! Well it's good to have big legs anyway, culturally speaking, so I don't mind...

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, rehearsal.