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Breath
This morning I feel the shortness of breath that comes with anger at and despair of humans’ unfeeling actions. I need the massage of breath, immersion into the present, into feeling. Prepare the space and the soundtrack. Lay the yoga mat and play Jon Hopkins’ musical cycle Ritual. It follows a seasonal familiarity—repetitions with a…
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An update on writing the autobiography
I started writing my autobiography just over a year ago. Maybe I’m halfway. This time last week I was feeling overwhelmed, with chronology and what to include or not. Today, after a few breakthrough days, I realise it is the same as making a dance work (but longer). There is the engrossing research, the accumulation…
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#Score for walking
1 August 2024 Torrens Weir to Port Road, Adelaide (3.4 kms) I turned over to August in my “Unlikely Destinations” calendar to find “House on fire”— homes carved into a sandstone cliff in Mule Canyon, Utah. The stone looks like flames, but petrified. So I set a score for today’s walk: #Score for…
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Sewing Machine
Yesterday I opened my mother’s sewing machine. The last time I did that was about fourteen months ago when, after painstakingly referring to the English/French 1980’s-something instruction book to navigate my way to operation, I found it was in need of repair. Something was out of alignment, needles breaking on the steel plate. I recall…
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Walking into writing
Walking into writing Taking my mind out into the world Dropping into rhythms Then letting a detail interrupt that Taking time Enlarging the present moment Sunlight on shell glitter Unblinking search for surface breach Dog nose on hand Walking with family Ancestors, community World patterns, tides The progress is populated with footprints Animal, human,…
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Writing a biography—Yesterday’s Skeleton
As I have mentioned in earlier posts (about my Mind The Gap and Dance Hub SA residencies), I’m working on the bio-pic “Yesterday’s Skeleton.” I’m trawling through my dance history to keep hold of it, to acknowledge the breadth and diversity of it and the community of bodies, my dance kin, that resonate within it.…
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Brolga Issue 41
I am particularly proud of the latest issue of Brolga—edited by my dance (and Deakin) colleagues Shaun McLeod and Olivia Millard—having close connections to a number of the projects written about in it (and have quite a few of my video and still images published within them). In addition to the paper I have co-authored…
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Music that moves me
I saw/heard Jo Quail last night, UK based cellist/composer visiting Australia just now. It was a small but captivated audience at the Toff in Town venue but I kept thinking of how she would have resonated in the gorgeous Melbourne Recital Centre (where I heard/saw The Necks just over a week ago) I found Jo Quail’s…
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“Unbecoming” Review in Indian news
Indian dancer, arts activist and writer Mallika Sarabhai has written an article about my current performance work with Melinda Smith “Unbecoming” See the link to “The Week” here
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International Journal of Screendance (Vol 4)
At last Volume 4 of the International Journal of Screendance is up online My article “Fleshing the interface” sits alongside my close colleague Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt’s in the ‘Provocations and Viewpoints’ section IJS Vol 4
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A love poem for the red rattler
red rattler We began as a clumsy collision our bodies bumping and bruising with each dance of the carriage a rattling rumba… ti ti ka ti, ti ti ka ti, 1 2 & 3, now where are we? We try to make each other fit, etch ourselves upon the other We spend time…
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Dance Interrogations…some audience responses
“she is crawling towards me, she is taking a journey, it’s not sentimental, it’s an investigation in motion, she’s travelling through time. the landscape changes, the foundations sink, it makes me think about all the times I’ve wondered if it’s time to stop, but the rhythm continues under our feet, the dance takes us &…