standing still, wearing a jacket that is almost orange

I want to be 90% emptier
-- only ten per cent full --
and then that other ninety per cent can go outside of me
It will be more useful out there
than in.

re-cycle

Coffee stained feet and kinks in my hair.
Seen this scene before, thinks me.
"You'll have to be in control today," she says.
"I pretty much rolled down the stairs last night."

Great. Great.

The kitchen floor is stained orange-yellow, an after-red.
We don't keep wine in the kitchen. It stays out front.

Standing beside some curiosity
Hiding behind a hairstyle I abandoned in year ten --
Two hands on my shoulders.
Rotate 90 degrees beside a crowded, slippery sink.
Some hands, and only hands.
This large, messy chaotic thai takeaway of a scene
suddenly smaller.
About two hands worth.
Two small, sad hands that want to go back home.

"It's ok."
I can't remember if I said this or if the hands did.

Some choreography around dishes and dirty rubber matts follows.

Later
I am
Seeking 1.5 litres of quiet time
and shy sideways glances
Not at the hands
At the hands' owner
Thank you, I say without a voice
Thank you says me shy
Thank you, thank you
Thank you small hands.

(This all started with hands:
Quick hands that played with sharp things.
They were afraid of being yelled at
so they picked off their own fingers.)

"I'm sorry,"
I tell the customers,
"There's a 25 minute wait while we repair some lives" and hands.
I don't think it will ever heal.
We learned about that in anatomy class.
How naive of me
to think I was the only one here with a
body.

During 1.5 litres of quiet time
I think about the last time I had two hands.
Palms up
Two small pools of Lady M.
That night I drank about as much red
as he bled out today.
I don't
give blood because I have
an Irrational Fear of Needles.

But I really like hands.
I really like shoulder blades.

I really don't like needles (see above).

Thank you hands.
Thank you small, sad hands;
I like how gentle you are.

Thank you friend.
I like how gentle you are.

reset

I need to rip out all my bones and muscles and start over again. Just have some saggy, empty skin bag in which I can grow new muscles that work properly and don't over develop and cramp up and make moving sore. Need to have tendons which are pliable and so on. Need to rip apart the muscles gripping around my femurs, like how you'd twist the neck of a chicken to snap it off. Pull all the muscle fibres apart to make space between them. Need to grow new bones that don't grate against each other when I bend my knees or kneel on the floor.

Need to just chill out for a bit. Hold less tension in me. Just relax. Listen to some Sigur Ros and just lie on a grassy something and forget about unnecessary shit teachingstudiessomaticsapplyforsecondmentlistauctionsontradememakedinnerforflattiesamigoingtogotobikramtomorrowpeopleineedtocatchupwith(lots)whattimedoistartworkonsaturdaydiditakemyvitaminsthismorninggottawalkupstairswithouttakingmyheelsoffthestairssolessmuscletensioninlegsremembertoaskcharlesforareferenceanddoesmarkhavefootageofourgroupworksfromlastyearshiiiiiitsomuchtodobettergetoutofbedandturnmylaptopbackonandwrite/whingeaboutit.

Yeah. Muscles will feel better then.

Relaxed as.

But really, imagine how lovely it is to be empty. Just a flaccid, floaty sack of skin that moves wherever and has Ultimate Mobility. That'd be so great.

And then I could grow real good muscles 'cause I know lots of things now and I could train them all properly and they'd be real good muscles. They'd do real good things for me. Leg behind me, grande second plie and so on is No Problem.

Just wanna put some suction-y thing on the end of my ankles and suction all the crap out, all the tight achilles and calves and grating knee joints. My femur's having a war with my tibia scratch scratch scratch carving some great statue out of it. Femur thinks it's fucking Michaelangelo. Come on, seriously? Behave.

My ligaments are useless DO YOUR STUPID JOB and stop SNAPPING BACK snap snap snap snapping legs, snappity-snap just snapping all over the place; One day I'm gonna do a rise or something and my whole leg's just gonna snap in half 'cause Femur's had the ultimate inspiration and made some great stone face out of my bones and the face is gonna grimace horribly and the whole knee is going to go backwards and snap through my skin and out the other side and then I'll be one-legged and need a peg leg. No more dancing. No more. Peg dancing. Peg technique, by Natalie Clark. Involving straight legs only, no bending required, please only apply if you'd like over-developed quads and shit knees please and thank you.

No bending necessary. Make life do what you want it to do. You are in charge of your body, no bending necessary. You are in charge of your body. Your body is not in charge of you.

024

In first year Charles said to us,

“Thinking is as important as moving. And movement is the way dancers think.”

I like this a lot.
But it's not the only way we think.

“Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us. They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning … And so … because I have carefully studied all these matters from the beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.”

                                             - Luke 1:1-4

 

jamie cleans the shower

It is 10pm on Sunday night and Jamie is doing his weekly chore.

Jamie doesn't sleep much. He has nocturnal sleeping patterns. 

Like a bat.

I come downstairs and find him looking out from the shower into the hallway. A comical scenario. Jamie looking outside from in, behind glass. 

With a shower head.

 

A sad little shower head dribbling over the glass. In place of Jamie's head - a happy little head with a small happy smile.

A big smile.

There is a winter wonderland under my bedsheets, courtesy of Miss Natasha.

 

It is magic snow - the kind that can become gumballs and milk bottles.

facts versus thoughts

A child is carried by his mother for 9 months. He is literally in her. 

Yet when the child grows and begins to resemble his mother, we say to his mother, “I can definitely see you in him.” 

But really he was in her.

Maybe you could argue that the child is made from a part of his mother and a part of his father and that therefore his mother and father are literally in him -- but if this is the case (and it is), the mother and father are not in their child; rather, they are their child and their child is them. Because the child is made from his mother and his father and from nothing else. 

He is his parents. 

They are the same but they are not the same.

curiosity curls sometimes
“do not disturb”
but/so
I silently pry
pretending to listen above your head
right versus wrong
subtle movements and minor adjustments
eyes trace the words I am not supposed to see
privy to something private
not intended for me,
but in which I delight
it’s full of words, full of words
fluttering pages, glimpses of sense
imploring, entreating to be read
for only once read do they awaken
and once awaken, alive, and real
I want to devour the art of another
it is the art which tastes best
seeing what it is like
for someone else 

 

A society, regardless of ethnic variation, will always have a dominant culture which determines and influences government and social systems. The ideas of a society are founded and governed by a dominant group (the group with the most cultural capital) and this group defines the dominant ideologies of that society. Those who follow a culture in which that culture’s ideologies deviate from the ruling group’s ideologies will be less prominent in numbers, suppressed, ignored or belittled, and so a society can never become truly multicultural for this reason, as the minorities’ ideologies will never properly surface. A society may have several ethnicities which combine or co-exist within its community, but all people, regardless of culture, will be answerable to one dominant culture; that is, the culture which rules the social structure of that society. In effect, a society may be multi-ethnic, but not multicultural.

Reasons why we laugh:


1. They’re somehow sexually connected, like a pun or rude joke.
2. They’re stupid, silly, dumb, ridiculous.
3. At someone’s expense, often someone who has been caused physical pain, and usually their misgivings have been caused out of stupidity (either their own or someone else’s).
4.   Something is awkward/We are nervous.

In disbelief (number 2.).
Because we feel it’s appropriate, required -- forced laughter (number 4.).

We are in such an amazingly fantastic mood that we cannot find any other way to express our feelings. Involuntary laughing.

There is a quote which goes:

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. It is that we are powerful beyond all measure.”

I honestly believe that my deepest fear is that I am inadequate.

The Show Must Go On

Tonight I saw Jerome Bel's The Show Must Go On, part of the Auckland Arts Festival.

It's really great. Really, superbly great.

The piece is essentially a series of pop songs with a (relatively) diverse cast of amateurs and professionals. It has been touring for ten years and casts are brought together in each country the work tours to. You might know about half the cast.

The Show Must Go On begins with a 'DJ' playing a song from a stack of CDs while there is complete blackout. When this first song finishes, the lights don't come up but you hear the CD being changed. Quite a few people left at this point. I think they decided the entire thing was going to be pop music in blackout. I imagine these people have very little sense of hope. It made me feel a bit sad for them. Quite a few people left throughout the show after that, too. By that stage alliances had been formed and the leavers were laughed out by a very united audience, clearly bonded by some inside joke the leavers had not cottoned on to.

Basically the performers gave a literal illustration of the songs' lyrics. With very basic movement. Very basic. Very. Very. Very. Very basic. Forcing you to listen to the lyrics. But also to really watch the performers. Probably more intently than if they were full-on dancing. (I wouldn't call this a dance piece. I think if you go expecting a 'dance' piece you will be disappointed. Although maybe this is the point. But I think it's more enjoyable if you don't set yourself up for this. Again, maybe that's not the point -- to 'enjoy' it, I mean. I'm not sure.) I've heard most of the songs multiple times and I'm pretty shit at listening properly to lyrics. I really did listen to the lyrics in the songs tonight though.

I laughed a lot of the way through. Ha-ha-haaa. The audience got pretty rowdy. People conversed the whole way through. And looked around at each other lots. It was nice to really see the people you were sitting in the theatre with. But there were moments I found truly poignant too. There was a section where they wandered around the stage, eventually (with the chorus) finding another performer to embrace. They weren't just following direction here, in my opinion. They held each other is such a way that almost brought me to tears. A 'ballerina' section is also extremely and eerily beautiful. I don't think anyone in the cast is a ballet dancer (although a couple are perhaps trained in some ballet technique).

This is one of the only shows I've ever been to where the entire theatre felt like a performance space. I often struggle with how distanced I feel from the designated 'stage' and the performers in larger theatres. Tonight I felt very connected to all the audience. This work is a great people watching opportunity. Man I love people watching. I do. The audience are watching the performers and the performers are watching the audience and the audience are watching the performers watch the audience watch the performers.


I'm just going to make a disclaimer here. I would absolutely recommend going to see it (it's on at Mercury theatre (off K Rd) at 7:30pm the next two nights (18th/19th March)), but you may hate it. I hope you don't. If you walk out, you won't be the first. You might be laughed at.

a summary of life in the last 120 hours

we were 110
now there are "approximately sixty of us"

two lion reds
two lion reds are sitting on a small grave
(I wonder if you saw your name on a headstone and
imagined
yourself
dead?)

be good, but don't be great
there are, like, six kinds of tea here
please, no more backwards rolls
whatever you do, don't even think about making a dancer  
actually dance
let the actors do their handstands and the
filmies do their back flips
they're much better at it than I am anyway
I have spent years training to be mediocre
and would rather
booty shake to rapping over Mozart, thank you

snails for kai
pretend you're French
pretend you're exotic
erotic?
hell, just pretend.
oui oui! s'il vous plaît!

they're going to put turbines in the Kaipara harbour
chomp up all the orca into tiny pieces
Willy Wonka LOVES that idea
"We'll shove them in an aluminium can
and float them down the chocolate river to our
hungry hungry customers!"
that'll be good.
That'll be good, eh?

if I'm supposed to walk backwards
does that mean I need to grow eyes in my shoulder blades?
or kidneys, or something?

they'd rather go to the rugby, in New Zealand
going to the theatre is SUCH! an effort
the rugby is fu-unn
big guys in tight shorts
with tight pecs
better boobs than me
better boobs than the cheerleaders
better entertainment
just all round better
(there goes that semantic satiation again -
how come I never get it saying
"five-six-seven-eight"?
I must say that to myself at least
approximately sixty
times a day)
"and-five, six, se-ven-eight-and.."

One more lion red!
Is this a personal joke I've been left out of?
Am I missing something?
Wait - was that satirical? Or for real?
It's so hard to tell when irony is in
Irony means you are a real artist
you qualify for cool
who cares if you can point your toes
pffffffft
where's your post-modernity?
shame on you!
technique is OUT
starving artist is IN
keep up, girl
keep up or you're going to fall by the wayside
where's your run-down flat
where's your second hand clothes?
your organic, fair-trade, eco-friendly latte?
Your head tunnel-tuned to open mindedness
living is OUT, man
thinking 
is IN.

Keep up!
Jump higher, faster,
Five! Six! Seven! Eight!
where's your pavement stare?
your sexual turmoil?
your protest placards?
change is in, yeah
Five, six, change seven, eight --
your quarter speed walk?
your violent shaking?
stare, two, three, four
run five, six, se-ven-eight, nine?!
waistcoat, hunchback, poetry, tears
Oh God, Oh God, I'm behind in my rent!
overdraft for an iPhone
oversized headphones--

Shit.
Just slow down.

Exhale, two, three, four,
five, six,
roll-se-ven
(hate)

glissade, jeté; glissade, jeté
and five, six, seven, hate
glissade, jeté; glissade, jeté
and five, six, seven, hate
glissade, releve; hold seven, jeté, 
glissade, jeté; and seven, hate

One. Two. Three-and-four.
Five.
Six--
She's* right. 

Fuck this. 










*"Fuck this" is a reference to/quote from Lydia Zanetti's piece, Do You I Heart.

I heart 'i heart'

It's good. Like, it's pretty good.

The three pieces correlate really well together, while each existing in their own right - Emily's solo into Jessie's film into Lydia's work on Shani, Sarah and Sofia (triple 'S') (who give stunning performances) (also featuring Emily) (are you allowed to put three (four) consecutive brackets?).

Politely provocative. One of the more 'fringe' Fringe shows I have seen. Definitely relevant to 'being a dancer' but addresses broader ideas too. 

I am tired. Plus there is a lot to digest in it. Not too much, but a lot. So I'm just saying: there is one more night (tomorrow, Wednesday) and you should go.

7pm, Galatos.
$10/$15

scribble scape

'Scribble Scape'
Etched Dance Productions

Thurs-Sat 10th/11th/12th March

7:30pm

St. Kevin's Arcade

FREE (although they will graciously accept donations!)

Following a successful season in Wellington, Etched Dance Productions' show Scribble Scape opens this Thursday, running til Saturday, as part of the Auckland Fringe. I have been helping them rehearse - it is a good show. The massive stairway in St. Kevins makes for an interesting space and it is used very well. The piece is short - about 15 minutes - so if you're planning to go out anyway you can catch it beforehand.

Jess and Sam do an amazing and innovative duet (I have always loved watching them partner together). There are a lot of bubbles. Let's face it, bubbles are fun. And lots of tea cups which make great clinky noises. It fuses vocals/random verbal sounds with both pedestrian and more physical movement. There is going to be live music which is awesome. It's a very light performance piece. Easily enjoyable whether you're into contemporary dance or not. A crowd pleaser.

I admire that these guys are taking work directly to an audience by placing it in a public space. I think it's really important that contemporary art endeavours to reach new audiences where possible. Maybe some people will stumble upon this piece who might not otherwise see something like this. Mind you, K. Road is pretty 'artsy'. Who knows. I think it's worth checking out.

Go, go!

they live in my world.. why don't I?

Sometimes all I want to do with my life is dream and write and smile secretly but not outwardly. And love faces and be loved and fuck. The only places I want to be are wide grassy staircases with rickety concrete bridges. In wooden flats with narrow red hallways. In alley ways where people are selling wallets made of juice boxes.

There should always be music and people talking. Lots of traffic. Especially 'cross now' lights. Every surface will be covered in words and candy with tropical fruits growing off it, lickable like Willy Wonka wallpaper. Every space should feel new. Even if it is known. Every person can wear a different colour and it will not be black.

No-one will walk away when I am in the middle of writing a story about them.

Whenever I want to know something, someone who knows it will teach it to me until I understand all its sides. I won't ever forget but I will be able to quieten.

All that anyone will ever need to make them happy is a tumbling column of brightly coloured plastic shovels. That is all people need.

I HEART

A group of talented young ladies I know are putting on a show as part of the Auckland Fringe.

Photography Blair McTaggart.

I HEART

Lydia Zanetti, Jessie McCall and Emily Campbell

Tuesday 8 March

Wednesday 9 March

7pm at Galatos(off K Rd)
Adult $15, Conc $10

This is what they have to say:

‘Avoid habits’ slash ‘indulge idiosyncrasies.’ ‘Alienation is overdone.’ ‘I HEART forced arch choreography.’ ‘This is getting a little bit StageChallenge.’ ‘Walk for 8, stand for 8, twitch 2, 3, turn on the spot, exit stage left.’ ‘Do not act.’ ‘To end, heavy breathing.’ ‘Move toward comfort.’ ‘Um… snap to black.’

This is what I have to say:

If you are a fan of tissues, drag kings, small stools, film media in dance (is it dance?), being slightly uncomfortable, opinions which are sure of themselves and abstracted yet satisfyingly provocative images and ideas, you will enjoy. If not, hell, go anyway. It'll probably be good for you. What I have seen of these three girls' works was more than worth watching. Easy to watch and delectably difficult to digest. Can bet their performers are nice to sink your eyes into as well.

I'm going to see it on Tuesday. If you're not in the mood for risk-taking, I'll advise as to whether you should go on Wednesday (probably yes. Just go Tuesday).

[They're also at Dunedin Fringe: 8.30pm 18/19 March and 7pm on 20th, at Globe Theatre.]

an apology

There is something long unsettled in me 
so I am going to attempt to settle it.
Probably more for myself. But it feels necessary.
I have too much regret
and there shouldn't be any.
I don't want there to be any.
So I am sorry I did not say things I was thinking
and, moreover
I apologise for my lack of courage.
I apologise for allowing my own insecurities to be a barrier to goodness.
I apologise for thinking too rationally at times and too naively or ignorantly at others.
But I think that now you are 'ok' or 'happy'
(whatever definition of those words are yours, or can be yours),
which is good.
It's good.
Everything is together.