carnival of mysteries

Cycling through Melbourne dusk after watching a show with Christy and she has been doing some random Wikipedia-ing “did you know that Fringe came out of the Pram Factory?” We talk about all those classic Melbourne companies that came out of the Pram Factory. Imagine if those artists had managed to buy the Pram Factory. The influence that the availability of space has on artists’ ability to make work. We talk about Liz Jones and the campaign to buy La Mama. The preciousness of places for making as real estate goes up.

We go to see the Carnival of Mysteries. The familiar people, Azaria, Derek, Sosi, Yumi, Maude Davey, David Pidd, Moira Finucane, the bodies so present and precise, the eyes right there with you. Something brilliant about seeing the product of all those minds.

In the middle of it Toni Lamond got up and sang. She stepped up onto the stage and I thought ‘who is she?’ there was a sense of something special in the way the audience stopped.

She sang about her life. Vaudeville, early TV, spruiking at Coles, stage shows. As the show finished and all the cast stood up on the bar to dance to ‘Flashdance what a feeling,’ I had a moment. It was something about being seeing this world that has such a long and particular history. This world of artists making work in Melbourne. Making work against odds. Making art. That they are still here and the history is a continuum and I am a little part of it.

Best kids show in the Fringe

Woohoo! Got up on stage at the closing night party to claim our cheap and ugly trophy. Hung out with the other winners drinking champaigne in the dressing rooms. Posed for the camera in front of the Fringe party crowd. High fived our friends and hailed a taxi. Came back to my bedroom to eat icecream and watch true blood til four in the morning. Thankyou Melbourne Fringe.
xxxxx

woof woof

laryngitis, sell out opening night, lots of cute feedback, antibiotics, steroids, sleep during the day, sell out second show, everyone loves the dog, everyone loves scout, everyone loves terry. bumping in, bumping out, our awesome teenage tech ladies smiling quietly in the corner, rewriting the show in my bed before the third night and a sudden sense of releif and understanding: this is the show, big crowd even on grand final night. Raucous kids, smiling grown ups, quiet sunday night crowd. Thank you Northcote Kids Festival. Tomorrow we open at Gasworks and i think the laryngitis has gone away.... at least i sound like a human again.

near death experience with a sewing machine, a caravan and a handstand chair

Today is Saturday-set-building-day. I spent the morning dealing with my ailing computer with my dodgy computer-man and dropped by GJ’s on the way home. GJ’s are the dance fabric specialists and the glitter, spangle, tulle element there is very high. I bought cream cotton drill and ended up needing to go to spotlight for the right red gingham. I got round to Pigeon Hole by about 2pm. Luke was building the hills hoist, Christy was finishing up emails and developing a shopping list, Flick and EJ were there with friends developing their caravan show.

I set up the sewing machine next to the caravan and started on the doona’s and pillows for the bunks. Christy set off with her shopping list. Flick was on the roof of the caravan where they have built a little wooden stage and had her heavy handstand chair up there. I could hear their conversation and the little creaks of the chair just behind and above me.

I’m fine now, just a bruise, but the next moment was a scary one. I heard a gasp and a bang and must have put my hands up to protect myself because the handstand chair hit my wrist and shoulder before landing on the floor. I had a moment of sick, sick feeling in my stomach at the how hard the chair had hit my wrist. To everyone else it looked like the chair had smashed my head. Luke was there with his hand on my back in a second. Flick looked terrified. I had a moment where I thought ‘the first thing you do when you’re in shock is tell everyone your ok, I just need to check in with my body’ so I sat there at the table, still, breathing, checking my head and my arms.

Then I thought it wasn’t fair to leave them all that scared and said, ‘I’m fine. It didn’t hit me on the head, just my arm and my shoulder.’ Its hard to reassure people when all you want to do is cry, but I managed to convince them I was ok and then put my head on my arms on the table and sobbed the shaky, shocked fear sobs. Luke stayed right next to me with his hand on my back and his face right next to mine and the others got ice and water and talked about rescue remedy. I thought, ‘I don’t need rescue remedy, I just need to cry.’ After a while I stopped and hugged Flick who felt awful and together we moved the sewing machine table away from the caravan.

I spent the afternoon and into the evening sewing the long doona and pillowcase seams while Luke finished the hills hoist and moved on to the fence and Christy made laksa for us all, painted metres and metres of rope silver, fixed elastic on her kneepads and helped me think about the doonas. A big sense of satisfaction putting each doona and pillow in its cover and then folding the big pile of creamy linen. By ten o’clock at night I was feeling a tickle in the back of my throat and the bruise on my wrist and I kept standing there looking at piles of things that needed sorting and not doing anything.

Luke got the fence up – though not on castors or its proper feet – and we looked at it. It suddenly looked very tall. How are we going to get Christy over it? We looked and then stood with our hands high and compared our height made suggestions. Christy said, ‘lets try it now!’ laughing in the cold dark warehouse. No way we were up to trying tricks. “We’ll figure something out….” I left her beginning to tidy up and went home. I sat up in bed with my laptop and corrected and formatted and added to the script. Christy rang me at 11pm to say, ‘Let’s not go to Artplay in the morning. Let’s rehearse at Pigeon Hole…’ The idea of loading and unloading the set again was pretty daunting.

dogalogue

Today is a post tumbling rehearsal at Westside and Kate arrives early as we are setting up the bunkbeds. There is a whole lot of cute chatter that happens with Kate and circus trainers and tumblers gathered around the kettle.

Kate sits us down and asks how we are. We are all tired and it shows in our laughter at the question.

She says that the plan today is to do a timed run and then to work on some of the looser scenes. Christy suggests that we do a walk through before the timed run to get it into our heads and we all agree. The walk-through becomes the time to work on the things we needed to work on, so Christy pulls out the gadgets and we create the gadget scene. We realise that fighting the bad guys should come after Terry gets his costume and need to do a bit of renegotiating. we create the training montage number three. I realise that I still have a hurried feeling like it's the walk through and we should be getting to the end quickly to do the real work - and actually this is the moment of creation right here as we make the scene. I slow myself down.

Pete emails us a track for moving towards the fence and we all pause to listen to it and to email him feedback.

Its getting closer and closer to one o'clock and christy will need to run at 2pm on the dot to her next reahearsal.

Kate asks us all how long we think a timed run of the show will take '40 minutes' '38' '32' we laugh and go to beginning positions.

Kate stands by the computer on the rigging box, running the sound and prompting us. Phoebe and Briar come and watch moments. Briar snorts with laughter when Scout says 'He's thirty five and he does a paper round.' Phoebe watches my dogologue with bright smiling eyes.

As we are nearing the end, Amanda arrives with the costumes for the last trial. We push through the run with her watching and grinning. Christy has ten minutes and needs to run: she whips herself into her costume. Luke and I dither into ours and the three of us line up. There is a lot of hilarious cuteness. Amanda sews a tail onto my schooldress. Christy's costume needs new tights, Luke's needs buttons. She has brought a sample table cloth swatch but didn't get the full amount so needs to get more.

Christy is on the phone explaing that she's going to be late, Kate is waving and leaving, Amanda is sorting piles of things she can leave and things that still need work.

I go to the bathroom and look at my cute doggy costume in the mirror. It makes me very happy.

Luke and I are left with the set and the scattering of costumes and props. We pack in slow motion. Hauling ourselves from task to task. For some reason it takes forever. I think of Christy at another rehearsal and am amazed that she has the energy.

'we're too good for OH&S'

Loading our stuff in and out of the northcote uniting church hall- Christy and I are carrying hundreds of kilos of equipment across a narrow road, through a gap between two parked cars and then up an insanely high step (how did anyone think the step should be that high?). I laugh about safety regulations and Christy says "we're too good for OH&S."

Kate sitting rugged up on a stretch of astro turf, taking her gloves off and blowing on her hands before typing the script as we improvise. Ania emailing us MP3 files which arrive on the i-phone so we can rehearse to them. Googling a courier to get the costumes to st Kilda. The constant round of phone calls, scheduling, rescheduling and date checking that needs to happen.

The to do list. We need gadgets, a cornflake serving device, sheets that also look like a doona for the bunks, the astro turf for the pole to be cut and fixed, a fence on castors, a letter box on an angle, lots and lots of balls...

We are rehearsing a show but we are also producing it and Luke and Christy are doing the set design and build. There is a lot that needs to be done by Monday - tech run.

passing the milestones

Today Christy got her driver’s licence, and did a pike press. I did six handsprings on the mats. Luke held a handstand for 45 seconds with no spotting. We stumbled through the show from start to finish - with some gaps and discussions, but definitely from beginning to end. Today was a milestones day.

Fourteen Hours of Asking for Trouble

Luke called me at 7am about the Ian Potter submission and then came round with a DVD showreel of previous work while I was making tea in my pyjamas. We pulled the pieces of the submission together and Luke signed the final letter, practicing his signature first on the back of an envelope while I laughed at him. I gave Jono the envelope as he raced out the door to hand-deliver it to Collins St in the city.

We rehearsed again at Kingston today and, like a miracle, the set was already set up and ready to go. As we warmed up, jogging and stretching on the polished floor, I could feel the difference in my body of not having just lifted a heavy bunkbed and freestanding pole. My shoulders felt looser and everything felt easier to warm up.

We have a regular warm up hour now which goes newspapers, stretch, bunkbed play. I started to get the bunkbed play choreography, watching Luke who often throws the toy to where I’m supposed to go. We ran the training montage we made on Saturday and remembered it with only a couple of blank moments. It was still hilarious and Christy’s face was red and laughing and Luke said “What? What?” She said, “It’s you’re eyes. Your face is neutral but I can see the smile in your eyes”

I did a coffee run while they worked a couple of tricks they want in the slapstick and came back to the list of tricks. Watched and talked and watched and talked and wrote the routine order down as they made it up. Came in and spotted a layout throw that they were less certain of. Then we scripted. This scene comes straight from Luke’s brain. He thought of it, thought of the tricks and pretty much had the dialogue scripted in his head before they ran it. I typed as he spoke and Christy added moments of Scout into the mix. Stubbed toes and bandaids and stingy stuff for grazes.

We worked on the moving towards the fence scene – which felt a bit funny, the tricks aren’t really spectacular but they felt hard. The melting, the slowness, Luke and I both flying things and all of us negotiating the costume situation. Luke won’t have bare knees and Christy will be wearing shin pads. The two and a half high felt like it would be difficult under those circumstances but we tried it. It’s a good one for me – every single time I do it there is a moment when Christy steps across onto my shoulders and I think my feet will slide off, but Luke shifts the weight and it is totally solid. I always remember, after a moment of panic, to trust him. “Trust Luke,” runs through my brain.

We raced to Amanda’s studio in St Kilda to pick up the undyed costumes before she left for Blackrock. She hasn’t finished them yet, but are really feeling like we need to try all the tricks in them in case they need some serious adjusting. Tomorrow we’ll work in them and then possibly courier them to her so she can finish them. It feels like all our time is too precious now to do costume driving.

In the truck on the way home we talked invites. Arts Vic, Ozco, circus industry, physical theatre companies we love, presenters, producers, who do we want to see the show?? Northcote Town hall has the dates wrong on the website, gasworks need to let us know how many comps we will have.

Back at Pigeon Hole, Flick was standing in front of her caravan with a paint roller dripping ‘latte’ coloured paint. They had decided that ‘mushroom’ didn’t quite work and she was redoing the whole thing. We unloaded the set into the Pigeon Hole front yard and Luke started angle-grinding the spikey bits off the bunk bed welds. Christy was on the phone about One Trick Pony things looking grim. Apparently they can’t put up their tent on the balcony where they had planned because they don’t have an engineer’s report about the load. This will change their show a whole lot and mean a bunch more organising.

I left Luke and Christy in goggles and overalls, spraypainting the bunkbeds. Told them how much I like them and our show and got on my bike.

Just spent the last couple of hours sending out email invitations and now its ten to nine I realise I've been working on Asking for Trouble things for fourteen hours.

Not tired though...

In the Age!

Christy texted me at 9:06 to say we’re in the paper – M-magazine. I go buy it on my way to work and read it to her from the tram and laugh.

"Run Terry! Run!"

We go down to Kingston and set up the set. We do newspapers as a warm up and then bunkbed play. I’m still learning the pathway of the bunkbed play and now we add throwing a toy. It’s pretty fun. We stop and start, stop and start, figuring out when the toy can be thrown where. A whole other level on top of the previous choreography. Christy and Luke have it down and I’m still a bit lost. Standing at the end of the bunk bed unsure what I should be doing next. When its smooth its really fun - feels like a really nice opener to the show.
Then we start making the training montage. We brainstorm ideas out loud and there suddenly comes a point where we realise that we should be writing them down. Christy gets her computer and we try to remember all the thoughts we just had. Then we play the music Ania wrote us. We sit there on the table, bobbing our heads and looking at each other. We like it – just the bobbing is great. Luke is listening for changes in the music and calling out suggestions. The scene builds itself steadily. This is the scene where Terry is going to be transformed into a superhero. When it gets to that point Scout starts getting emotional. Luke says, “you should grab my collar and shake me and do a bit of that tough love thing.” Christy is clutching Luke’s lapel and collapsing with laughter trying to yell, “It’s under your suit terry! The costume is under your suit! Run Terry run!” We are all in hysterics. We watch the footage back and say. “It’s a scene. It feels like a scene.” Amanda sends us a text late that night that says “I love Terry!”

Fringe Festival at Pigeon Hole

After tumbling we drive down to Amanda’s at Blackrock in my ute. It takes forever in the Punt Road traffic. When we are almost at the river one of us realises that we forgot all the costumes we’ve been rehearsing with. Damn.
Last night Christy and Luke asked their teenage class what her character should be called and one of them suggested ‘Scout.’ We like it. A lot.
When we get there, Christy and my outfits – in unfinished forms, are hanging from the backs of her dining-room chairs. The peter pan collar uniform and the little shorty overalls. Christy and I make appreciative noises and then try them on, scattering our normal clothes all over the loungeroom and then standing on tip toes in front of the mirror, trying to see our whole selves. We try out cape ideas on Christy and do acrobalance on the shag pile rug to see what happens when the cape is upside-down. Then we all turn to Luke. He’s worried about a football jumper under his suit because its going to be so hot.
Suddenly Christy says, “I wonder…if you’re imaginary then you can be totally superheroed. You can just be what I think a superhero should look like.” We all agree and it shifts a little. Yes. Natalie can wear superhero things but they are things ‘Scout’ has found and dressed her dog in. Scout will be the same. But Terry’s costume will be the full lycra shebang. It makes us all very happy. The only downside of that is that I don’t get to transform into a magic dog with red ears instead of brown ones. But I’m pretty happy being a dog anyway.
We drive back to Pigeon Hole where Christy is going straight into a rehearsal with One Trick Pony. Annie is locking up her bike outside, the One Trick Pony tent is all set up on the grass and Joh is inside chatting to EJ.
Inside, EJ and Flick are putting a show together too. They have an old bubble caravan they have painted mushroom coloured sitting inside the warehouse. EJ is rigging washing-lines up all around it and hanging frilly white washing everywhere. Raku has a projector set up for Piano Boat rehearsals and is doing shadow puppetry. “It feels like the Fringe Festival is at Pigeon Hole,” I say to Luke and we grin at each other. I sit with him for a while and help out with his Ian Potter application. Christy runs in with Kate on her mobile phone, hands it to us and runs back to her rehearsal. Kate likes ‘scout’ and she likes the Terry as full superhero. We text Amanda and give her the go ahead.
I come back later in the evening and we sit under the doona with the butcher’s paper in front of us speaking the script.
After a couple of rounds, Christy suggests that we type it, so as they speak I type like a torpedo. When it’s my go to speak, Luke records me on his i-phone and then plays it back, pausing while I type. The truck is warm and Christy has almonds in a tea-cup which we eat.

the fence...

Towards the end of tumbling Jess sets up a drill for layouts which I stand looking at. “Can I try this one Jess? Nothing bad will happen will it? I just..just go?” She keeps nodding and grinning at me. After about six goes I do a layout. I am completely surprised. It’s the fastest I have ever done a tumbling move from being shown the drill to doing it.

We spend more time scripting “what’s over the fence?” playing with the things we love from the impro we did at artplay. Once it’s scripted we read it all through and it’s way too long. We cut some and then start to think about how we will move physically into and out of this bit of dialogue.
The fence is feeling like a problem. If we imagine the fence but we have a real toy there is nothing to throw the toy over – and we know our venue doesn’t have wings. If we have a fake toy the throwing really might not work. Christy suggests we build a fence and add it to the set. Kate says, can we disappear the toy? Luke suggests that he runs backstage and we hear him throwing and losing the toy. We revert to the flashback idea of us mining the story of how we lost the toy yesterday. We talk around in circles until Kate stops us. It feels to me like the one thing we don’t have a solution for. I’m home now and cooking risotto while I type. Getting half a sentence in at a time while I stir rice and add stock.

scripting

We come in early in the morning while the Westside staff hip hop dance class is happening. They do hilarious moves to ‘bootylicious’ on the other side of the wall. We have just over an hour until Kate comes so we warm up quickly and do the carrying Christy tricks.
We have to think about moves that travel towards the fence where we are pulling each other forward and then retreating again. It happens quickly. Luke has a thought from something he’s seen me do in the past- melting thighstands. I want to climb up a little stepladder of backs. We’ve been practicing the surfing on bluebird. The tricks are all the ones we were training before we had the bunkbeds so they aren’t hard. Acro choreography is something we all love and by the end of the hour we have the basics of a scene.
We whip the set up quickly and are ready to go just as Kate arrives. She says that today we are going to script the show and pulls out pages of butcher’s paper. We impro the opening and she gives us notes and we impro it again and then we all sit around the butchers paper and write and talk and write. I watch the words go down and think – this is the storybook, these are the words of the storybook that I sell with the show. It feels like we are watching the show forming on the paper. Kate apologises for the torturous nature of the process but I don’t feel tortured. Like choreography, it’s a lot of devising time for two minutes of product but then you have it, the show, created exactly as you want it.
We workshop a dog-focussed monologue, look up prehistoric dogs on Wikipedia, and decide that the paperdance comes earlier than the bunkbed play and how do bring in Terry’s uncle who he thinks is a ninja.

handspring day

This afternoon I do a handspring from a powerstart on the crashmat run. Which must mean I can do it on the floor. I get claps and smiles from the people and when tumbling finishes I just want to do more. But by eight oclock we pack away the tumbling mats and set up for Kapow! While we are warm, we run the bunkbed play over and over. I write down the moves I have to remember. After five runs of the routine Luke calls a halt and we run newspapers and then it’s ten o’clock at night. We talk through what the slapstick might be and then push the set to the side and go home late and physically exhausted. Stay up til midnight looking over Ian Potter grant for Luke.

spring at Artplay

This morning we are at Artplay. It’s a whole set transporting extravaganza. I meet them at Pigeon Hole and we drive to Westside to pack the set and then through the city in rush hour traffic. We find the confusing back entrance to Artplay and have to tell the security dude that we have no hazard lights. Christy and I get out and walk alongside Nona through the playground and past the Yarra. Eelin waves and welcomes us and Kate arrives just as we have finished unloading the set and bumping it in.
Artplay is wide with polished floorboards and big windows that light pours through, even on grey days like today.
Christy says “I think I’d like to try being called ‘Dodge’ today” We all like it. We play a little on the set. We talk about the imaginary friend idea. Kate runs an impro where we are superheros being interviewed about our daily lives one at a time.
We sit for a long time and Christy pulls out snacks. Humous, wraps, nuts. We talk and talk and talk. I go and get a tea tray from upstairs and we all sit on the floor drinking tea and trying to solve the problem of the journey.
We want Dodge to be overcoming something and we write a list of the big things that happen to little children. Moving house, starting school, having a teacher who doesn’t like them, their parents fighting or splitting up, someone dying. Nothing seems quite right. We come back to the controlling idea, ‘we are more powerful than we think we are’ someone says, “Maybe it’s a scary neighbour” “maybe something goes over the fence and we don’t know what is over there” We like it. We like that it is overcoming a fear of the unknown. We like that it means we aren’t dealing with greif which is a whole other show, or bullying which is a whole other show. We run with it.
The sun comes in in bright gold squares on the polished floor and heats the astroturf amazingly. We shuffle into the sunny patches and keep talking. Later it rains buckets and torrents and we sit and look up at it gushing past the windows. Melbourne spring at Artplay.
Kate writes things down in her little book in scrawling biro full of crossings out and arrows and added words on top. There is a sudden sense that we have a narrative. Christy says, “this is like the moment by the Vic Markets for Bubblewrap” and there is definitely a sense of discovery and a sense of realisation. Something has coalesced today.
Then we try an impro of the show from the start. It’s funny because we can’t remember our choreography and it feels pretty loose and messy, but we get to a point where we are imagining the garden fence and the good things that might be on the other side. This is gold. Dodge is totally random like, “maybe its just all sparkly” Terry’s is crazy philosophical “maybe when we get to the other side of the fence we aren’t us anymore, but we’re still there” I am just all on about the dogs which is pretty fun.
At one point Kate says, “In my head, Natalie is a girl, but she just really wants to be a dog.” And later “but if she’s a dog…?” The identity crisis is hilarious and makes me giggle, we keep coming back to “maybe she is a dog?” “maybe she’s an imaginary friend and she’s both?” “Maybe she’s a girl?” “Oh no, I think she has to be a dog.”
We realise Christy’s character can’t be called Dodge because it sounds so much like Dog.
After Kate leaves we run newspapers and the bunkbed play and then race the pack down because I have a meeting to get to. I leave them with the set in pieces on the floor and run for a tram.

"What if Terry is my imaginary friend?''

My plan was that by the end of tumbling this morning I would do a handspring. I did a lot of drills, but no cigar on the actual handspring on the floor. Still, I feel like it’s a doable, close-by goal. Kate came again with more questions for us, what do each of our characters need to overcome? How can we show the journey? She did a fun warm up with charades she’d written on little slips of paper in an envelope. We got silly and competitive and pretended to gloat and sulk and bribe her. I had to do a happy penguin eating a meat pie and watching the football which seriously lowered my score. Otherwise I was the winner for sure. Kate smiled at us while stowing her score pad saying, “now this is so serious that I’m going to take it away and add up the scores and I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
She gave us instructions on slips of paper and asked us to read them as our characters and then follow them. ‘you must save Pink Lightning (todays name for Christy) but be wary of Terry’ Terry of course is saving me and being wary of Pink Lightning and it’s the same game as heros and villains except Terry’s version of saving is to crash-tackle the victim in order to carry them away from danger – so Luke and I have these hilarious running wrestles and meantime Pink Lightning is having a fine old time just toodling around the set and occasionally joining in a game with me.
The next exercise is just ‘the baddies are coming, watch out!’ Christy, with those ridiculous goggles on her face again, is rambling around trying to make booby traps with kitchen implements, while Terry and desperately try to get her up off the floor and onto the bunkbed into relative safety. Christy is still a little injured from the bike accident so we don’t actually lift her – which I think makes the scene more funny, because she just hangs around in danger and we are unable to save her.

After Kate leaves we pack up the set and as we stand there by the bunk bed Christy says, ‘What if Terry is my imaginary friend?’
It sticks straight away. If Terry is her imaginary friend, then he is a part of her. It explains all his absurd qualities. A thirty five year old paper boy who wears a suit and only eats cornflakes. He is often frightened and overwhelmed – maybe he is her fear. Instead of the imaginary friend who is your naughtiness and bravery, the imaginary friend as the fear is kind of nice. But then what about Natalie/Mr Dog? Is she imaginary? Is she a girl who wants to be a dog or is she a dog that Christy’s character pretends is a girl? And if she is a girl, can she see the imaginary friend? What if we went for most of the show with me not seeing Luke?
We stand talking by the half packed up set for about an hour. Excited, exploring ideas, retelling other stories we know that are similar. Christy texts Kate.

Yay, Kate is back...

At 5 in the morning I woke up with a headache. Usually if I wake with a headache I don’t tumble but this morning was my handspring week, so I took panadol, slept another hour and a half and then, after breakfast took prophylactic ibuprofen before cycling to tumbling. Today, Kate was back from Switzerland and working with us for the first time since really early on. We set up the set, with her helping, making too many banging noises for the people sharing the space. While we held bunkbed parts and turned allen keys she told us about Switzerland and clowning – inspiring, thinking about our own Europe adventure plans
Then we sat at the messy westside sharehouse table and showed her footage of our work. She’s really great for the encouraging approval: “Beautiful, ohh, great, ohh beautiful” Definitely keeps me feeling like our work is worth doing. She asked and asked and asked. It was at least an hour and a half of catching her up to speed on what we’d been doing, showing all Amanda’s designs, playing her Ania’s music, picking the bits of impro we wanted to show her.
Then she set us some impro tasks. We started out the three of us on the top bunk, playing with being a boat, a spaceship, a tall building and telling superhero stories. Then we did some solo impro around our characters, just sitting with Kate asking our characters questions.
There was a lot of gold. Terry only eats cornflakes, the dog is called Natalie, Christy’s character, with the goggles on her face, just gets more and more hilarious. It felt very useful lots of thoughts came out of it for me. It seems like maybe we don’t slip between modes. Maybe we just are our characters

The hnadspring goal

Today the plan was to work on the show after tumbling – which finishes at 7:30, but when I dropped by Pigeon Hole on my way to tumbling, Christy was smiling through some pain. She’d come off her bike and was bruised and bleeding a bit. Nothing serious, but a bit nasty anyway. We left her, bravely cooking and went to tumble without her.
Tonight in tumbling I did a handspring from a powerstart down only a centremetre drop. I looked at the set up after I landed it and though. ‘that means I can do it.’ I said to the group that I wanted to be able to do handsprings by Friday. It feels like a realistic goal and a get all happy just thinking about it.
When we got back to Pigeon Hole, Christy had cooked and we sat and ate with an evening of non-physical rehearsal hanging over us a little. Once we’d finished I looked at Christy who was still a little post-accident and suggested that we just ditch rehearsal for tonight and go to bed. I think the day you come off your bicycle you deserve to just lie down after dinner. As soon as we agreed, the conversation lightened and we all got ridiculous, standing in the kitchen laughing at each other. Some days it’s good to rest.

bunkbed choreography

Another day at Kingston. We set up the set, timing ourselves today. Luke on pole, Christy and I putting together the bunks. The pole takes twelve minutes and the whole thing takes twenty. “Definitely shorter than bubblewrap.” We sit with calendars and phones and do some planning, it’s been a week since we had a proper rehearsal and there are some scheduling issues to sort out. Café Sana as ever for an early lunch.
We do the newspapers as warm up. It’s getting smoother. Then we work the bunkbed play again, checking the footage when we forget, trying to get the moves into our bodies. We look at the tricks that haven’t made it in yet and scramble our brains trying to edit the footage into an order. Do the routine on the floor over and over again. Marisa in the office is very sweet and wants to come see a bit of what we’re doing. By four o’clock we have only just put together the routine and we call her upstairs to watch. Its brand new and we talk to each other the whole time – ‘kip over’ ‘nip ups’ ‘follow me’ ‘roll’.
At the end of the day Christy and Luke try some moves on the pole. We’re still trying to make a call about whether to sticky it or not. Much nicer not to get sticky on our costumes – but then there’s a lot more you can do once the sticky is on. Nonetheless, the pole is a total winner, goes up and down quicker than the bunkbeds and the slight bending under load isn’t a problem.
We pack down again and drive to black rock. Amanda hushes us at the door because Tarlo is asleep. There are piles of ‘options’ on different chairs. We all try various items on. She has op shopped like crazy and has the basis for our costumes, which she plans to then alter with details and stretchy panels so we can move in them. We all look ridiculous in our too loose or too tight daggy op shop clothes, but Amanda has a vision, pinning us up, describing where the lace, fake buttons, collar will be added.
We are starving and stop for fish and chips on the way home.

the pole

The pole is an ‘x-stage’ a free standing pole that packs and travels for pole dancers to take with them to gigs. It’s perfect for a touring circus show with a Chinese pole act. When I call Luke on my way home from work on Sunday night he has watched the instructional DVD and is setting it up. “Come round and look, it’ll be done by the time you get here.” Of course it isn’t, but it’s pretty close and I help with the final slotting together. We try it on spinning mode and adjust to staying still. It bends a little and it seemed to take longer than the 15 minutes they claim it will take to set up. It has 3 extra bags to what the woman in the online picture is pulling. I feel nervous we’ve made a wrong decision, but am ready to see how it goes.

the narrative letter

Christy is in Tasmania with One Trick Pony performing at the Junction Arts Festival. My housemate has swine flu and I have a sore throat and feel dizzy. I drive around to Pigeon Hole which would be ridiculous if I was well but feels very appropriate right now. I go there because apparently the pole is going to be delivered any day now. We write a letter to Kate who has been asking us, from Switzerland, about narrative.

Christy calls from Tassie and we put her on loudspeaker. She has been doing backflips on concrete in zero degrees. We laugh and read her bits of the letter.
Afterwards Luke and I stand in the kitchen and talk about the hero’s journey, different ways of structuring a show as you devise it. How we saw the structure of various shows: Slava, The Business etc. We talk about graphing mood, tension, skill level, plot points etc. We both like the idea of graphing shows.

rehearsal without so much sleeping

Amanda wants to meet us early in the morning at her house in Blackrock. I cycle round to Pigeon Hole at 6:45 in the morning and we pack the set into Nona sleepy and ridiculous. We watched Inception together the night before so we are driving and sleepy and laughing and saying, “But do you ever actually see the spinning top drop?” and “the moment where she jumps out the window, she’s actually in the same hotel room isn’t she?” and “so do you think he actually goes to a deeper level?”

Punt Road is Punt Road at rush hour and we stop start through the city and all the way to Amanda’s. She pours us peppermint tea and we all talk longingly of coffee. Christy peels oranges from her green bag. We look at Amanda’s drawings and talk through the designs. We look at swatches of colours, at tea towels and tablecloths, hold up orange, green, blue, red and make decisions about the colours we like together. Green and red, but is it too Christmassy? The pale blue is nice, nicer than the darker blue, no, not the orange…. Until we have four swatches of colour laid out next to each other that we like. We all take it in turns to cuddle and entertain Tarlo, who is crawling, standing up and falling, surprised onto his bottom.

Drive back to Kingston with only peppermint tea and oranges inside us and set up the set. We love café sana big breakfast and coffee. We run newspapers sleepy and full, and the newspapers fall all over the floor and our brains scramble and we laugh. There are so many moments when we freeze with newspapers held in the air and our faces eyes wide and confused. But the choreography is slowly getting more solid.

Then we play on the set. We put together the moves we did last week into short sequences, filming each little series of tricks that we like and then moving on to make a new set. Then we look back over the footage and begin to link it into a longer routine. By four pm we have two minutes of a routine which we film and edit, film and edit each time we run.

On the way home we are exhausted but happy. There is something so fun about the set and all our moves on them, about choreography that flows, about just missing each other each time and learning a pathway.

"I can feel my frontal lobe"

Newspaper choreography. It's completely outrageously ridiculous. We passing, sliding, holding, replacing newspapers quickly between us, learning an intricate routine between three people and four rolls of newspaper. We make up moves, film what we made, run it again, make up some more, check out the film to make us remember. And our choreography brains switch on and then slowly melt. Luke says "i can feel my frontal lobe" and the next minute we are stick fighting with the newspapers and falling on the floor with laughter. After two hours work we have made up a minute of material. It is fun, productive work. The junction between the brain and the body remembering. Crossing and re-crossing the line between focus and hysteria.

four weeks today

Tumbling without Luke and Christy because they are both a little injured and wanting to rest. It's strange to be spotted by unfamiliar people. Teach them what I need. Aren't sure of them so I don't go for it. Jess says, of my backflips, "she'll have them by the end of the term." It's been a long, long time of trying and not doing backflips. If I do get them I will be a text book case for perseverance in adults learning tumbling.

They arrive as tumbling finishes and Christy makes tea for everyone (soy milk, cow milk, black, this one on the corner is yours) we all stand in the round-off line and cheer the tea-maker.

We sit on the mats and talk - I say what I'm feeling: that the main thing I want to do is get on the set again. Anything that doesn't involve that doesn't feel quite worth it. Christy says that the day of playing on the set in Kingston was the best day so far.

We go and sit in the truck and think about newspapers. Lists of tricks have worked so far, so we write them: acrobatic tricks Luke wants to include as part of his super-newspaper boy routine, ideas for the Christy-Ailsa human bicycle. We look at the footage of the newspaper passing we did last week. It's surprising what works and what doesn't. We all agree about what we like and don't like and Luke edits the footage down to the best moves and we watch again. It's so pretty and I'm excited about putting this routine together and learning it.

Christy has a rehearsal for a piece she is doing at Junction Arts Conference in Tassie next week and she gathers costumes and music and races off.

We meet with Lena and Steph from Westside who say yes, they are happy to support our creative development which means we can set up the bunkbeds in the Westside space and start to run routines there. This feels like a big step forward in terms of planning the following weeks rehearsals. We open four weeks today.

butcher's paper time

I come to Pigeon Hole and sit by the heater. Christy gets butcher's paper and we start to write ideas about narrative.
I think of Ana Kokinos talking about a film's 'controlling idea' and i try to write some sentences that I think are our controlling idea. Luke is interested in questions, points of enquiry. We write some questions too.
Christy talks about how they made Quiche. They started with an aesthetic. I feel like we are very clear about what our aesthetic is - especially after last nights conversation with Amanda.
Christy gets a fresh piece of paper and writes "aesthetic: comic book suburban." Underneath we have chosen one of my 'controlling idea' sentences which is 'We are more powerful than we think we are" Then we spend some time choosing questions.
"What makes us feel less powerfull and what do we hold up against it?"
"What are the skills we have that go unnoticed?"
"How do we use the superhero fantasy?"

the most fun so far

"Our house is full of set - its a bit overwhelming." It's true. When you live in the back of a truck and you use it for transporting things, the things end up on your couch, on your kitchen floor, on the pathway to your bed. We unload the table and the bunkbed peices and the bits of acromat and the long roll of chequered lino. We talk about a trailor.
It looks like a lot of stuff to be touring round the country and lumping in and out of theatres. I'm daunted.

We stack everything in the elevator and then set it up on the stage. Amazingly it seems to only take about ten minutes. The set is bulky, but not heavy and awkward. Every piece is easy to carry. "It will be a quicker bump in than Bubblewrap" we say. Every piece of set/equipment we have needs to be considered in terms of touring.

We spend a long time looking at the layout of each item. the mats, the lino, where the astro turf will go. The aesthetic versus the practicality of where we want mats. the additional barrier of not wanting to cut foot holes for the table and bunks in the mats means we are limited to very particular angles. The relationship between the table and the bunkbed needs to be pretty specific. If we are putting the mats under the lino and the astroturf we really need to have very clear visuals about where the mats are and where they aren't.

Finally we come to a conclusion. For today. Lets play on it.
So we warm up and start with forward rolls in and dive rolls out of. We jump on the table and up onto the top bunk, we do table-slides onto the bottom bunk and forward rolls out. Then we start on the list we made on friday. We try each trick once or twice and most of them get a tick. Yes this one will be possible. So will this. Only a couple feel like they will require a lot of work. Our skills translate easily onto the equipment. By 2:30 we want coffee and treats but we have worked through the whole list of tricks.

Suddenly the set feels more vital to our training routine. We want to start putting together routines, we want to get used to working on this equipment. It's going to limit everything we do while offering us a million options for new things.

We look at the rehearsal schedule of venues with this in mind and make some phone calls, book Kingston for some more sessions, think about a proposal to Westside.

Then we meet with Amanda. She comes in and sits on the floor of the theatre and watches some of our impro footage on Luke's laptop. The Kingston people are locking up so we walk the cold streets of Moorabbin together trying to find an after-five cafe. The only thing open is subway so we sit there drinking orange juices from the subway fridge and brainstorming costumes. She says "You're magic, I think you're magic, you're going to just discover your dog ears and its going to be amazing" she says, "a quick change is easy you'll just need one other person..." and she explains the velcro. She talks about kneepads and her own childhood dressup box and an old black and white photo of a girl in a pretty white dress with flippers and a snorkel mask.

We talk about a black and white palate in the sense of a newspaper. With all the grainy greys and off whites - chromatic - and additional splashes of magical colour. I like that this is similar to Bubblewrap in a way - the very limited palate. It get's dark outside and we make dates. Plan to talk soon.

We drive back through the dark streets in Nona with me typing a proposal to Westside on the laptop and Christy alternately encouraging Luke's driving and looking over my shoulder to help me with sentences (but only at the traffic lights because otherwise she gets carsick)

improvising

Its the end of the week and after tumbling Luke's back is sore and we decide not to train. Instead we go to Auspicious. We sit in the warm and drink tea and eat too many jelly-frogs. We make a list of all the moves we would like to try on and over and through the bunkbeds and the table. We type and type and our list gets longer and longer. At the end of it we look at it and say "if we have a tenth of these the show will have cool tricks." We watch some of the footage from monday. The long improvisations, pulling out moments that we liked:
Laying out a map on the floor using the newspapers.
The dog-head girl saying everything she knows about dogs
The newspaper boy dance
The boat with the newspaper boy in the back
There were more. I forget...

catch me...

Left the house at 7:10am rather than 6:10am to go to training this morning. Spent a couple of hours after tumbling working tricks we want to use in the show. Things feel solid. Quickly ran through the list and kept moving, keeping warm, keeping our bodies busy. Slate roof, where I base and do nothing and it makes us laugh. Passing Christy through a bunch of high moves - which is always solid on the second go round. Surfing on bluebird which is easy but it would be nice to work a down from. Double flag with me basing - which seems to take a few tries but we always get solid eventually. I worked the kip over Christy's back from fear and two spotters to confidence and no spotting. I'd like to do it in the show just because it will mean i keep the trick. We try a bunch of "Catch me!" tricks. Christy jumping down to us and us needing to catch her in a hurry. It's fun. Christy lands and looks up with big eyes and says "fun!" and then scrambles up again to the height to try another jump.

We go to the Westside Circus bakery and eat sausage rolls and coffee.

goodbye montmorency, hello east brunswick

goodbye train-trips where i write on the way home. goodbye gum trees in the burbs, goodbye central heating, goodbye getting up in the dark and walking under the moon to go to training. Hello Lygon street and 5 minutes cycle to pigeon hole. Hello bedroom and housemates and the tramride to uni.

It takes a day to do two ute loads of furniture and clothes and to clean the Monty house. Now I'm back in my old hood and all my making-work feels like it lives nearby

arranging the set

I'm late because uni is so fun i have to stay there. I drive up to Pigeon Hole and we look at the set. It's ready to play on only the warehouse is so cold. The concrete floor feels like it won't be very fun on barefeet. We move the table, hold up the chequered lino, think about colours, curtains, the pole the mats. We decide to take everything to Kingston and lay it out there where we can see it against the blacks. Bring the mats so we can try all our moves. We go sit in Nona and talk, plan organise.

obsessed with newspapers

I am back from adventures in Byron Bay and outside my Montmorency house are the week's newspapers in so many plastic rolls. I pack them all in my bag and take them on the train to Kingston. Now we have nine wrapped newspapers which is a passing set and we are inspired to play newspaper games. I lead a round of newspaper passing like the group juggle. Christy suggests we play newspaper treasure corners.
We sit and write some of our thoughts about newspaper rounds and then we do impros in pairs bouncing off the written materiel, remembering the rule Kate gave us - if you get stuck in the character - go for abstract movement. It will work. The early mornings, the aiming for each doormat, the one handed folding, the bike that is so heavy with newspapers it falls over.

Christy does a solo impro. She dances with the newspapers, laying them out and stepping over them and cartwheeling in the gaps.

We have to talk about super-heros then, because we have been so excited about the newspapers and we feel like we need to connect it back.

I do a solo in my dog hat. It's very very fun. Luke puts on the Top Gun sound track and I do strange doggie ballet and read a book, pointing my toes and wriggling my non-existant tail. I have to work to stop myself from laughing. Luke asks me questions and I play more. It's funny and silly. I suck my thumb and talk about everything i know about dogs. I want to be the dog superhero.

chinese pole and nellie the elephant

Yesterday we wrote every idea we had for the show, for a scene or a moment or a skill, on pieces of paper and stuck them on the notice board.

Today we went to Auspicious and sat on the couches in front of the notice board and looked at them. The auspicious office is small and warm. The folk all say hi and welcome and there’s a fishbowl full of lollies and tea for the making. We talked about what our process might be for making each scene. One is an impro clown game, one involves looking at our interview transcripts and finding the ideas we like the best, another will be about layering voice and sound over a pretty strict physical sequence. It felt like a good ‘to do’ list for things to happen the next few times we come together.

And along the way we came up with new ideas and added to the existing ones. Loved the idea of Christy being the little character who occasionally yells ‘mad tricks!’ and throws herself off things. It made me snort into my teacup. And of me singing ‘Dog! Ahhh’ instead of ‘Flash’ from the flash Gordon soundtrack.

Did Chinese Pole with Luke this morning after tumbling while Christy did computery things. My first ever Pole lesson. Luke with a tea-towel soaked in goo. Something rich about the sticky, amber rosin-and-linseed-oil mixture. He climbed the pole and stickeyed it down and then we waited a while, testing occasionally to see if it had dried enough for climbing.

I felt so much more safe and solid on it than I expected to. After a rope it really is literally more solid. I like the rhythmic, swinging gait of the climb and though my feet slipped occasionally I never thought I would fall off. It’s probably that thing: learning the very basics on a piece of equipment is easy and then you plateau because everything else involves serious skill and strength.

I handed over the Arts Vic application to Luke, all the papers neatly in order and paperclipped, the budget added up and the cover letter signed. Now he just has to add the set drawings and the DVD and Christy add the transcript and the whole thing is ready to go in the post.

Now I’m on my way to Byron Bay for the writer’s festival. Went home to Montmorency and packed my bags and emptied the compost and said goodbye to the dog. Left the house with my little red trundle-along suitcase and my laptop full of dreams singing:
“Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus…”

Was still singing it in my brain as I slid up the escalators at Southern Cross Station and went to find Jono.

such an important part of running a company

It’s a home day, a grant submission writing day. Arts Vic all over again, and each time I do it I think I’m a bit more organised. A whole pile more support material. Calling Luke who is at Auspicious, delegating tasks, discussing quotes, confirming dates. Calling Christy to check about confirmation letters and the email that bounced. Calling the folks at Arts Vic to clarify and clarify and get it exactly right. Knowing now that they will recognise me and my project as soon as I introduce myself. Laughing at myself for being the dorky one who just keeps on calling. Starting to think about funding for touring in 2011.

the chin up bars we found

Met at Westside first to meet with the Westside people and talk about Asking for Trouble. Told the long story of my life and Westside Circus. It’s so epic… It was good to do but lasted longer than we expected and shortened our training time.

Instead of training we went on another mission in Nona to find chin-up bars. I knew they were there…but where? Driving and then wandering around Melbourne’s parks. Christy and I ended up walking together across Princess Park while Luke went back to get Nona. The sunshine and the afternoon light and a good conversation about how we’re going.

Finally chin-up bars and both of them swinging, climbing, turning on them, us filming with the lap-top and the funny joggers, random drunks and teenagers passing us by. Thumbs up from one group of teenagers and Christy, upside down on the bars said,
“It’s the 80’s all over again!”

Afterwards we sat in Nona and talked ideas. So many of them. For structure, character, themes….we want to tell the story in vignettes. Luke is really interested in the secret world of the person who imagines they are a superhero but the rest of the world doesn’t know. I am really interested in the imaginative energy of a team of kids who wildly make up adventures as they go along ‘then suddenly a massive wave comes and crashes us down..’ ‘yeah and were all bruised but really tough then we have to race across the desert’ ‘Yeah, because otherwise…’ and its funny because for both of us we are remembering something very specific from our childhood and we want to capture both of those energies in the show.

We’re interested in these hilarious characters we are beginning to create and also in our own voices telling stories and in the voices of the people we interview – either recorded or learned by us verbatim.

We sit in the truck and make discoveries about what each other think and we think out loud and come up with new ideas. Go to a café and eat too much food while we watch the footage of what we have made so far. Arrive at tumbling together in a jumble of conversations.

pretending to direct teenagers

Another day at Kingston Arts centre. Morning of logistics. Organising dates, delegating jobs, laptops, diaries and money talk. The four of us on the theatre floor making phone calls, making lists, making dates. Making a show.

We planned our session pretending we were directing a show of teenagers. “Well we really want to work on that scene, so maybe we should give them a score and see what they come up with.” “They’ll need a break after that because it’s pretty hard work” and “we definitely need to play a game at the start to get them warmed up”

Christy made up ‘superhero tiggy’ and lead us in the Anni Davey make-a-routine exercise. Did school of fish ‘against the wind’ Lots of cute, funny moments that we captured on camera.

As four o’clock came round it started to get hard. When we finally sat, three of us across Nona’s bench seat, we talked about how we are like the teenagers. We need to do a proper warm up and connect, we need to ease our way into things. It’s hard to direct something from the outside and ease your way in. Starting to set up a process for the three of us to work together and realizing all over again that we have never done this before.

Drove through the suburbs looking for the right kind of chin-up bar for Christy to spin around. Playground after playground has been safety-ed into oblivion. It made us all sad that the world is so scared that there is less fun in it. After checking several we gave up and headed back to Luke’s dads. Erin had made spinach and ricotta lasagna with potato gems. Christy edited the day’s footage while Luke made phone calls and I whispered ‘you see, I told you work was only done til after dinner.’ Christy raised her eyebrows and smiled. It’s a race every day and there’s always something to do.

schedules out the window

Woke up late with all the clowns and walked down to the beach again. The whole schedule is out the window because we are all very relaxed. We played tantrum tiggy on the beach and then Mr Hit, then Mr Hit with made up names, then Mr Hit with Animals. I love Mr Hit with animals it includes a noise and action that is your ‘attack mode.’ It was so great that Rachel suggested Mr Hit with a gesture and a sentence in a foreign language. So brilliant, so culturally inappropriate, so hilarious.

Then we played farm animal musical chairs – which I never got until now because always before it felt too humiliating. Suddenly today it worked and I laughed and laughed.

When we got back we had lunch and talked business. How clown practice will run in the future. How to use the group for devising. Who will be running the next few sessions.

And the schedule was really over and we cleaned and packed and did a quick photoshoot. Piled back into the cars and drove, raucous and hilarious, talking ernglersh, insulting each other and listening to Madonna. Straight into a bright, squint eyed sunset and piles of orange clouds.

It feels like this has been a good way to start making the show - to work together lead by lots of other people, to have a lot of fun and to play hard. Seems like a solid base to begin on (although sometimes I get nervous that we aren't making the show yet.)

Clown Camp in Venus Bay

Drove here last night after the Taxi workshop with carloads of costumes and food. Stopped in Cranbourne for noodle dinner and arrived at midnight to unload the car into the Venus Bay beach house. Walked down to the ocean this morning to where ‘beach no. 5' is lined with fisherfolk with buckets and waders. Found ourselves an empty space and did some simple games on the beach. Zap and pass the changing inanimate object. Group lead moments getting to know each other and starting to play.

I swam in the winter-cold ocean while the rest of the crew sat in the sand. The aching cold in my feet turning to numbness and then the glowing skin-tingle as I left the water.

Clown dancing with Rachel. Dancing with our noses on in the circle and in little duos, to sixties pop-rock and then to Britney. That moment at the end where everyone in the circle has a nose on and we don’t know who’s going to take charge and finish.

After lunch I lead a grant submission writing workshop which was all about dreams and goals and being able to give people leads as to where they could go with their projects. Sense from everyone, as artists, that this kind of goal setting and articulating feels really useful and important. The conversation could have gone for a long time, but its so important to remember that clowns need to play.

Status with Cam, ‘mindfuck’: the game where if you get it wrong the whole group yells at you with a pointed finger ‘YOU ARE OUT OF THIS GAME’ oh god! So much fun! Ah So Kah, and the game where you stand in a circle and try to do nothing except copy the one person in the group who is your nominated person. Choosing status and exaggerating it till the whole group was pawing all over each other. The king clown who has an endless series of jesters and kills them one at a time as they stop interesting him. ‘Treats’ where both clowns have a treat and the game is to eat and enjoy your treat with more than the other clown.

Story-telling with Bronwen. One word stories as a group, one word stories as a duo, one word stories with the duo performing the story as they told it. Totally hilarious. All of us clutching ourselves with laughter as we watched. ‘The little voice.’ I feel like it’s been a long time since I worked with voice, improvised voice, in such a relaxed way. Really enjoying letting my mouth open and a story come out and evolve.

In the evening we pulled out mattresses and doonas and snuggled on couches to watch Charlie Chaplain. The boxing sequence. So brilliant. Got to be seen. All the sleepy cute clowns taking themselves off to bed in the beach house.

“I haven’t seen art like it.”

This title is what Penny said of the group's work in our feedback session. It made everyone laugh...


So its the last day of Taxi workshops and I want to note as much of what we did as possible. For warm up tosay we id school of fish and working through all the scores from the previous days.

Then one, two, three - School of fish, one solo breaks off and moves into a doing dance then each person from the school of fish joins the solo one at a time. So many of our impros turned quite literal. There was a hilarious shark Busby Berkley moment and a drug taking scene. For me, a sudden flashback to year 8 drama, the Bega High boys miming getting stoned. Luke talking about the difference being that instead of landing in the dead end we were dancing the dead end so it wasn’t dead.

After lunch we did a Tai Chi warm up, reminding me of my Dad in the sunrise loungeroom in the morning.

Le Director, the addition of the director voice to the impro. Interesting hearing other people’s reaction to authority voice and for myself, coming to the understanding that the director is part of the ensemble

In the end we did open improv and Luke, Christy and I worked as a trio. It was great to come together in a way that we hadn’t since the first day. Me watching Luke leaping off the stage, the two of us carrying Christy, the intensity of the hard working, breath, all of us jumping into front support.

I’ve been wondering and noticing the music, how it affects and drives and is a vital part of each piece. I asked about the process of how music decisions are made and they all told stories about how important it is.

In the feedback session at the end we talked about the clarity of having a score. Not using scores today made it harder. We also talked about the difficulty of leaving a character once you’ve found one.

The main thing I remember from the previous days that I didn’t write is the power of two. The second person deciding the spacing the school of fish, whether it is loose and strict, deciding to allow the leader to solo, changing facings, deciding the timing in a cannon.

The reflection of careful bare feet treading on the shiny wooden floor.

There’s something so great about watching a trio team teach (It’s such a familiar part of my work with both Luke and Christy - the team teach) good because you get the different teacher perspectives, good because one teacher has the outside eye and the other two participate. There are specific things you learn from impro-ing with someone who has a whole lot to teach you.

Also something great about the whole business and governance of a small company of artists doing what they love. Sense that we have something to learn from that. In the feedback session I said so and some small stories came out which made me more sure that I want to hear that story. Something inspiring for me about a group who has been doing work they love professionally for such a long time together.

first photoshoot image to go out into the world

for the physical theatre impro geeks

On the train back from Dancehouse. Again, I’m going to write what we did so I can remember.

Union jack – the union jack is laid out in tape on the floor and you are limited to walking on it. You cannot cross another person on it and you must stay neutral and the only movements you can do is walk, turn or stop. Add run and fall to the next time round, then add scream and laugh the time after that.

I noticed the intimacy of coming face to face with people, the significance of stillness.

It’s interesting how selfish I feel when I choose to stay still and not go with the group. Choosing to become the one people notice.

At lunch, we went again to Degani to the friendly waiters who know us already and give us discounts. Christy tried wildly to email Kapow! photos from the photoshoot to Mitchel so maybe they will go in the Age for the Northcote shows. Luke and I talked, what are we learning what are we noticing; I find it easier to work in neutral, it feels safer and I feel like its easier for me to have a big picture of what I’m creating. Luke has a story about why and its something to do with being able to define what you’re doing giving you freedom, but I’m destracted by Christy’s little distress noises she’s making towards the phone. I really can’t help and so Luke and I are talking again. Does the fact that we are a trio creating work right now affect the group? Maybe. (More in the social time rather than the actual workshop) Thinking about clown camp this weekend, being careful about being part of the big group. And we race from the café with Christy in her phone and her phone still hasn’t done its magic. Want our photos in the Age. But she puts it down and steps into the workshop.

We did a warm up starting with ‘your hips are a bowl of water’, carry the water carefully, tip the water out in all directions, create a gentle wave in it, how does it make the rest of your body move?

Now you have a beam of light coming from the crown of your head – what does it mean to play with that light, now you also have a beam from your coccyx now you have a beam from both feet, both hands, your eyes. So fun to play with where the light goes. I’m not playing with my body – I’m playing with the effect of my body, shading the light and shooting the light – it goes in all directions and then I crunch and cover it up.

The feedback sessions. The aim of talking about what you enjoyed and what you discovered, which is occasionally broken when people need to talk about what was hard. The difference between feedback which is about specific moments, feedback which is the story you saw, and feedback which is about broad intellectual concepts. I find my brain sliding off a word like 'composition', perhaps because I’m not used to using it. It doesn’t hold a meaning for me.

In the afternoon we just did little performances with scores we were given by Nick. “school of fish and union jack” “similar and the same and union jack” “create character from body shapes, then do school of fish as those characters” “start in two duets and use a crazy shaped union jack.” All kinds of hilarious moments came out: the crazy, posing, vogue ponies; the bizarre bouffant troupe; the stunning dance duet in front of frantic, irritated techies.

It’s nice to find something fun, relaxed, playful about the impro. So much of what I have done in the past has felt self conscious, lonely, somber, significant.

Born in a Taxi - day 3

Summary of what we did…so I can remember:

Aerobic warm up because the heater is broken going into aerobic school of fish

Character leader/follower: leader begins in abstract dance goes into character and the follower takes the lead and leads it back to abstract dance (repeat cycle)

Doing-Dance: abstract dance, to doing dance to doing dance in character, swap leaders and back down the scale (repeat cycle)

School of fish with superseding

School of fish where number two holds the group back and number one goes into a solo

Emotional school of fish

School of fish where one does a solo and everyone else does emotional school of fish.

Some stunning impros where we sat and watched groups. Absolutely glorious one where the music went outrageous romantic classical and Disney on ice went slapstick with children falling off the stage and flat on their faces and everyone was being quick and graceful and ridiculous and falling all over each other. Oh god. I was so happy.

Emotion school of fish – real cartoony, reminds me of classic kids cartoons. Even the animations in Mary Poppins…

Went again to Deganis where the hilarious boy makes us all very happy and the coffee ‘takes of half an hour off warm up’

photoshoot...

Stepped out of the Taxi workshop and onto the shining wet street, bicycles dripping and water in our helmets. Caned it up Drummond and then Lygon St to Pigeon Hole, talking the things we’d noticed. What’s it like to solo at that point? How does it feel when you want the group to come together and they don’t? What is going on with eye contact and gaze. Dusk in Brunswick.

Left our bikes in the warehouse and got into Nona and out into the peak hour traffic. Museli bars and hilarity, poo jokes and Christy saying “don’t let anyone in front of us Luke! You’re letting people in front!” and the big sluggish old engine roaring ineffectually as Luke stepped on the pedal.

A rush at Kingston to unload and set up for the photoshoot and to organise food for our desperately hungry impro-exhausted bodies. Me wandering round the streets of Moorabbin trying to find some immediate take-away food in the rain – to no avail. Luke re-assembling the ikea bunkbed with an allen key and bolts in his mouth. Christy switching between helping luke and doing all the other jobs that needed to happen. Amanda turned up with bag loads of costumes, capes, ‘onesies’ (full length unitards) and various other crazy items.

I finally scored fried Indian things and we ate them on the stage between completing the bunk-bed ensemble and trying out costume ideas. This is the bit where you take photos before making a show and you don’t really know what the show will look like and you don’t really know what your characters are. But you need the promo now! So here we go…

Ali Fairly showed up with her camera and gave us make up tips while we said what we wanted. Crazy photo shoot, rushing through ideas on the not-bright-enough stage, trying to look spectacular without getting too high. Ali: “tall isn’t good.” But we want to have photos that say: ‘we do acrobatics’ as well as ‘we look stunning and professional and like our show is going to be fun to watch.'

I’ll add the pics as soon as Ali puts them up on flikr…

Went back to Luke and Christy’s that night and got a message from Jono: “I don’t understand where you are. I don’t see how you could sleep at Luke and Christy’s because they live in a little truck.” So Christy took a photo of me and my little bed to send to him.

Born in a Taxi

The Born in a Taxi people are running a week long intensive improvised physical theatre workshop at Dancehouse and we are making it part of our creative development. Today was day one, locking our little stack of bikes up on Alex parade and finding a place on the wide shiny dark wooden floor.

There are lots of familiar words – school of fish, initiator, responder, solo, group work. There are lots of familiar directions – notice the weight of your feet in the floor, notice which parts of your body touch the floor…

And there is something very familiar about improvising with Luke and Christy. The first time we ever did this as a trio was with Kate. And yet we know each other so well. The physicality of training acro, the trust of having been spotted by them both when I feel like I’m going to die, long nights dancing on some crazy dance-floor and being ridiculous, outrageous and bouncing off each other across the room. Saying the scary thing and it being made ok. Teaching classes with both of them where you pick up on the others’ idea and run with it and Luke and I always say ‘planning leads to unresponsive teaching.’

So the feedback that we got is that it was ‘sophisticated’ it ‘walked the line between theatre and dance’ and everyone went ‘Oh!’ when someone said we worked as a trio. Which, of course we do, yet working this way together is new to us.

New things too, new scores, new ways of moving, new people, new group dynamic. Beginning to take people’s weight who you don’t know, making eye contact and a connection and creating a story after just a short moment of play. Watching the stories arise on the floor.

Feels like a luxury and a privilege to be able to spend a week doing this.

Cycled back to Pigeon Hole with them afterwards and climbed on the new bunk beds, Luke explained his so many ideas to me. Then drank tea with Christy in the Pigeon Hole kitchen while Luke and Tim looked at the set and talked structural integrity and tour-ability.

the superhero, the acrobat and the child

Hello Arts Victoria, please give us money: "We are interested in the crossover between the superhero, the acrobat and the child. Each has a terrifying vulnerability to danger and yet shows immense strength; there is a sense of safety in the middle of danger. We are using acrobatics and circus skills to explore the physical world of suburbia: brick walls, shed roofs, monkey bars and bunk beds. Alongside this, we are using clown, dance and performance work to play with the imagined world of the superhero: the alter ego, the secret identity, the villain, the last minute rescue and the idealistic moral code. We are interested in the superhero fantasy that allows a powerless person to imagine the changes they want to see in the world." (quote from the grant submission i'm writing)she's so tough....

the thing about funding...

Talking to the funding people: arts vic, sidney myer. Spending time on websites looking at criteria. Sitting in the sunny study in montmorency with print outs of old grant submissions and a red pen thinking about timelines and budgets.

Research!!!

One way of making a show is to train hard and do lots of impro and do serious planning and budgeting sessions. Another is to write some ideas and then go to the bakery to eat end-of-the-day quiche and talk.

The route to the bakery is through a building site and the gate is usually wide open. Not today. Today we looked at the locked gate and were about to turn and walk the long way round when Luke said, ‘Research!’ and scaled the brick wall. Christy climbed the tree and I climbed the cyclone wire and we all dropped down the other side onto Alex Parade. Grinned at each other.

Luke wants to be the super-paper-boy, ride a minibike and juggle newspapers. Christy wants to be the one who yells ‘catch me’ and jumps and we always catch her. I want to be strong and for people to say, ‘Wow! she’s so strong…’

We all love the newspaper play idea so when they kicked us out of the bakery we went back to Westside and juggled clubs. Memory of Sacha throwing them at me again and again. (thanks Sacha!) There’s something very satisfying about the rhythm of a ‘pass, two three four’ and the clubs hitting your hand and your friend smiling at you and giggling as they all hit the ground in one rolling mess and then picking them up and trying again.

Came home where Jono has an Age subscription that sometimes doesn’t get unwrapped. Dropped rolled up newspapers in the kitchen for a while and Jono giggled into his toothbrush. (maybe we could get sponsorship from the Age…)

"in terms of the set..."

Luke has said this a lot of times. We are thinking about suburbia, signposts, letterboxes, astro turf. We are full of kid stories. The magic physicality of our own childhoods, vaulting the fence down to the creek, jumping off the shed roof, swinging down from the top bunk to the bottom one. Freedom and bodies. Feeling safe while doing dangerous things.

'Lets get a parkour guy in to teach us stuff,' 'Imagine if we turned the bottom bunk into a trampoline,' 'Chinese pole on the signpost,' 'Off the ground tiggy.'

The classic 50’s aesthetic that goes with the superhero and ourselves not superheroes but imagining we are. Sometimes the superhero story looks real. Can we have a signpost, powerlines, a bunkbed a table we can slide on and monkey bars all in the same set? And also a brick wall, a staircase and a hills hoist??? Luke is dreaming and wants to build it…

We think we can get cheap astroturf...

Malthouse Cafe

We gather at the Malthouse café. First Luke and Christy and I with butcher’s paper and coffee and a laptop - to write an agenda and plan the meeting. Then, slowly, the rest of the show team following hard on their “5 mins late” texts. Amanda bubbling with costume ideas, clear about her timelines and pushing little Tarlo in a pram. Ania with chilly cheeks from the cycling and a bit concerned about her ability to make sound while on tour with Oz. Jak, the painter/illustrator who knows the least about the project; tall, quiet, listening. Kate comes last of all, friendly, in a hurry, laughing, introducing herself around the circle. Timelines, budgets, brainstorms, ideas. Christy holds Tarlo while Amanda talks costume, Jak asks questions and Luke talks about the set.

Bringing everyone together makes the project feel real. Christy and I smile at each other on the tram as we leave, “that was a good thing to do.”

Kingston Arts Centre

Kingston Arts Centre is next to Moorabbin station. It takes me an hour and a half on the train from Montmorency and when I change trains at Flinders street it is so chaotic that I make friends with the other confused Frankston line travelers. Kingstron Arts Centre is on the edge of a busy, three-lane each way road with that feeling of suburbs and industry all around it.

It’s a lovely old building. Two story red-red brick with big, white-framed windows and a wide staircase lined by dark wooden banister rails. We have the use of Kingston Arts Centre every Monday. Marisa is totally welcoming and sweet. She shows us our own desk space in the office and lets us into the theatre we will have for 6 hours.

While Christy goes straight to the office and calls people, Luke and I clamber up into the tech box and start to play. We find the lights, put up a blue and some reds on the curtain, and a wash on the stage, take it in turns to explore the desk, find the mike and the laptop plug in and start to play. The sound of our miked voices through the theatre makes us embarrassed at first and then is fun. We tell stories, make things up while the other brings music in underneath it on the laptop. Suddenly we have being improing for an hour on the sound desk and Christy is back.

We plan schedules and budgets with a computer and a phone in front of each of us lying on our stomachs on the theatre floor.

Luke and I impro on the floor while Christy layers sound under what we do. Playing the digi recordings, bringing up music, telling stories on the mike. 20 minutes is nothing.

Luke’s dad’s house is just around the corner and we go there and drink tea, tired and happy on the couches looking out at his newly planted vegetables. We’ll be back next week, we say after our next session in our very own theatre.

empty teapot and excel

We didn’t get the Arts Vic funding so now we are going to make a show without it. The main thing for me is the time/income conundrum, the curse of every artist, I guess. How can I earn my money to live and make a show and write a novel and study my masters and still have time for the people I love and to keep my house friendly and full of food? But I haven’t really even started to consider it when Luke and Christy come to me with a proposal. They want to pay me to write grant submissions.

I go to Soul Food on Smith Street and drink lemon and ginger tea in front of the maths. After an hour with excel I have done a personal income and expenditure, an Asking for Trouble grant budget and proposed timeline and a weekly time budget for myself. I am bursting with the possibility that I can do everything I want. I love the trams and the overcast sky and the empty teapot and excel. I’m looking forward to the rest of the year

Frangelico

We didn’t get the arts vic grant. Luke and Christy came back here and we sat at my kitchen table with a tiny glass of frangelico each. Christy said ‘to making beautiful art against all odds’ and we looked into each other’s faces and smiled and took little sips of sweet nutty liqueur.

clown school in paris

Luke and Christy are planning to go to clown school in Paris. Train with Gaulier. I want to go too. I want catch the Trans Siberian and then live in an apartment in Paris and go to clown school every day. While Luke cooks dinner and Christy does Asking for Trouble business I look at apartments to rent in Paris and sing Ertha Kitt songs in my head

Montmorency

I live in Montmorency. The gumtrees in the backyard are massive, leaning out across the kitchen window. I walk to the train in the misty, overcast morning and find a window seat and read voraciously. I am absorbed in stories and words. I open my laptop on the train and pour ideas into it. I walk home via the Monty shops and buy organic potatoes and chilli continental sausages because we don’t live with vegetarians anymore. We have central heating and winter feels cozy and homey and unlike any sharehouse Melbourne winter I’ve ever had. I walk Ooms, the dog that comes with the house, late at night in the empty misty streets. We email the folk we are house-sitting for and tell them we love their house and sometimes we look for rental properties online but only because we feel like we should.

When Jono is away, for days at a time for work, Luke and Christy drive Nona out here and we spread out across the centrally heated house and plan and organise and take it in turns to pat Ooms. Put ideas on butchers paper in the study, watch superhero movies in the loungeroom, sit at the kitchen table and eat and talk and talk and eat. Sweet treats and tea. Marx for Beginners in the toilet and we take it in turns to read snippits.

Kate Kantor

We organise to do two workshops with Kate before we find out about Arts Vic, to start. To start working together. For us to get t know her and her to know us. For us to have someone there the first time we start to play impro together.

She shows up at the Dancehouse in her pigtails and red coat and is immediately friendly and funny. We do up-balloons to warm up and laugh. She is gentle with our clowns as we find fun costumes to wear. Christy’s face softens behind her nose and her eyes go sweet and quiet. Luke turns into a little boy dominated by the idea of a motorbike. He wears my leather jacket which fits him beautifully. Kate leads us through Feldenkreis on the floor. She asks our clowns to do advertisements selling darkness, the sky, clouds. Make up jingles, dance, keep going through the awkward and the flop because you’ll find something. Be curios, childlike and get commercial. You want the audience to love you. Check if they love you. Check if they think you’re doing it right. Make it up. You’re always the expert and you don’t know anything.

We lie on the floor and write our childhood superhero stories in quick stream-of-concious scribbles. We impro with them in our minds and fall in love with the language. With the storytelling.

We love Kate and we think we could do an 8 hour session with her and not feel tired. We say, ‘as soon as we find out about Arts Vic we’ll talk to you.’ Wave goodbye on the Dancehouse front step.

Circus Oz Opening

Went alone to the oz show opening. Ended up next to two people I know. The whole of the Melbourne circus industry, half the state MPs and a cohort of City of Melbourne employees waving at each other across the big top. Paul O’Keefe the hilarious Roller God in tiny blue satin shorts, Ania cycling round and round on a little bicycle with old- school lanterns at each end and a toy piano instead of handlebars. Her hair piled and in messy curls, fitted white coat and a little smile on her face. Sarah, charismatic, tough, political, feels to me like she is bringing back the roots of oz and at the same time holding the show. She is stunning.

Afterwards I drink opening night wine with Ania out of a plastic glass and she is bright and keen. We talk about Kapow! and she wants to make music. “Oz is at night and I have so much time during the day I don’t know what to do.” I say when we find out about Arts Vic we’ll make a plan.

Called Arts Vic and asked what their timeframe is for letting people know. They said their time frame is ’very late.’ So we are still waiting.

the eviction

So we really did get evicted. The sheriffs came round again, to make a time with us to change the locks. We talked to the bank’s solicitor and they spoke to the bank and then the real estate agents who spoke to the landlords and then to us. And in the meantime the landlords’ parents leaned over our fence in a neighborly way and asked why we were moving out. Very sad. They’ll miss us. Their children are keeping secrets from them and I don’t have the heart to let them know that the house is being re-possessed. So two days of packing a 50sq metre truck and several trailer loads later (not to mention a day of scrubbing walls, mopping floors bicarb, citro clean and sugar soap) we are in our temporary house-sit in the total burbs.

training - we're back!

Training. Nona is parked outside the Westside Circus warehouse, spilling coffee and breakfast-making ingredients out her door. Luke sleepy and cute, me ready to train. Skipping, strength, cardio, handstands, acrobalance. My handstands have gone backwards. I don’t hold anything for longer than 30 seconds. Conscious about over-training.

Christy trains hard and is red faced from the work but smiling. “We’re back. I feel like we’re back,” she says over coffee at the end.

We run acro tricks that we’re already comfortable with. Do easy tricks but with combos we aren’t used to. Moments of standing sweaty, the three of us facing each other “What will we do now?” and then thinking of the next thing.

Luke says, “You know what? When we do this show, everyone is going to say to you two ‘you’re so strong!’ and no-one will say it to me.” We laugh. It’s true.

While they’re making breakfast and I’m putting my shoes on to leave, Luke starts talking about an idea. An acro-against-the-wind-scene. The three of us struggling to get somewhere. The tension and slow motion of that. The new show is starting to feel like a reality.

I’m home now. Another letter from the bank's lawyers. Looks like our landlord has made a very big mess. Odds of getting evicted 100 to 1. Jono and I looking at housesitting in Montmorency – which makes training at 8 in the morning a little harder... but not impossible.

kick ass

Christy and Luke are back from Gippsland. Went round to theirs in the ute and took them to the Brunswick baths last night for the last hour til the pool closed. Sat ourselves in the spa (tripping over the old men) and talked scheduling. Three sessions of physical training and one of performance work a week? Getting performance trainers in to work with us? Shannon to train us in acro? I think: I should have a look at the Arts Vic dates. We’ll know if we got the funding 15 weeks from when the application went in. That will effect our planning.

Drove out to Northlands with a bottle of juice each. ‘Kick Ass’ Luke said we had to see it. ‘It’s creative development for the superhero show.’ Which it is. Squealed with laughter and horror at the action and the gore. Appreciated the soundtrack immensely “I don’t give a damn about my reputation.” And were slightly disturbed by the whole child-soldier element.

Drove home through the dark Northcote streets and talked. Talked about how often superhero movies will have a moment of redemption where the superhero lets a bad guy go after having him fully at his mercy. Or the classic moment where an action hero will let a bad guy go and immediately be attacked by him again and need to kill him.

I think you could do that moment over and over and over again. The hero nearly killing the bad guy and then relenting. The bad guy coming back for more and then the hero getting him in his power and nearly killing him and then relenting and so on…until someone breaks it up. Could be hilarious.

About how revenge makes violence ok. Or how it doesn’t really. About how satisfying it is to see a bully go down. How Spiderman and the Phantom don’t kill.

Luke despises the phantom. I tell him he’s prejudiced and Christy laughs and nods. He tries to explain that it’s the costume. No one could look good in that.

I drop them at the warehouse and kiss them goodbye. Eight o’clock in the morning for training.

Anzac bisuits on the table when I get home. Cute, baking housemates.