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Week Two! and we have rehearsed with our three generous musicians, Ben Drury, Richard Johnson, Jess Green and Michael Misa. Pastor Peter Kuot is deciding which of his stories of South Sudanese agricultural life to tell. School students from Marist College are coming to workshops this weekend, and our performers Chris and Robin–wickedly funny–have created an ‘immigration rag’. Moments of dark and light, tragedy and trepidation.

Christopher animating his Angel…

rehearsals, Week Two

http://bodyecology.com.au/performance/anthems-and-angels/

Anthems and Angels: The Compassion Plays: A performance event about longing, loss, and the resilience of people in exile. Developed from years of research in and amongst community. There will be live music, singing, dance, intercultural storytelling, and a share community feast! 

So…we are about to embark on Anthems and Angels,Mark II: the Compassion Plays. The project theme is the condition of exile and the experience of refugees. The performance structure is the medieval ‘passion play’, which invites its audience to travel through different ‘story stations’ and interact with and help shape the performance.

Each show begins outdoors at dusk, with food, gifting, songs and dance. The journey continues into the theatre space, where Sydney artist Sam James creates an exquisite, immersive video installation amidst a combination of set and interactive performance pieces. Local musicians, performers and visual and sound artists combine with members of our wider communities to create a place of welcome, shared feasting, and cultural exchange.

Performance dates: Nov 2,3,4, 7.30pm. Ralph Wilson Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, Ainslie Ave, Braddon, ACT. Bookings: www.agac.com.au

Part of the Anthems and Angels Trilogy, due to roll out nationally and internationally, 2016-18.

photo: andrew sikorski

The principal of equivalence refers not just to an attitude to things outside of ourselves—respect for nature, and others—but to components within as well. This principle, as an active consciousness, helps response-ability-—i.e., the ability to respond with more resilience, more options, more variety and creativity. We can expand our repertoire of things we can do and achieve. Each organism, each element can move towards its own more Optimal Function. It is much more productive than living with ideals. It opens doorways to very creative thinking.

Training  is thus a life-practice, an ethical practice, and a creative practice, as well as a practice which can help in times of illness or dis-ease.

Sometimes, though, the work can be very ordinary: providing relief from muscular pain; or a change of thinking. The difference in these instances lies in the depth of transformation and how supported, effective and integrated such trasnformations can be.

The principle of Equivalence is a very basic tenet of shamanism, and to many indigenous peoples.

Living with this principle demands respect for all existence. Where are our prejudices? Do we prefer body to mind, endings to beginnings? Ageing vs. birthing, motion vs. restriction, the self vs. the landscape around us. We all carry prejudices of which we need to be aware, because every incompleteness is (potentially) a violation. A beginner step is to accept our complexities, and what cannot be solved.
This takes practice.
 

This is a 3 minute video of my major project, Anthems and Angels
It is concerned with the memories and experiences of refugees.

Its process matches my intention to pay respect to what often gets censored or ignored (memories, sights, sounds, smells, kinetic sensations).

If everything is potentially of equal value, then sound, space, bodies, are already as important as any word or action. My training process he training works hard to allow performers to perceive what is there to help them (the substance of space, the walls singing), but also what needs to be listened to (knowledge in the wind, songs in the blood, history in the floorboards).

I am lucky to be working with several extraordinary collaborators, Timothy Constable (performer/musician) and Mike Chin (composer/film-maker, Tokyo Love-In) amongst them.

Watch this space!

(You can find out more about this project by using the wordpress navigation under ‘Performance’.)