Geoffrey Rush

I thought if I called this post Geoffrey Rush it might get your attention. And it worked.  And here you are reading it.  A few blogs ago I mentioned how much fun I had when I left the house to be a Real Person for half a day.  I attended an audition for Short + Sweet at this very strange dance space called Ministry of Dance.  It is a cross between a warehouse and various rooms which look like the set of chat shows or a posh hotel reception.  It was huge.

I asked the Clipboard Girl "what the hell is this place?".  It is apparently the largest dance studios space in the Southern Hempisphere.  Like The Place in London.  Only Five times the amount of space.

As I was walking towards my audition studio (along a corridor as wide as our house) I briefly looked at a group of people on their tea break from one of the other studios.  Then they all filed back into work behind closed doors.  Clipboard Girl very smugly told me Geoffrey Rush was in there rehearsing.  So if I had paid more attention to the people - instead of marvelling at the decor and size of the space - I would have bloody seen him!

But all I could think was who on earth could afford to run this kind of commercial dance space.
In Melbourne.  Only the big musicals could possibly afford to hire these studios.  So if Lion King or West Side Story needed a rehearsal venue it would be perfect.  I don't think the budget for Biserk Dance Company would stretch to the hourly rate.  I would be able to afford to run up the stairs and plug my iPod into the stereo.  But then I would have to pack up and leave.

A very exciting weekend coming up.  Many visitors staying.  The youngest cousin is having his 21st Birthday Party (they grow up so quickly). So another big family gathering.  Rehearsing in earnest (well more like frantic creativity).  And to top it all off - going to see The Forsythe Company on Sunday evening.  William Forsythe is my absolute favourite choreographer - EVER.

I am taking a group of ten contemporary dance virgins with me.  I have explained that it will be very modern and edgy - not at all the Swan Lake they may be used to.  But we will have a bit of champagne first - and that's bound to take the edge off.  What a pity I didn't get loaded the last time I saw Merce Cunningham in Oxford.....

Back in the Game

Got the Short + Sweet gig.  Very chuffed.  And here are a few photos from our holiday in Canberra. Short blog as I have a new laptop and will take an eternity to work out how to put the bloody photos on the blog.  The boys and I saw three beautiful balloons at 6:30am this morning.
A gorgeous sight in the bright blue Canberra skyline.

Wife Swap

We are in Canberra at the moment, on a school holiday road trip.  Lunch yesterday was Bellini's and home made pizza (cooked on the BBQ).  It was a lovely sun-dappled lunch, and with Jonty asleep the two big boys had the adults to themselves and embarked on their usual series of inquisitions.

They were trying to piece together who my parents were out of the six they have to choose from.  Eventually they settled on Nonna and Russell, but then Henry remembered it was actually Grandpa John (with some triumph) who was my dad.  Then one of them said "they did a swap".  And apparently some people swap more than once.

Henry ended the conversation with "some people just keep swapping until they die!".

PS. Have heard back from the directors of the Short + Sweet Festival, and they want to see me in Melbourne this week.  Great, but the only problem is we are in Canberra until Friday.  Do I ditch the family holiday and fly back just for a fifteen minute meeting?  Or do I try to wangle a different time at the risk of sounding difficult?  What are the new rules for a supposed professional dancer/choreographer who has three small children who has moved countries and who has not embarked on furthering her dance career (in Australia) until now?

It was so much fun going to the audition - like being a proper person again!  Walking down hallways (with no children), telling the lady your name (with no children), showing your work (with no children) and talking about your work (with no children).  AND catching public transport WITH NO BLOODY CHILDREN!  Even had a cheeky lunch at a funky cafe, but was disappointed to find myself looking around and thinking "I could even bring the children here!"

Tan Tights

Contemporary dancers still wearing old, well-loved training clothes in the dance studio will feel my pain here.

As far as I'm concerned there are three fashion faux pas which really get my goat.

1.  Massive wide belts of the kind that were in fashion about seven years ago, but which some people still insist on wearing.  Even worse when they are bejwelled with sparkling trinkets.

2.  Fat people wearing leggings.  ANY TIME, ANY PLACE.

3.  Stonewash jeans and a matching jacket.  Just awful.

In the dance studio however there are a whole new set of rules about what is acceptable and what is clearly just poor judgement.  And this week I got into an argument with my teenage dancers about what they could wear for their dance piece.  They wanted to wear tan tights.  TAN TIGHTS!

I told them to move on - it is not 1986, and we are not entering a Beauty Pagent in some mid-western town in the States.  And they are performing an abstract contemporary dance piece, loosely based on some Indigenous Dreamtime themes. 

Just like Edna in The Incredibles ("No Capes!"), I said "No Tan Tights!".

Shop Names

Now I will tell you something I little bit funny.  Australian people will not find this the least bit peculiar because they are used to it - so feel free to ignore this blog post.

In Australia, or Melbourne at least, the shop fronts and signs are HUGE.  Much bigger than they really need to be.  Some of them at least 20 times the size of a normal UK high street retailer.  And this from someone with failing eyesight.  Apart from the actual lettering on the signs entering into some secret competition with the sign next door, what the signs actually represent is even funnier.

A few examples:

Crazy John's - Discount mobile phone store.  I would be a little bit reticent about buying a phone from these guys.

The Badbacks Store - Hilarious!  A store for people with bad backs.  If I had time I would have hung around just to watch poor old bent over people hobbling in to buy themselves a spoon and fork.

Tony le Pony - Would have been great if this had been an equestrian shop, but turned out to be a boring cafe.

Trippy Taco - All those who watched Monkey in the 70's we salute you.  This taco place was packed late one night when The Accountant and I had date night.

Fella Hamilton - Posh ladies dress shop, but the name is very off-putting. Mother and I had a giggle as our old dog from 35 years ago was called Fella, spelling included.

A German friend also took a photo of a sushi shop called Mishi Mishi which apparently, in Germany, is another name for (excuse me) fanny/snatch/fandango.  Smirk.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

When I first skipped gaily into Melbourne over a year ago, I was just a young (ish) girl with dreams of dancing, choreographing and teaching.  I would win everyone over with my humour and general fabulousness before I dance step had even been performed!  My dance peers in the UK were all "Big fish in small pond....", "European modern dance scene...", "Experienced choreographer....".  And the most uttered "You will be different and new".

New and different are not words which enter the vocabulary of the Melbourne dance scene.  No capital letters needed for dance scene as there is no such thing here.  No dance community either.  It comes to this.  Either you are highly commercial and can enter your dance style into various performance platforms.  But think old fashioned jazz ballet meets Irish Dancing meets lap dancing.  With funny costumes.

Or you squeeze your way into the highly exclusive contemporary dance scene.  Membership is highly secretive and you can only get in to this from the ground up.  So when you were five years old you did creative dance lessons and moved on from there.

I am obviously in neither of these categories and have been Melbourned into submission to try and join in somehow.  So for the moment I am going to put forward a piece for Short + Sweet Festival.  The only thing is they want a 2 minute preview by next Saturday.  Into the dance studio and out of me tumbled all the creativity I had been saving for one year.  Thank god.

I don't know what to expect, but I'll do my thing, my way, in any case.  The panel might be full of people who were still in high school when I won my first choreographic award in 1996, so I will try my hardest not to laugh.  Or slap them.

Bid

My lovely Auntie Biddy has died at the very young age of 58.  A very sad time for all our family.  But also a time to remember a remarkably brave and insightful person, who uncomplainingly, battled until the end.

Dear Auntie Bid I will forever have you in my heart, and have so many happy memories of you.  In your swimsuit at Lake Buffalo reading the Herald Sun, occasionally remarking on odd happenings (and odd people!) at the lake.  All accompanied with a wry smile.  May you always be paddling on your red lilo down the Ovens River. 

I would have attached a photograph of Biddy at Bright, in her swimmers, with this blog tribute - but I don't know whether she would have entirely approved.

I am very grateful to be in Melbourne at this sad time, recognising what a strong, supportive and loving family we have.