Cairns, August 2010
I got home from my 5 week adventure last night. It was huge and amazing, but I am so glad to be home. I love the way New Zealand smells, I love my places, my people, and the cold wind on my face. The neighbour's cat is sitting in the same spot that he occupied when I left at 5am, 5 weeks ago.
Anyways, so I guess you want to hear about it! Here's installment 1, about Cairns, where I spent 3 weeks on an Artist in Residency hosted by the Cairns regional Council, with Empress Stiltdance, developing the show, Kahuku. I was going to post this a week ago, but it turned out that China blocked ALL of my social media (grumble).
I arrived a week later than most of the crew (having needed the extra time at home to finish my humungous-report-of-doom, and to get the chance to make mud pies on our floor. On arrival in Cairns I was greeted by my housemates with more details than I really needed about gruesome ways to get maimed and killed in Cairns, but it was great to walk into a household already set up and running, although initially it was a shock to go from my normal 2 person house to an 8 person house, with everyone living, working, and playing together.
I’m told that “it never rains in Cairns in winter”. Yeah right! The day after I arrived the rain set in, and it continued for the next 48 hours. This, plus the absence of the crane we’d been promised, prevented us from rehearsing for 2 days. We did make some progress working on the covered deck outside the house, being careful not to get our stilts tangled in the washing line. For some reason Australians love it when we tell them about our huge deck and all the things we do on it. No idea what that’s about ;)
Anyways, 2 days later the rain cleared, the crane arrived, and we started rehearsals properly.
I won’t go into the details, but it was a process that ran the gamut of beautiful, hard, fun and stressful. In the thick of it, it was hard to see if we were going anywhere good with the show, but having come out the other end now, I’m really proud of how we worked together, of the beautiful work that we made, and of the way in which we overcame a mountain of obstacles that we had never anticipated.
Re. my own personal experience of Cairns - my main goal, going there, had been to hang off a crane in the middle of Cairns, so I reckon I get a big tick for achieving that! I had thought vaguely that I might do a little bit of touristing - maybe snorkelling on the Barrier Reef. But it turns out that you pretty much have to do a day trip out on a boat to get to the Reef, and in the few days that I had the time for that, I didn’t have sufficient energy or people-tolerance left in me. We went to a crocodile farm, which was depressing, and other than that I avoided most other outings partly because I wanted to preserve my energy, and partly because I hated being snacked on by the local midges! These guys are teeny - you can hardly see them. But their bites are horrendous and itch for weeks, and as an added bonus, they carry dengue fever. Anyways, that aside, I did enjoy the botanic gardens, which we lived right next to, and I went to a couple of really good arts festival shows. This guy is amazing.
Have a picture wot I took in the gardens:
So 3 weeks went by very quickly and show day arrived. By this point we were down one lead cast member, who had hurt his wrist in a fall (sucks, but he'll be OK). Fortunately, the ever-prepared Emily had foreseen that possibility and the show has four performers to cover the two lead roles. The first 2 shows were on Thursday at 5 and 6pm, and this was my turn to do the female lead. The day dawned beautiful and clear, but then clouded in, and by 4pm it was hosing down (“It never rains in Cairns”). So we cancelled the 5pm show, and thought we would probably have to cancel the 6pm show too. Just in time however, the rain stopped, and we got just enough prep time to go ahead at 6pm. This was my first (and so far, last) time performing this show, and apart from a little bit of difficulty with slipping on the wet ground, it went really well. Friday’s shows also went really well, and we got some beautiful feedback from the audience. We were performing across the road from the hospital, and one of the lovely things was seeing a some of the hospital patients, who had been regulars at our rehearsals, making a special outing to be there.
Have a bunch of photos (all taken by by Colyn Huber, Lovegreen Photography):
So that was pretty much it. We had an after-party on the Friday night with the Cairns-based flying trapeze crew. It was lots of fun, and included a mandatory kiwi-1-degree-of-separation experience. Some random guy starts talking to Emily, and then turns to the group and asks: “Is one of you Jez’s wife?” Turned out that he was one of the more colourful kiwiburn characters. While we’d both heard stories about each other, we’d never actually met before.
So that’s the short version of Cairns. The long version has so many twists and turns and side-paths, that I’ll never get it down in a blog post. It was a beautiful and a gruelling experience, in an environment that felt hostile as well as gentle and welcoming. We’re now aiming to tour Kahuku around Australian festivals, to continue developing it, and in the longer term, to tour Europe and Asia with it. I think that maybe, just maybe, we might even manage to do that.
Anyways, so I guess you want to hear about it! Here's installment 1, about Cairns, where I spent 3 weeks on an Artist in Residency hosted by the Cairns regional Council, with Empress Stiltdance, developing the show, Kahuku. I was going to post this a week ago, but it turned out that China blocked ALL of my social media (grumble).
I arrived a week later than most of the crew (having needed the extra time at home to finish my humungous-report-of-doom, and to get the chance to make mud pies on our floor. On arrival in Cairns I was greeted by my housemates with more details than I really needed about gruesome ways to get maimed and killed in Cairns, but it was great to walk into a household already set up and running, although initially it was a shock to go from my normal 2 person house to an 8 person house, with everyone living, working, and playing together.
I’m told that “it never rains in Cairns in winter”. Yeah right! The day after I arrived the rain set in, and it continued for the next 48 hours. This, plus the absence of the crane we’d been promised, prevented us from rehearsing for 2 days. We did make some progress working on the covered deck outside the house, being careful not to get our stilts tangled in the washing line. For some reason Australians love it when we tell them about our huge deck and all the things we do on it. No idea what that’s about ;)
Anyways, 2 days later the rain cleared, the crane arrived, and we started rehearsals properly.
I won’t go into the details, but it was a process that ran the gamut of beautiful, hard, fun and stressful. In the thick of it, it was hard to see if we were going anywhere good with the show, but having come out the other end now, I’m really proud of how we worked together, of the beautiful work that we made, and of the way in which we overcame a mountain of obstacles that we had never anticipated.
Re. my own personal experience of Cairns - my main goal, going there, had been to hang off a crane in the middle of Cairns, so I reckon I get a big tick for achieving that! I had thought vaguely that I might do a little bit of touristing - maybe snorkelling on the Barrier Reef. But it turns out that you pretty much have to do a day trip out on a boat to get to the Reef, and in the few days that I had the time for that, I didn’t have sufficient energy or people-tolerance left in me. We went to a crocodile farm, which was depressing, and other than that I avoided most other outings partly because I wanted to preserve my energy, and partly because I hated being snacked on by the local midges! These guys are teeny - you can hardly see them. But their bites are horrendous and itch for weeks, and as an added bonus, they carry dengue fever. Anyways, that aside, I did enjoy the botanic gardens, which we lived right next to, and I went to a couple of really good arts festival shows. This guy is amazing.
Have a picture wot I took in the gardens:
So 3 weeks went by very quickly and show day arrived. By this point we were down one lead cast member, who had hurt his wrist in a fall (sucks, but he'll be OK). Fortunately, the ever-prepared Emily had foreseen that possibility and the show has four performers to cover the two lead roles. The first 2 shows were on Thursday at 5 and 6pm, and this was my turn to do the female lead. The day dawned beautiful and clear, but then clouded in, and by 4pm it was hosing down (“It never rains in Cairns”). So we cancelled the 5pm show, and thought we would probably have to cancel the 6pm show too. Just in time however, the rain stopped, and we got just enough prep time to go ahead at 6pm. This was my first (and so far, last) time performing this show, and apart from a little bit of difficulty with slipping on the wet ground, it went really well. Friday’s shows also went really well, and we got some beautiful feedback from the audience. We were performing across the road from the hospital, and one of the lovely things was seeing a some of the hospital patients, who had been regulars at our rehearsals, making a special outing to be there.
Have a bunch of photos (all taken by by Colyn Huber, Lovegreen Photography):
So that was pretty much it. We had an after-party on the Friday night with the Cairns-based flying trapeze crew. It was lots of fun, and included a mandatory kiwi-1-degree-of-separation experience. Some random guy starts talking to Emily, and then turns to the group and asks: “Is one of you Jez’s wife?” Turned out that he was one of the more colourful kiwiburn characters. While we’d both heard stories about each other, we’d never actually met before.
So that’s the short version of Cairns. The long version has so many twists and turns and side-paths, that I’ll never get it down in a blog post. It was a beautiful and a gruelling experience, in an environment that felt hostile as well as gentle and welcoming. We’re now aiming to tour Kahuku around Australian festivals, to continue developing it, and in the longer term, to tour Europe and Asia with it. I think that maybe, just maybe, we might even manage to do that.