really like their moustaches
talk with their hands
know how to spit and do it frequently
like tight jeans (often flares) and patterned shirts
aren’t afraid to stare and yell hello to foreign women
hold hands with each other but keep their women under wraps
think Australia is spelt c-r-i-c-k-e-t
are a strange mix of arrogance and vulnerability
Imagine more than I am
Realize more than I can imagine
discovering myself in corporeal form
dropped in a landscape
a fixed point in this latitude
spiralling the longitude back into my spine
unravelling from a sight line, an upward gesture, a mudra,
charting points of importance down the body
from the third eye to the small of the back
falling down in caste, eyes cast down sweeping
praying, cooking, driving, dancing
these actions, an ascension
forming a possibility without losing control
no tragic accidents like Frida’s trolley car
a skeleton impaled
corporeality disperses
Floating and falling
Move from your head to your heart
Move from the horizontal path to the vertical
No expectations
grab the rail of the rickshaw
follow a scent
chasing your tail
I grasp the essence of myself
as a handful of dust
a life cremated, scattered
the left hand has the destiny you were born with
the right hand swims up the waterfall
for a moment I think I recognize someone in the distance
but it’s a mirage, a remembered pain, a longing lost, a grief swallowed and seeping through me
the past still clings to my trouser leg
and in my weaker moments it drags me back there
when I pulled my hands free, pulled the tape off, ran into the next room, into the corner, pressing into the corner, trying to press myself wafer thin to slide behind the cupboard, to melt into the wall, into the darkness
my mind is running fast away but my body is frozen
there’s a flashlight on me
I was next to the door
I was right next to the door
My image of myself now
What are they seeing when they look at me?
Opening my heart means shaking off all those old needs,
expectations that tied me down
Carried my grief like a tumour below the surface
Poisoning my capacity to move on
Wearing my mistakes as fractures in my skeleton
Holding disappointments in my tendons
Loneliness thickening my blood
Regrets stinging my eyes
Running fast, busy, circling, pounding through, pushing,
Breaking myself in like a wild horse, foaming, beaten
This country is acting upon me like a leech
Drawing the poisons up to the surface
Bleeding me
I feel like I am opening
Standing up
The sands pouring off me
The skin softening
The muscles melting
The bloodstream beginning to quicken
My thoughts are slowing
My eyes are focussing
The panic is a dot in the distance
We share a private moment, a vulnerability, a clue to the other
Head to knee, hand to throat, shoulder to elbow, the backs of our necks, third finger to solar plexus, shoulder to stomach, her foot in my hand
Whatever you love, you are
Until we are falling, catching, dying, resurrecting
Water, earth, dust, air
The final poem
I am unfixed
A mess of molecules and memories
A speck of dust
A river of blood
An exhalation
My past, present and future merge in this moment
I know you intimately and still we haven’t met
I am taking it all with me and leaving everything behind.
An explanation of the work:
Opening: coming into the world from water, bombarded with the matter of living
My solo about locating myself in the landscape, building my knowledge, my identity, experiences, lessons, growing into my skin and my psyche,
life as a preparation for another journey
Drought into cyclone (boys’ sections): the ordeals, coping with loss/pain, alone, lost, beaten, fights, struggles
Hardest moments (interviews) …notice what isn’t being said, what is being revealed
Alchemy (Mallika solo): a turning point, where you walk out into the desert, where land appears, when a single strong person or moment transforms the situation (a teacher, leader, event, place)
Partnerships (duets): ‘becoming’ as a collaboration, relationships…support, compromise, learning about yourself through your interactions with another
Practice (Pappan solo): realizing the self, building into the mature you, Your body, practice, decisions, strength, creativity.
Sweetest moments (interviews): how joy reads in a face, in a voice; watching a memory of a moment and a feeling
Homelands (the river and body projections): the future, possibilities and the unknown; the boundaries of your body are unfixed, your destiny shifting, your reality expanding…
Rasa Duet (Mallika and I): the balance of contrast—to hold onto while letting go.
Hard/soft Interview questions (in your own preferred language)
• How old were you?
• Describe the place
• What time of day was it?
• Do you remember any sounds?
• Temperature? Quality of the light?
• What objects were there?
• What were you wearing?
• Do you remember any particular smells or tastes?
• Who else was there?
• What part of the body do you think of first?
• What were you thinking?
Rasa duet instructions
Discovering myself in corporeal form then dropped in a landscape
A fixed point in this latitude spiralling the longitude back into my spine
Unravelling from a sight line
An upward gesture, a mudra,
Charting points of importance down the body from the third eye to the small of the back
Falling down in caste, eyes cast down
Sweeping, praying, cooking, driving, dancing
These actions, an ascension forming a possibility without losing control
No tragic accidents like Frida’s trolley car—a skeleton impaled, corporeality disperses
Floating and falling
A rickshaw, a scent, chasing your tail
Grasping the essenceof yourself as a handful of dust
A life cremated, scattered
The left hand has the destiny you’re born with, the right hand swims up the waterfall
Not reading about Brecht
For a moment I think I recognize someone in the distance, but it’s a mirage
…a remembered pain, a longing lost, a grief swallowed and seeping through me
Continue not reading about Brecht into Duet Travel
Into a floor opening, chased, circling, approaching
Head to knee, hand to throat, shoulder to elbow, the backs of our necks, third finger to solar plexus, shoulder to stomach, her foot in my hand
Whatever you love, you are
Until we are falling, catching, dying, resurrecting
Water, earth, dust, air
Later
Just back from another ‘back seat with the boys’ run
I’m sure they just want an excuse to go out in the car with the music up with their foreigner
I feel like I’m back in Mt. Gambier in the back of the Monaro on a Saturday afternoon
except for the part where everyone is looking at me (& no chance my parents will hear about it!)
I posted a parcel that was stitched together, a work of art with the customs paper macramé-ed on
My image of myself now
What are they seeing when they look at me?
Opening my heart means shaking off all those old needs, expectations that tied me down
Carried my grief like a tumour below the surface
Poisoning my capacity to move on
Wearing my mistakes as fractures in my skeleton
Holding disappointments in my tendons
Loneliness thickening my blood
Regrets stinging my eyes
Running fast, busy, circling, pounding through, pushing,
Breaking myself in like a wild horse, foaming, beaten
This country is acting upon me like a leech
Drawing the poisons up to the surface
Bleeding me
I feel like I am opening
Standing up
The sands pouring off me
The skin softening
The muscles melting
The bloodstream beginning to quicken
My thoughts are slowing
My eyes are focussing
The panic is a speck in the distance
No expectations
Unfixed
Nothing is fixed
Destiny? Being drawn toward certain places and people…toward ‘like’ particles, to the elements that are missing/needed in one’s life
The body is the teacher
My body is unfixed
Possibilities of shifting state, changing matter
In flux, yearning toward a particular element
Dance
connecting our energies and so our lived experience
To know each others’ stories not through words but by interaction
Hills like halva with temples on the top
We lock our doors against the ravine
On a bus called destiny
People track the landscape like ants to square cement blocks
Electricity towers tip toe across water like legs in fishnets and stilettos
Choreographic task
A: one of the hardest moments in your life
B: and one of the softest/sweetest
Recall details of where you were…colours, landscape, people, objects, smells, light…notice the points of tension or release in your body…extend into them…arrange the points, alternating hard and soft in a duet