Happy NAIDOC week you fla! I have done my countrymen proud by jump starting my NAIDOC week celebrations with my attendance at NAISDA Dance College’s annual mid-year concert titled Legacy. The title was taken from a poem I wrote to commemorate the official relocation to the Central Coast at Kariong Parklands over a decade ago. As usual the NAISDA mid-year show featured works by both teaching staff along with a selection of short choreographic offerings from the student cohort. In hindsight I think I was lured to a ‘staff meeting’ so I would see the show before the official opening that night.&n ..read more

According to the Oxford online dictionary momenta is the plural of momentum and therefore belongs firmly in the scientific realm of physics, whereby momentum is described as “the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity.” More specifically it is “the impetus gained by a moving object.” No truer title has been assigned to a work by Rafael Bonachela. I would argue that there has been a suite of works by Bonachela that could alternatively be titled Momenta. That his latest full-length work is so titled feels long overdue. Bonachela is a master of composi ..read more

Yet again, just when I feared there would be a dance drought I was inundated with invitations to attend a variety of gambollic themed events this past month, to which I can recall only a few in the immediate. This is why I have to be more vigilant about carrying around my diary. Ah my diary, that tactile paper bound tome which holds thoughts and dates, doodles and plans, private grievances, whimseys, fantasies, observations and judgement. I have learned never to underestimate the power and general handiness of a diary and ensure my sister gets me one each year for Christmas. She thinks I am en ..read more

I will preface with profuse apologies dear readers as I did not ante up with this blog within the week in February as promised. I would normally bore you with a detailed excuse summarising the details (in excruciating minutiae) of my helter-skelter existence as an independent dancer, which hindered my endeavours, but no, I will have to cut to the chase. This blog is about film. More specifically Sue Healey’s presentation of On View: Icons in triptych in Sydney Dance Company’s Neilson Studio, as part of Sydney Festival, in tandem with FORM Dance Projects’ most recent annual Short Sharp Dance pr ..read more

I would be severely remiss if I didn’t say farewell and thank you to a long time mentor and teacher in Brian Carbee. As I ride the early morning rails to Gosford this day, I am reflecting on my nearly half a lifetime relationship with Brian Carbee. You see, on Saturday he officially retired from teaching contemporary dance at Sydney Dance Company. When I first received the announcement via email I was devastated. Yep, utterly devo-ed. And I was not alone. Am not alone, as the melancholic hangover has not quite dissipated yet. You see not only was he, correction is he, a great teacher but he is ..read more

Whatever you call it, Invasion Day, Survival Day, or Australia Day and instead of getting out and about amongst the crazy hot celebrations and commemorations, I regularly choose to take stock of my annual experience of Sydney Festival. This year was no different. What was different was the volume of experiences I signed up for as, like everything else, the cost of attending events at Sydney Festival were markedly up this year. Inversely my attendance was down. The cheapest entry to ticketed events, not counting the dance workshops, after booking surcharges, was approximately sixty bucks. Whate ..read more

Imagine entering a world where three bozo’s burrow into a burrow, an emu breathes life into a gas tank, while the tree provides an alibi for a shifty body of water and the rubber ring is the third wheel. And let’s not forget the legs who are tangled up in every aspect of this crazy narrative. Hi there readers, let’s chew the fat all things dance shall we. What does that opening paragraph signify, you may well ask? The answer- it could be a possible marketing blurb from the result of a three-week creative residency. Yes, I have just been in sunny Queensland with Australasian Dance Collective (A ..read more

Looking back on the year that was 2023 I think the 10th anniversary of Dance Makers Collective’s Big Dance 2.0 program encapsulated our mood in that it was brash and colourful, predominantly light and funny. And boy, didn’t we need funny. What, with Covid, followed by an economic downturn and then pockets of disturbing unrest in Ukraine and now Israel, humour has proven to be the best distraction, if not quite the antidote. I don’t know about you, but I certainly needed a reprieve from the influx of earnest art imitating the relentless onslaught of the darker aspects of life on our not so gree ..read more

This blog comes to you via Arts House in Melbourne where I am performing with Karul Projects on their production Weredingo, which opens the day after next. Anyone who knows me is all too cognisant of my steady descent into madness before a show. Yes, I suffer from stage fright. It’s debilitating to say the least. Contrary to popular belief, stage fright doesn’t occur in the wings just as you’re about to go on stage. Not for me anyway. It’s like a catch 22 situation for me. If I don’t get a case of the jitters, I get nervous that I’m too calm and inevitably I have a bad show. So panic stations ..read more

September has been chock full of dance and as usual I have had my foot planted firmly within it, beginning with the co-direction of Thomas E.S. Kelly’s Kuramanunya as part of Brisbane Festival line-up. Kuramanunya is a new solo work honouring ancestors who never received their ceremonial rites, to return to the Dreaming, due to the disruption of colonialism. As I said farewell to Kelly, who was off to Canada to perform the work as part of Ontario’s IMPACT International Theatre Festival, I plunged into a quick film shoot on the banks of Duck River in the Auburn Botanic Gardens for an exhibition ..read more