The Long Drink Between Gigs

What am I drinking?
Well time really.
It's November and the last THMC gig was February but it's takes a while for things to get going.
So, two more sleeps until the next gig isn't a problem, in fact the hiatus hasn't been a problem either.
Time to make other stuff happen, pay some bills, travel, live life, survive living, and build some stuff to happen after all the current stuff has happened and will soon happen.
Am I being vague?
In short,Tawdry has had a digital revolution and is geared up to go touring and getting all of that done while he's not paying his way with this show, requires a lot of other work and life stuff to foot the bill and make the necessary changes he's made to THMC.

What do I know about time?
I can't hold it in my hand or control it any more than I can put a lid on it or pace it to suit my needs.
Nonetheless, on the balance of payments, it's been good to me.
The long drink between gigs has been quenching a thirst I was probably not fully aware I had.
Thanks time.

So, in two days the CANWA 25th birthday celebrations and hopefully I can tease out some juicy secrets from the world of WA community arts practice, well me or the flowing Champers!

Then it will almost be Xmas break and before I know it, the pre-flight check begin for touring in March 2011. In case you haven't heard, Tawds is touring Tassie as part of the Ten Days on the Island festival and also setting up shop at WOMAD in Adelaide. Very exciting....

Hopefully the folks in those place are up for getting off their collective chest and into some well typed words that will make us laugh, wince, frown and grin...

Time will tell.

25 words or less

OMG I have 8 followers on my blog!
It's been two years maybe, nearly.
That must be a record he he he.
Of course it's not about approval of the masses, it's about having something to say.
I know that!
I'm sure I know that???
Well in any case, what can I possibly say that's new to 8 people who have already read some of this blog. What can I add to a blog about a show that is waiting for it's next gig?

Well, how about 'Hello'?
How are you?
I hope this finds you well.
I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while, so here's what's been happening:

I finished my cert 4 in vocational training and assessing - something I am also planning to do between gigs.
I trained a danceskill course to WA teachers and am now the only qualified person in wa to do so...
I had a development of new work earlier in the year and out of it came three potential works all connected to the main idea which is, in 25 words or less, about - "What it's like to stand in front of a mountain of learning and not at first cope..."
Part of that theme was explored in a way that is in fact an old teaching practice of mine where I bind the body in abnormal ways to change the experience of it as a performer...
Been doing it for 20 years, think it's about time I called it something, how about The Berlyn Method? LOL
Maybe not. Not yet anyways!

Anyhoo, from the development showing, 'Held Up' came an idea and the opportunity to make a duet for two dancers using this 'method'. I should clarify this by saying that I have used this restraint technique in class and workshop situations for performers since 1990 but only recently have I started to use it in performance.
So I'm making a work, 'Shackle' for the Strut's Short Cuts season: new contemporary dance works at King Street Arts Centre, see strutdance.org.au
What's it about?
25 words or less: retraining the body in rehearsal and performance, as a way to make, modify and perform choreography...
The season at KSAC is almost sold out, yay!
No freebies peeps, box office is how dancers are getting paid.

So I'm trying to finish my piece b4 I go off to Sydney for a month to make a work with a choreographer there Sue. That gig came out of my trip to APAM. She is actually an old dance lecturer of mine from uni (last century) and Tawdry gave her a very long appointment at APAM. (So fun, thanks Sue! Oh that's right, she's not one of my special 8 ;-) )

I've been really enjoying working with Stefan and Russell; amazing dancers/collaborators.
I think it's been going pretty well, but one of them has come down crook, he didn't sound at all well today. Get well!
Think I'm now officially running out of time.
I'm leaving for Sydney next week, which is two weeks b4 the season so the work has to be finished.
And I will need to reschedule rehearsals but studios are rare as coz it's
Short Cuts and it's bigger than Ben Hur this year, and everyone is making a work.
Hence no spare studios, nor dancers for that matter.

The other two shows out of the development are in meeting and planning stage but have had some good response to the ideas thus far.

What else?
Finally, did my tax and paid a chunk off the evil credit card debt, but I'm still getting air con for flat. Yahooooo!
I'll be stuffed if im doing summer here again without it, and it already feels like it's gonna be a long hot one this year too.

BF has a puppy Beau... Tox I have bonded and he knows it. Dunno if he cares. Beau that is.

Did some grant-writing training for some emerging dance artists and went on about being able to simply and clearly articulate their practices. "If you can't say it in 25 words of less then how are you gonna keep track of the basics, let alone make something that others can feasibly get a grasp of in one viewing?"
It seems clearer to me with each thing I try to make or on each project where I am a collaborator that it's easy to do it badly, really easy. Much harder to do it well. Being clear about what it is I'm trying to do, seems to give me a better shot and making something or doing it well and if not well then, to the best of my abilities.
Doesn't guarantee it by any means, but it helps massively.
So my 8 trusty readers, give it a whirl sometime. Try saying to yourself this: "In 25 words or less, what the hell am I trying to do here?"
Enjoy!
TH

APAM back in Feb.

So then there was a call on my mobile while I was working in a community arts organization. "James just to let you know that we really want you to come to APAM and given the nature of your show we need to make some special arrangements."

And so we did. I know it's a long time ago now, but the point is, Tawdry did 49 twenty minute one-on-one shows in the national trade fair and now finally I can say that some tours are coming out of it! Can't tell you where yet.


What's my point? Simple really, state your case, hang in there and it may end up going your way.

It hasn't been what i thought it would be but it is another chapter and more than that the chance to continue the project in new places. That's kewl.

Thanks for the folks and agencies who are helping to get me there!

Yay. Cya soon, on tour!

TH & JB

Who is Matt Power?

I read my notes that I carefully made.
I flip through the pages back and forth.
A sinking feeling becomes evermore present in my gut.
I look at the screen I type in some commands, I open yet more windows and as I suspected, not much happens.
Is it in gigs or css?
Again with the notes.
I'm actually sweating.
It's OK just go to the template and alter the scanned images in Photoshop. Yeah kewl that I can do.
Where's the template? It was just here on the desktop! It's not in the Tawds file anyomre and it's not on the desktop.
Oh Oh I have to get this done for the site, the new secrets should be up now.
Can't call Trev until after Stargate...
Oh Oh Oh Why did I wanna do a work with a web component?

You get the idea?

I call Trev again and again and again.

Never wanted to know this stuff, really, until now.

His wise words of advice, "You will do it, you just have more pain to go through first."

After sleep I pack up my mac and head to Trev's for another lesson in html pain management...

Oh yeah, who is Matt Power?

Short answer; dunno.

I do know he she or it tagged all the pages on my appointment book last weekend during the show and also scratched into the aluminum clip board of the booking sheet in large capitals MATT POWER

Nice to know that this art project also works as a street lamp for those dogs who feel compelled to cock their leg and leave their calling card!

Nice to know that I will take Matt Power now to wherever THMC goes next, but fortunately, it's a secret as to who Matt Power actually is.

At first I was angry but after thinking about it, I realized that I or rather the project THMC was given a secret in a different way and that is kinda kewl. I hope I never know who Matt Power is. The question in this case, is so so much better and more intriguing, more elusive, than the answer.
Don't get me wrong if he/she defaced other things in the project I would simply replace them. But I choose to see this graffiti as a lesson: Don't ever pigeonhole how people will interact with an arts project that has an element of invited participation. People are constantly surprising, and I think that (most of the time) is a good thing. :-) TH

Drunk Secrets *Contents Warning*

I'm doing my show THMC in an outdoor concert venue that after the concert is over becomes a club/pub.

I let drunk people loose on typewriters and ask them to reveal something poignant and personal.

What was I thinking?

"Mate! Hey mate! Mate Mate Mate Mate Mate!!! (Think the seagulls in Finding Nemo) Mate! This typewriter is fucked! Someone before me fucked it up. "

Have you tried returning the carriage? Just move it along like this.

"Oh, thanks buddy. Geez you're awesome. Hey Macca! Macca!!!!!!( or in fact Bazza , Dazza or Shazza) C'mere you gotta type out a seekrit doooood!" Macca doesn't give a fat rats about secrets until, (as actually happened last Saturday night) he sees the hot chicks trying to type up theirs. I know for a fact that one such dude successfully pulled by asking the babe next to him to read his secret. She declined, he slurred his insistence. Miraculously, it worked and the babe in question read his 'secret', his 10 digit mobile number.

Later that night.

"Hay, you in the hat. How do you delete stuff? I spelled whore wrong.

And later still.

"Oh c'mon! Those secrets aren't real dude. It's all bullshit."

Really? Thinking to myself, do you know all the three hundred people who typed those secrets up?

"Then they're just losers."

Smile Tawdry, remember to smile. Drunk people have rights. Drunk people are patrons of the arts too. Concentrate on the fact that the piece is so not about the voice of the alcoholically emboldened. It just so happens that in the last hour of the performances the audiences change dramatically. And actually, getting off my artwanker high horse for a moment, that's a good thing and the process of adapting to audiences of diverse sobriety has been a very useful challenge for me as a performer. But for the sake of documentation here is a very small sample of the secrets of the drunk.

BE ADVISED I DO NOT ENDORSE THESE VIEW POINTS OR DISPLAY THEM ON THE WEBSITE OR INSTALLATION OF THE WORK. CONTENT WARNING. SOME OR ALL OF WHAT FOLLOWS MAY OFFEND OR, IN MY CASE, JUST MOMENTARILY SADDEN.


If you are going to fspew (sic) in front of a prostitute don't fart'

She's a bit fat but she has nice teeth

I am the walrus

I stole a kidney from a drunk in the street

I've always wonderd what colour smurfs turn when you go and choke their ass....

My mother secretly wishes to drown children, morso (sic) if they are asian

I like to kick em to the kerb unless the fuck like Mick Jagger

I saw yer mom on the corner with a mattres on her back offering curb service

As I said, i want to fuck a goat

Once, when i was asleep I began to dry umphump (sic) the dog who sleeping in next bed bause (sic) my wife was having her period wen I woke up I could;nt stop


And these are the contributions of some people who tell me that the more heartfelt secrets currently on display on the website and at Becks Music Box are by sad losers??

Oh yeah, and after packing the show up the other night I came back to the display boards to find still more fun, pissed, party people whooping it up whilst over-writing their own witty commentaries on top of other people's displayed secrets. For example over one secret about a childhood trauma was written,
"Die you sad Emo losers die!". Hilarious...


However, enough said, there is so so much more that is completely fab about THMC at Becks and I am really digging the experience. Just needed to get that off my chest!

Thanx peeps TH ;-)

THMC Opening Weekend, Tick

THMC opened last weekend at the Perth International Arts Festival's outdoor music venue, Becks Music Box.

It's Wednesday and I'm still knackered. How was I feeling beforehand? Tense, queasy, nauseous, and like I'd rather be anywhere else before the show goes up. Easier just to pack up and run, of course. Is it a viable option to pull the plug on all the hard work invested enthusiastically by a heap of people for this project? I think not, not unless I want to be run out of town.

Weeks of stuff, getting, making, fixing, arranging, learning, writing, driving, meeting, building, thinking,and then doing it all again, tweaking tweaking tweaking. At the end of all of that, I'm stuffed, completely. Nothing much left but excitement, fear and massive reservation. Then you have to do is the damn show!

Friday last, bumped into the outdoor venue. My reserve of performance energy evaporates, as the wind blows forcefully about the venue, threatening to tear the secrets from the board and reaping havoc with my carefully designed How-To cards and hand dyed paper for the typewriters. It's easy to have a bad feeling about all this, 'so not how it was in my head'. Others around me, Malcolm and Fiona, communicate their faith. Eventually, nothing left to do but the show.

On the first night, after a slow kinda shaky start, we ended up getting more secrets than the display board (meant for the whole season) could handle. It got very busy.
I didn't feel like a freak with nothing to offer. I didn't feel like that kid still looking at his bemused parents for approval. (thought about him a fair bit during the building of this show, actually.) It felt like the show did have something to offer for those people who were up for interacting with it. And yes, the more peeps drank the more they seemed up for it. So, lots of take-the-piss drunken secrets.

One damp one that I could tell was soaked in beer, claimed to have been soaked in piss, nice, not. One, and I quote, "I'm gonna rape you like a shoe". The mind boggles.
And then The Gift happened. Well that is to say the gift I received from the show.
OK, the show, Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures, is about an exchange of gifts, a manicure or palm reading in exchange for a secret donated anonymously etc etc.

Lots of interesting conversations and anecdotes with and from people, shared opinions and insights maybe, but I didn't realize there would be more than that coming my way.
These days it seems that palm reading is the thing that will get men to interact with THMC, and interact they did, both Saturday and Sunday nights. The first night a guy and his girlfriend were hanging around a little tongue tired and shy till Fiona and I had practically finished packing up. "Like I'm not trying to hassle you or anything but could you take a look?" They had had all night to ask and had even turned down the invitation to make an appointment earlier. Maybe they were just more comfortable at the end of the night. No wux fella. So, I do the reading as he and his girlfriend listening on, completely oblivious to the state of their faces. They were giving me that look. I found it shocking. OMFG how come I hadn't been prepared for that?

So on the second night the same thing again. even from this one fella and his mate, late twenties maybe. I give him his reading based on the study I've done and speak as plainly as I can. After, he says, 'Look, I'm scientist and I don't believe this stuff ever. But you were 95% accurate with everything you said'. And he gave me that look too.

So, what is this unexpected gift, this look I'm talking about? People who think that you are a unique and vital source of information, people who think that you know stuff about themselves that will change their lives irrevocably, and for the better, and people who have maybe had a few... these are the people that give you a look of unfailing openness and attention.It's like you get access to some inner part of people through that look because they are so focused, so intent on making sense of and remembering everything you say. I understand what they mean by a person hanging off every word you say. Powerful and needing a lot of respect, it's a big responsibility that look... It is a gift that look. It's a gift equally commensurate with all the secrets people have given THMC. Those secrets, now all piled up on the display board at Music Box, as I have said before, make me feel connected or rather not alone. They remind me of the stuff, not always clever, or poetic, and sometimes base and banal, but stuff nonetheless that I have burdened myself with over the years. The secrets remind me of all the stuff that I have often thought was nobody's but my own and how so much of it is seemingly so common to many of us.

Rationale

We all have that dream yeah? Be an artist make a show that rocks and have it take you places... OK well maybe that's my particular nocturnal obsession and not as many folks as I think are into it. No matter, in the course of trying to make this fanciful notion become some kind of reality you often are required along the way to put down a few thoughts for the peeps who might assist you to get that dream happening. You know, funding bodies, producers, media outlets etc etc..

What follows then is a kind of rationale for THMC... feedback welcome. Cheers TH


“Confession is always weakness.” Dorothy Dix

Nothing weighs so heavily upon us as a secret. Chinese proverb

I am a performance artist or more than twenty years experience. I am interested in intimate, small-scale self-devised and group devised work that embraces the new but not at the expense of flexibility, portability, and quality. Of particular interest to me, and possibly the one area that has remained a constant throughout my work, has been an ongoing investigation into the dynamics of the performer-audience relationship. Specifically, what exchange occurs between these to ‘entities’ when notions of invited participation are introduced into the performance environment. I abhor enforced participation of all kinds in performance both as audience member and performer/maker. However invited participation I believe opens up a much broader range of possible relationships between audience and performer. Not new conceptually, perhaps, but I would contend still very relevant in the Australian context, particularly given the new media technologies and levels of interconnectivity possible between us all today.


The idea for Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures (THMC) stemmed cumulatively - if that’s possible - from three specific experiences. The first of which happened 15 years ago as a freelance artist newly arrived in big expensive Sydney and having done a CertII in Nail Technology of all things as a way of paying bills. I quickly discovered that I hated working in a salon but found it fascinating to talk to clients and extended that into doing nails in big warehouse parties at the time and having hilarious exchanges with peeps at four o’clock in the morning. Secondly, a Symposium run two years ago by Perth's own PVI Collective (This Is the Time, This is a Record of the Time) about hybridism in performing arts. It inspired me to think about new technologies around and how I might incorporate these burgeoning digital elements into my own making. Finally, a flat mate showed me the work of American community artist Frank Warren whose books about his project, Post Secret were an incredible document of a marvelous project. However, I wanted to find a way to explore with an audience the moment leading up to personal disclosure, what happens just before revealing a secret or a decision to confess.

The work has three distinct components. The performance one-on-one of a 'Manic Cure' with a 'client', a single audience member which, as well as being a genuine manicure by a trained nail technician, is a guided conversation/exploration of the possibility that the client may (or may not) have secrets to divulge.
The second section of the work is the installation of the typewriters and Wall of Secrets, here, the client after his or her nails have dried can type up a secret/confession (anonymously) and place it in the Secrets Box. After the session of performances for that day has concluded the secrets donated are removed, logged and or scanned and then installed on the wall of secrets for the following days performances. Passers by who wish to can used the typewriters without an appointment for a Manic Cure.
Finally, the work has a dedicated website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter page. The site details the show and archives the secrets, the blog details the process of making and running the show. Facebook is for networking the show and Twitter is for followers of the show to receive secret tweets from the past secrets archive PSA.

In making the work, I didn’t want to demand of an audience that they consider the possibility of disclosure of and by itself. Two things emerged for me in thinking about an approach to the work that were subsequently designed into the work and have existed from the first performances in 2008, and have remained there up to and including the current version of the work today. As a performer, if I wanted an audience to give or donate to me a secret, then I felt I had to on an ethical level give the audience something in return beyond a performance situation that allowed them to donate. I had to actually give something to anyone who chose to actively participate in the performance. I reasoned that beyond performing, I could do nails, and salons lend themselves to a kind of contemporary confessorial atmosphere… So it seemed like as good a gift as any to offer. The other stipulation or parameter that remains today is that the donation of secrets happens anonymously. I felt and still feel that it is imperative that the audience’s privacy is honoured.

It’s important to note that a passer by can see the work in situ an d without getting a one-on-one performance from Tawds they can still participate if they want to by typing up a secret and putting it in to the Secrets Box. They have the opportunity to book a performance and receive the nails ‘gift’ from Tawdry but if they elect not to, that shouldn't preclude them from interacting with the piece in other ways.

So, the credo of THMC basically boils down to this: do something for someone else in exchange for a secret. Make certain that their privacy and anonymity is protected before any of the secrets are disseminated in any way. Once that was in place then all the other features of the work, the web page, the blog , Facebook and Twitter fell painstakingly into place. Piece of cake!

Done Yesterday

We'll soak it in a caustic soda bath says M. The old white plastic bin will do fine. The bath'll take a while but it'll strip all the paint off the metal. Then we can distress it a bit, steam punk it up, and it will be a perfect secret box for Tawd's new gigs at Music Box.

Well, the days go by...
And in January in Perth, it gets a lot, a lot, a lot hotter.
44 was it? 43?
Dunno, after 35 it's all nasty.
Scorching, cloudless, still and why the fuck aren't I at the beach or under an iceberg?

But to no avail. Back in the bath, still the fire-engine red reins supreme every time I check. To be fair, at last look, there was a sickly but self-effacing film comprised the worlds most pathetically small bubbles on the soda's surface, but still the paint lingered on, seemingly untrammeled by the supposedly intense chemical assault.

We need more paper by the way! It has to be the same size for all the typewriters and all the gigs to come, Web Designer says so. For when the 'secrets' are scanned and displayed on either the website or in the archive. And, it has to be not sooooo white; it's too new looking and hardly atmospheric or inviting, altogether too clinical. Well maybe we could dye some in tea baths I say to M. Yes, he says but it will make it all crumpled and more difficult to stack and for peeps to load onto the typewriter roll. Well, dammit, can't we just buy some, I need it yesterday. You and your bloody generation wants everything now now now says M rather too predictably but no less damningly and he's got a point.

So, I drag our sorry arses pronto to the local branch of the multi-national hardware chain; I must get the job done yesterday OK? The job being a second old tool box M has found coz one aint gonna be enough given the new paper size and all.
A liter of your finest paint stripper please... Home again home again jiggerty (sweaty) jog. then out the back with me, the goop, the brushes, gloves, apron, paper and scrapers.

Leave it on. Just leave it on! M again.
Nah... It's good look at the bubbles, big toxic proper bubbles...
Yeah but that's only the first layer and the scraping you've done looks pretty shite. Nah, it's fantastic. Look how quick it's working. Will be done in a jiffy old guy. You'll see.

It wasn't in a jiffy or even two. Molten paint scrapings get everywhere.
The box, despite my best efforts and in spite of the latest chem-tech that money can buy from virgin-rain-forest harvesters, LOOKED CRAP. It ended up at the end of a very hot WA summer arvo in the soda bath with the other one.

But not before...
Hey M, if this stuff works that fast on paint, this burning through these gloves isn't good right???

Now now now, grins M.

Mountains Molehills and the First Step, Part 2

I still have sleepless moments where I'm convinced catastrophe is just around the corner.
Even if I have discovered that I still have the ability to show up and focus on what I can.
I don't have to obsess about if the whole 'massive' collection of tasks that is this project or the next one; I still know somewhere that the whole thing will be OK, and so will I.

I still have eye liner stuck to my eye lashes despite several attempts to remove it.
That was from yesterday, the photo shoot for the new look Tawds for the PIAF shows and for APAM. Yesterday was a great day. Photos done, results to follow soon. On way from studio saw two deck chairs with a sign 'free' on them. Perfect for the 'waiting room' concept part of the show. Done.

Folks rang me to say that there neighbour down the road from there place in the hills just happens to repair and collect typewriters. Two more portables on there way to me in the post... done.

Studio sorted and directorial consultant in place for rehearsals... done.

Past secrets almost all logged and web designer ready to go... done

Despite myself and my fear-based lethargy, things are moving and the project will happen as envisaged and on time..OMFG...

OK, so maybe the bank balance is worse than it's been for ages, but that's not for ever and other things are gonna happen that will cover that too...

Point is all in all this version of the Manic Cures project is coming along...
And I am coming along...
I don't have to panic...
I really don't
;-)

:-)

Mountains, Molehills and Looking at the First Step, Part 1

To state the blindly obvious, sayings are sayings because they have been said lots.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as they say. Or in my case, a longish swim begins with a single lap.

I love to swim laps. Perhaps it's not very patriotic for an Aussie, but I like a beach with lanes ropes and black centre lines along the bottom of the tiled or white cement floor. It's my exercise thing, and though I'm not fast or slow, I try to be consistent.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that I don't put it off or wince like a big girl if I think the water is gonna be cold. However, what I've noticed is that slowly, gradually, I seem to have got better at doing laps, doing them more regularly and with less fuss than before.

These days, when I get into the pool, my 40s body aches and my joints hurt blah blah blah. So? Well these days, I just try to focus my thinking on the actual lap I'm doing; I lose focus and think about a million other things too, but I try to come back to the lap I'm swimming. Sense it, enjoy it, and not freak out about it. What I don't think about these days, more and more, are any laps that may or may not come after the one I am currently swimming.

In the past I would think about all the other laps to follow, even before I started. The whole tedious job of trying to get fit/ stay fit would loom menacingly and unachievable before me. Suddenly, my body's normal aches and pains would hurt more, any number of new pains would make themselves known to me. Quickly, I'd become a hurty, brain-screaming, panic-stricken wuss and have to get the hell out of Dodge to seek solace in the spa or leave indignantly, and in hot pursuit of a latte to nurse the phantom pains and wounded pride.

Conclusions?
I think I have begun to really understand the difference between a mountain and a molehill.
Also, I have become better at not being daunted by the task ahead, rather I have become better at choosing to focus on the first step/part/action/lap instead.

The kewlest thing about these all-too-slowly developed insights, which seem to me at least to be well known by just about everybody else, is that they are rubbing off in other areas of my life.

James has been better able of late to break down 'the task' that is Tawds at PIAF and APAM in February 2010 AND NOT FREAK OUT...

I suck at blogs

I suck at blogs because:

I'm a naive blogger, unschooled, drifting in blog land with out a qualification.
I'm undisciplined and irregular as a blogger and everybody says you should do it a lot more than I can manage and at regular intervals.
I have decided or rather been able to settle upon a concise reason for this blog, there are lots and I don't really know which reason holds sway or is the most pressing.
I try unsuccessfully to write this blog about only the things that matter to Tawds, but that's bollocks because it's James monitoring the whole way. "Give it up already."

So what's the point?

Well, firstly it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.
I thought initially that it would become viral and well read.
Then I woke the frock up!!!
It's just a space is all.

So what if I suck at it?
What is that -sucking as a blogger- anyways?
I write what I want when I want about the Manic Cures Project and how I feel about it.
I'm gonna focus on that.
That doesn't suck to Tawds or to James!