Category: Theatre in Brisbane

Easter Sunday. A day of celebration. It is the first Sunday following a full moon after the March equinox…symbolic of rebirth and renewal…a celebration of the goddess of Spring…Easter to me is a day of reflection…of embracing what is to come even though in this minute I have no idea what that is.

In Sostrup garden there stands a crucifix...

In Sostrup garden there stands a crucifix…

Sitting in the old beautiful library on the first floor of Sostrup Castle I have been researching, preparing for an intense new creative development of EVE2, a play that had a brief season called EVE in 2012 in the delicious Sue Benner Theatre Metro Arts downtown Brisbane. EVE had a beautiful creative team with Leah Mercer in her usual role of director/devisor, Anna Molnar as Producer, Gabby Castle as Stage Manager (with Johnny Castle as ASM), Amy Ingram as Executive Producer and Stace Callaghan playing the role of Oscar, the storyteller, matched by Moshlo Shaw who played the musician/husband. Aaron Barton created a magical set and his partner Gen Trace designed the lighting while Travis Ash was sound designer. Daniel Evans was co-devisor as well as co-ordinator of the Independent Program at Metro Arts. Because of force of circumstance, the untimely death of Moshlo, we decided to return to Eve and do it differently, wedding some of the character of the Man in the third show of The Belonging Trilogy, “He Dreamed a Train” with Eve’s voice. This idea was an offer from Travis and when he suggested this I knew it was the right direction. Travis will now devise and play Musician/Storyteller/Man and Benjamin Knapton will direct/co-devise this new version with Freddy Komp and Nathan Sibthorpe creating visual magic. We have a decent task ahead of us these next ten days.

The library at Sostrup where I am working

The library at Sostrup where I am working

Being here, half way round the world in a town where I know one person apart from my partner Bill, provides an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be in relationship with the world. What it means to connect to others. What it means to live deeply. I see this residency as a pilgrimage of sorts.

So today my research focuses on what pilgrimages are for…I believe every artist is required to take a pilgrimage, not to achieve anything overtly, but simply to find the time to discover what they already know. A time to step out of my ordinary life in Brisbane, full of people and artists and homes and studios and rehearsals and plays and meetings and walks and galleries and…and…and…and to STOP. What is it that I long for? And if I understand this, then I will understand what it is that EVE2 longs for: in the original script she writes that she longs to be loved. But it is far more than that. She longs to belong though she does not express it in those terms. Yet.

My Muse accompanies...

My Muse accompanies…

David Whyte, the poet who writes about the soul’s journey talks about our ” longing to belong” and I think that this pilgrimage is the perfect occasion to discover what my longing is…I know I have a longing for story in order to belong. But is it more than that?

an image of EVE...always longing to belong

an image of EVE…always longing to belong

In my search, I came across this poem that sat well with me as I read it:

The Spirit of Longing
Tell me, men of learning, what is longing made from?
What cloth was put in it that it does not wear out with me?
Gold wears out, silver wears out, velvet wears out, silk wears out
Every ample garment wears out–yet longing does not wear out.
Great longing. Cruel longing is breaking my heart everyday
When I sleep most sound at night longing comes and wakes me

Excerpt from old Cymric (Welsh) poem
Cited in The Mist Filled Path by Frank MacEowen

If we see longing as a good thing, as a way of guiding us towards what is real, what is true, what is our calling, then I can hold it closer. And if I take on board what Phil Cousineau (http://www.philcousineau.net/_i_the_art_of_pilgrimage__the_seeker_s_guide_to_making_travel_sacred__i__18018.htm) suggests:

“The call to the sacred journey your secret heart longs for won’t come by expectation, will not arrive in a logical way. If you imagine that something is trying to call to you, try to practice stillness for a few minutes each day. Be still and quiet and you may be surprised what you start to hear”.

If I take this on board I listen, slow down. I reach for my phone less. I turn off my computer. I hear more. I change my posture: I am alert. Awake. Present. My two feet are planted on the ground. And I walk. For all creative thoughts can come from that step after step.

Sometimes its hard to step forward

Sometimes its hard to step forward

Phil Cousineau also quotes Bruce Chatwin. When I first arrived in Brisbane I worked on a piece of theatre directed by Doug Leonard and our primary texts were Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines and Eve Langley’s Pea Pickers…and here I am 26 years later still working through this material. Doug had a way of selecting the most potent texts and bringing them to life.

So Chatwin is quoted in Cousineau’s book:
“I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and the ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song (of which we may, now and then, catch an echo); and that these trails much reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African Savannah, where the First Man opening his mouth in defiance of the terrors that surrounded him, shouted the opening stanza of the World Song “I AM”.

I AM

I AM

“I AM LONGING TO BELONG” is the cry for millions of people displaced, lost, or superficially surfing this thing called life. It’s as though many of us are caught up in a net not of our own making. We follow others rather than lead ourselves. And we do not know what our personal mythology is…that is what a pilgrimage can awaken…there is time to reflect on the stories, poems, journeys, relationships, dreams that make up our lives.

As I walk down the stairs in my house back in Brisbane I have written above the doorway in black “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin now. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”. We all know Goethe’s quote. We see it on people’s fridges, magnets, shop windows, gyms, bookshops. We see it, but do we take action? Do we begin what we dream? Some of us do and others of us put it off till it’s the right time, or the right place…I sit somewhere in between. I sometimes take action and other times I wait. I wait. I wait until I cannot wait anymore. I step out.

So I have stepped out. I am longing to belong in this new play, working title EVE2.

So I have stepped out. I am reminded of Joseph Campbell’s “mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centres of life beyond the reach of the vocabularies of reason and coercion” (cited in The Mythic Path” (KIndle edition). I am here to rewrite my personal myth: to ‘weave the raw materials of daily experience into a coherent story” (The Mythic Path). To create and re-create the map of belonging.

I am quoting David Feinstein and Stanley Krippner:

“A personal myth is a constellation of beliefs, feelings, images, and rules–operating largely outside of conscious awareness–that interprets sensations, constructs new explanations, and directs behaviour…your personal mythology is a lens that gives meaning to every situation you meet and determines what you will do in it. Personal myths speak to the broad concerns of identity (who am I?), (where am I going?), and purpose (why am I going there?)”.

Margi talks at Metro Arts Launch

FORCE of Circumstance (FOC), Metro Arts, philosophy of theatre making, Theatre in Brisbane / / by

Metro Arts Launch and Fundraiser, Gallery Space, Metro Arts downtown Brisbane Australia

Metro Arts Launch and Fundraiser, Gallery Space, Metro Arts downtown Brisbane Australia

It was a great night. Art, artists, conversations, drinks, nibbles by Verve Restaurant, our local downstairs and of course some speeches. Here is mine, representing the artists in the building…this is a slightly extended talk, I delivered a shorter one on the night:

“RULE 17
OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS.
OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS
OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS” (Will Strunk)…

But Mr. Strunk (of The Elements of Style fame) cut out so many words that he “often seemed in the position of having shortchanged himself—a man left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill…he got out of this predicament by a simple trick: he uttered every sentence three times… He leaned forward over his desk and, in a husky, conspiratorial voice, said “Rule Seventeen. Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!” (Strunk, White, Kalman, 2007, X1V)

So I shall follow suit.
Metro arts
Metro arts
Metro arts
The old broad
The old broad
The old broad…

I came to Metro Arts one warm autumn day in May of 2002. I had just been to see the divine Barb Lowing in her solo Mary Magdalene by Alison Cotes at the great Cathedral in town. I sat next to Sue and conversation regarding studio space grew. Within a month I was in studio 3.7 with my friend visual artist Bev Jensen. We painted (no, she painted I coached from the side) it pink and yellow. We furnished it with odds and sods, and our Metro Arts journey of now 13 years, began. We cooked scones in the microwave, we entertained in the large hallway:

Sometimes we spill out of our studio into the Great Hall on Third Floor and away we go, with artists watching as they go back and forth to the kitchen

Sometimes we spill out of our studio into the Great Hall on Third Floor and away we go, with artists watching as they go back and forth to the kitchen

We performed ridiculous experimental pieces that we thought were fabulous at the time but looking back had a weirdness that has no name.

I have lived in six different studios throughout the building always believing that the latest one was ‘it’. I have had an open door policy: people come and go, we drink tea, sometimes champagne. All of these years have been rich. Rich with friendships, with artmaking.

Metro Arts has been my second home. Since the 90’s I have watched four CEO’s come, place their print on the building, growing it into something that no other city in Australia has: a true home for independent artists.

In 2003-4 the first incubator began on the first floor. Liz Burcham was imported from down south to teach us how to become vibrant business women/men as well as artists. It was a fabulous program. By then I was on the first floor in the huge corner office. The incubators would come to visit my studio, we would lay out collage material and away we would go, growing our business ideas through art making:

Where our Incubators would create collages in order to grow our businesses

Where our Incubators would create collages in order to grow our businesses

Lots of things have happened at Metro Arts: lots of fabulously exciting things. All of my own works have been birthed here, most importantly The Belonging Trilogy: EVE, HOME and He Dreamed a Train. Metro has supported my works in multiple ways, through space, funding, opportunities, love:

My most recent studio where we meet, drink tea and discuss how to live a sustainable and always creative life.

My most recent studio where we meet, drink tea and discuss how to live a sustainable and always creative life.

This year I have been company in residence. Because of metro I have been able to give free counselling and coaching to the arts community. I have lost track of how many people have walked through the doors on the third floor, at all hours and all days of the week. We sit, have a cup of tea and talk about ways of being in an industry that does not make it easy.

All of us have walked up the stairs.
All of us have walked up the stairs.
Puffing at first.
Puffing at first.

But the more we visit the old broad, the easier it gets.
WE need metro more than metro needs us.
We need metro more than metro needs us.
We need a home.
We need to know that there is a place in our town that opens her arms for the artist in need, the artist who has much to say and no place to say it.
We need her more than she needs us.

Lets be generous tonight.
Lets dip into our pockets and demonstrate how essential The Old Broad is to us. How it has grown our work, how it has supported and nurtured our soul.

There is an office, originally on the first floor, then when times got hard, moved to the second floor. Lets not have it move to the third floor. It would cramp my style.
That office is filled with dedicated, deliciously alive and constantly working individuals who care. Who want this place to thrive. Who are always up for a laugh. Who always make me smile.

Cheers to the office
Cheers to the office
Cheers to the office

And cheers to you.
$100.00 per step. Share the step if need be. But buy you a step. So that Metro Arts can stay in step with her community who loves and adores her.

Her community who loves and adores her.
Her community who loves and adores her.

4change coaching

1 month ago

4change coaching

4change coaching shared Double Bill: 'He Dreamed a Train' and 'Eve's photo. ...

Catch EVE tonight at BRISBANE POWERHOUSE at 6.30pm. Tickets online at www.brisbanepowerhouse.org or at the Box Office. “Her [Margi Brown Ash] performance as Eve is delightful as she displays infectious cheekiness, inspiring determination, understandable frustration, and confusion, in a world where everything from publishers rejecting a manuscript, squalling children, and an unsupportive husband … seem against her and her dreams. Nevertheless, she persists with a spark in her eye.“ Aussie Theatre

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ready for collage at PlayPen

ready for collage at PlayPen

As I look back at passing year, I am aware that I have changed. I have spent the last 12 months doing the things that are important to me: writing about belonging, re-mounting and dreaming on “HOME” (Queensland Theatre Company) one of our Belonging Trilogy plays, performing for Brisbane Festival in ‘Prize Fighter” (La Boite), a play about a child soldier from Democratic Republic of Congo, playing with the contemporary dance company Phluxus2 and co-creating The Paratrooper Project (The Judith Wright Centre) which focused on war and home life. One of my directing gigs was at Queensland Academies of Creative Industries (QACI) where I worked with 22 fifteen year olds, and along with my colleagues Ben Knapton, Simon Tate, Stephen Matthais and Travis Ash, created a version of the Belonging Trilogy which we called “Coming Home”. You can read about our experiences in older posts.

All of these projects began with small beginnings: some grew while sharing a coffee, some while engaging in creative developments for something entirely different. Other projects grew out of emails, meetings and some just happened. All with small beginnings.

I am listening to ABC Jazz and sipping tea in a favourite cup with the inscription that seems so apt: “Big things often have small beginnings”.

cup of Really Russian Caravan, pen and diary

Presently we are negotiating big things from another small beginning and this has created conflict within. A question always comes into my consciousness whenever I am about to embark on a big project:
“Why do this?” and “What is it about creating art that nourishes and nurtures the soul?” So I am pondering these questions today, particularly the first one.

My first port of call is the collage table.

preparing for collaging

preparing for collaging

I collect magazines and spread them around me, hold on to a glue stick, listen to good classical music (some of you may prefer jazz or contemporary). My dogs sit at my feet, Russian Caravan Tea in my cup, pastels and cartridge paper in front of me. I am ready to begin.

COLLAGE PROCESS:

Today I am using the back of Frankie calendar as the base on which to build a collection of images that will help me understand what/why I am embarking on this new project. I trust this process infinitely, for there is always something that surprises me, that awakens me, that alerts me to reasons why. It is a direct route to meaning making.

I begin to “rip and stick” and sometimes use scissors to cut out images: one that I cut out is a woman, a painted woman, looking into the collage rather than out of the images. She leans on a painted horizon. The other image I cut out is a chair, wrapped in fabric, like a rag rug but it is a rag chair, a beautiful chair. I have stuck it on a very textured walls and floor. I am embracing enormous amounts of texture and bright colours as I build the layers.

My confusion begins to clarify as I place an image of a pair of scissors, balancing on a rock, and holding in the air a crane in the area of the collage where a brain could be. It took time to understand the “scissor/rock/paper” representation that’s going on inside my own head. Paper is winning, that is good. Paper is beautiful. That is good.

scissor paper rock

scissor paper rock

The Crane is known as a symbol of peace, of longevity (they live for 1000 years in the legends). A symbol of hope.

The Legend of the Crane (cut and pasted from (out of the darkness community walks http://www.sos-walk.org/sos/crane.htm

Throughout history, birds have been viewed as animals of special value and have been ladened with meanings often derived from legends and stories that have survived over many generations. The Crane may conceivably be the oldest bird on earth; there is fossil proof that they existed over 60 million years ago. Greek and Roman myth tended to portray the dance of cranes as a love of joy and a celebration of life. The crane was usually considered to be a bird of Apollo, the sun god, who heralded in Spring and light. Throughout all of Asia, the crane has been a symbol of happiness and eternal youth. In Japanese, Chinese, and Korean tradition, cranes stand for good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. …The Japanese refer to the crane as “the bird of happiness;” the Chinese as “heavenly crane” believing they were symbols of wisdom. The powerful wings of the crane were believed to be able to convey souls up to paradise and to carry people to higher levels of spiritual enlightenment. Over time, the crane has also evolved as a favorite subject of the tradition of paper folding – origami. It is said that a thousand folded cranes, one for each year of its life, makes a wish come true.

Shortly after the end of World War II, the folded origami cranes also came to symbolize a hope for peace through Sadako Sasaki and her unforgettable story of perseverance. Diagnosed with leukemia after being exposed to radiation after the bombing of Hiroshima, Sadako became determined to fold 1,000 cranes in hopes of recovering good health, happiness, and a world of eternal peace. Although she completed 644 before she died, her classmates folded the remaining 356 to honor her. A statue was raised in the Hiroshima Peace Park to commemorate her strong spirit.

Today this practice of folding 1,000 cranes represents a form of healing and hope during challenging times. After the events of September 11, as a gesture of support and healing, thousands of cranes were folded and linked together in chains and sent to fire and police stations, museums, and churches throughout New York City.

Traditionally, flocks of 1,000 cranes are offered at shrines or temples with prayer, based on the belief that the effort to fold such a large number will surely be rewarded. Chains are often given to someone suffering from illness, as a prayer for their recovery, as a wish for happiness, and as an expression of sympathy and peace. A prayer often spoken over time by mothers seeking the protection of cranes has been:

“O flock of heavenly cranes
cover my child with your wings.”

With these values floating throughout the collage, that of hope, peace, happiness and eternal youth, I am feeling as though good things are at hand. One thing I take note of though is an awareness that the scissors are in balance. If they stay in balance all is well. If not, the crane comes tumbling, could even be cut in two, could fly away and turn into Icarus. So much to think about. So much to write about.

But I will leave it there: it is enough to ponder the question “Why do it?” and see how these values influence my answer. The project has happiness and peace surrounding it. It is also capable of being threatened. Someone just needs to roll that rock and it can come tumbling down. Or can it?

I look more deeply and find other stories that could provide other outcomes. For another time.

laughter is the best medicine

laughter is the best medicine

Don’t forget the humour.
Never forget the laughter.
Always tell the joke
again and again and again.

4change coaching

1 month ago

4change coaching

4change coaching shared Double Bill: 'He Dreamed a Train' and 'Eve's photo. ...

Catch EVE tonight at BRISBANE POWERHOUSE at 6.30pm. Tickets online at www.brisbanepowerhouse.org or at the Box Office. “Her [Margi Brown Ash] performance as Eve is delightful as she displays infectious cheekiness, inspiring determination, understandable frustration, and confusion, in a world where everything from publishers rejecting a manuscript, squalling children, and an unsupportive husband … seem against her and her dreams. Nevertheless, she persists with a spark in her eye.“ Aussie Theatre

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stairway to play, creativity, sharing, community

stairway to play, creativity, sharing, community

This year has been a fast and furious one, with no time to do my usual workshops in “The Playpen”, the name I call our workplace where I live. Many years ago, when our fourth child was born, we created an area that we called The Playpen, where children could play and not be threatened by the wildlife here. Back then it was also used as a tennis court. Over the years we have let it go and now there is an uneven surface, turf torn, net gone, but it is perfect for playful creative practice. We erected a small stage, from the set of the play Eve, the first of my Trilogy and threw in Eve’s bathtub where she would “write the lines of shape and shadow”. We have tables and umbrellas and a fireplace for the cold evenings.

Outside PlayPen

Outside PlayPen

So, because I have not had my usual three day workshop this year, I decided to invite colleagues out to play. Over the years I have formed groups of women and men to engage in creative practice. One of these groups from two years ago was called “Writing My Way Forward”. We have a Facebook page and keep in touch sporadically. I contacted the writers, along with our “Women in Theatre Bridge Club”, a political group of women endeavouring to work towards gender parity in our theatre industry–you will hear more of this group in the new year–and we decided to meet at The Playpen and hold a salon, a place of sharing stories. I set up inside the house this time: the sky was threatening rain. Our living room studio is perfect for creative work, full of hundreds of books and paintings of all calibre. I set up for collage: piles of magazines, pastels, pencils, glue sticks and cartridge paper. I made brownies, cheese plate, lemon water and three different teas. People began to arrive with plates of delicious food to share, we poured our tea and began.

Far less formal than a workshop, the salon provided opportunities for the group to inform each other. We began with a sort of informal check in sharing where we were at. I love checking in, be it over a coffee with a friend or a workshop with three hundred people. It is a chance to hear where people are physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We heard about some of the changes that have happened for people, some of the dreams that still have to awaken, some of the achievements this year had allowed. All of the themes were relevant for everyone: we were all artists, most of us were mothers of varying aged children, and we all dealt with the issue of wedding our artistic life with our domestic living and at the same time earn a living. The importance of self care for the artist was emphasised, it always is when artists get together at The Playpen: we try to do too much for too many and then wonder why we feel burned out.

After about the fourth person’s check in, one of the guests opened a large box of pencils. That was interpreted by the group as permission to begin and so while we were chatting, the creative work began: drawing, doodling, tearing out words and images from tens of magazines. We continued this way for the next few hours, only stopping to refill our teacups and indulge in the treats on the table next to us.

On completion of our collages, we talked about what we could see: what images sat next to other images, shapes, size, colour, intensity, that sort of thing. Normally, if this was a workshop, I would help guide the unpacking of the collage, pointing out different things that I saw. This would then be opened up to the group, who, with careful use of language (no assumptions or interpretations are needed) tell their own story in relation to the person’s collage. Eg. “When I see that I think of…” All of these stories add data to our own understanding of what “we don’t know we know”. This way of working has been highly influenced by several approaches to understanding: MIECAT, a creative arts institution based in Melbourne, which focuses on finding meaning through art making; and COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE (Taos Institute), a postmodern way of being in the world that embraces multiplicity of self and other, multiplicity of stories and an awareness of the environment that contributes to the situation at hand. In our salon, the unfolding of meaning happened collaboratively. We all responded in our own time to what was happening in front of us: what we saw, what we felt, what we heard and what we imagined.

What emerged last evening interested me enormously and took me back to Greece last month, where I co-facilitated with Dr. Jean Houston and Jennifer Evanko. We experienced an “Aesclepion Group Dream”, where parts of one person’s dream were relevant to all. This is what happened with our collaging: we could take parts of our fellow traveller’s collage and apply it to our own lives. This expanded and enriched our own meaning.

What I love about collage is that everyone can do it. People rarely feel confronted with the task. I issued no instructions this time (usually I do) and people approached it all differently. Some started with doodling, some doodling turned into symbols. Some began drawing and then built on the drawing with images from magazines. I like to have a wide variety of magazines available and one of my favourite are the old National Geographic. But you can just as easily do it with contents from your handbag or brief case. Or your top drawer.

As I look at my collage this morning I can see it has two distinct sides to it, divided by a beautiful image of an actor standing in the centre of a floor filled with faces. The room has an ancient feel to it: a great hallway in the true tradition of the hallway, where everything happened, not so much a hallway today, a passage to somewhere else. Though as I look at this image I see that it is a passage to the imagination. This central image is the one I am ‘indwelling’, applying it to constructs inside my head, experiencing it, dreaming it. Images have power in them and if we allow time to absorb that force it can give gifts of transformation. I notice in the lower right hand corner an orange chair, a chair for storytelling, for dreaming. It is empty.

As I write this post, my friend calls from USA. And I immediately think: no, the chair was waiting. I place myself in the chair and hold my telephone (in fact it is a computer) and we begin to talk. We are creating new stories together, trips to ancient lands to rediscover the potential and possibilities of our future selves. A time to reflect and grow new ways of being in the world. We chat for a long time about different things, including what Jean Houston calls Terma: here is a link that will give you an idea of what a Terma is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terma_(religion),

An idea, a symbol that we can plant in our past and in our future so that we can to move towards a purity of action. What can I do in this world to make it a place of nurture, of wonderment for the community at large?

Everything we do can contribute to enlarging the joy and aliveness of each day. Our salon of yesterday has enriched all of us. As I move through today I have firmly inside the images that I arranged (subconsciously) onto some cartridge paper. I have images that my colleagues chose. All swimming around inside my head. And I have a phone call positioned in my orange chair in the lower right quadrant, reminding me of the dreams for 2016. Soon we will be inviting you all to be part of that dreaming.

My intention today:

May today be a day of richness. May every image that enters our consciousness enrich us in some capacity and move us forward towards an authenticity of awareness, deep attentiveness and joy: the secrets of character.

4change coaching

1 month ago

4change coaching

4change coaching shared Double Bill: 'He Dreamed a Train' and 'Eve's photo. ...

Catch EVE tonight at BRISBANE POWERHOUSE at 6.30pm. Tickets online at www.brisbanepowerhouse.org or at the Box Office. “Her [Margi Brown Ash] performance as Eve is delightful as she displays infectious cheekiness, inspiring determination, understandable frustration, and confusion, in a world where everything from publishers rejecting a manuscript, squalling children, and an unsupportive husband … seem against her and her dreams. Nevertheless, she persists with a spark in her eye.“ Aussie Theatre

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