heart will travel

26th April 2011

Post with 3 notes

long time no tumble..

I mean that in a few ways..   Firstly, I haven’t posted on tumblr recently - I’ve been working on a new show, an old show, a new festival..  I’ve been working in bullshit hospitality.. I’ve had ongoing internet issues..  so I’ve been busy and not online anywhere near as much as I feel is needed.  I’ve been falling behind in work - it’s been driving me and I’m sure others crazy.  I have been told my internet will be online properly by the end of this week.  If it is not - I may slaughter small electronic children day-by-day until the problem is rectified..

Next, By tumble I mean wrestle.. I’m wrestling with a show again.  I’m working on a production of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine  (i know..so much Hamlet..sorry)..  here are some promo pics:

All shot by Morgan Roberts and Art Directed by Steven Mitchell Wright

copyright Roberts and Wright 2011.

I am working with a group of students at a University here in Brisbane.  They are great and brave and taking a lot of risks.  For those of you that don’t know the text, it is innately challenging.. it is fragmented and broken and the challenge for me is to flesh it out and have it make sense without making it simple or having just one reading.  I’m on the floor with it this week..  we wrestle. we tumble.

Next, Love tumbles..  not many of those of late - very few actually.  I find Brisbane to be a city where I engage least with romantic interludes at the moment this doesn’t bother me.  Time is little.  Energy is less. Love is driving me and I can feel it but I don’t need to be engaging with a person in it - in the famous words of Bjork.. all is full of love.

I think she is correct.

What is new?

I’ve been asked to contribute to an e-zine based out of L.A..  So I may be doing that soon.

I’m curating/artistic directing an event in Brisbane coming up likely called ‘without apology’ - keep an eye out for that.

Found out the production of Cabaret I worked on in the states just won an award for best ensemble!  YAY! They were an fantastic ensemble..

I’m mentoring out in Alice Springs in June - I’m excited about it..  for those of you that don’t know what Alice Springs is like.. it will be a big change for this city boy..  looks like this:

or perhaps more like this:

Of late, I find myself increasingly interested in the idea of contemporary masculinity.  I move in fairly liberal circles, so extremely so that if a petite long haired blonde girly girl said she identified as a man today, everyone would call her sir and there would be little questioned.  I also find myself surrounded by other worlds, those that are students, in hospitality and sports.  This is a very different world for me (though not a new one, I’m not sure what has shifted to make me view this differently) where these archetypes of the ‘blokey blokey’ is very strong and their overt masculinity is praised and celebrated at the highest level..  the other side of that coin is that anything that deviates from very narrow paradigm is considered “feminine”, “gay” or simply less-than-manly and I don’t understand it. Our world is so diverse - the seemingly shallow ‘metrosexual’ movement gave way to (and glam rock, punk, most sub-cultural movements sprung from fashion, music and art in the past) a whole spectrum of possibility of what it means to be a modern man and has been embraced so openly by many and observed with fear or hesitation.   I am thusly intrigued by it - I kind of want to immerse myself in it to attempt to understand it.. which I can just get away with.. I get branded at the exceptionally straight acting queer - the exception to their homophobic rule (which is fine, anthropologically.. but when I get drunk I sometimes get very angry about this).. so I can infiltrate the camp to study them but then I don’t know if I get treated like one of the boys.. or like a girl that is allowed in. Irregardless, I’m looking into this and it may become the under pinning investigation for a new show I’m working on called ‘the sons of sin’ based on Adam and Eve’s children - Abel, Cain et al..  the 6 sons that shaped the future of all men.

Interestingly, I had a few friends over the other night we had an impromptu “boys night” it was hilarious.. we played Uno and drank red wine and talked about music and dancing penii - we took the piss out of all the men that would think what we were doing was not masculine.. laughs and jokes aside.  it was perfectly masculine.  there was nothing “unmanly” about it..  and people can fuck off if they wanna tell me otherwise.

(nb/ I’ve avoided the conversation regarding the scale/slide/to-and-fro between masculine and feminine.. because that is a much larger conversation - and at the moment I am investigating from the perspective that does not include that paradigm)

end rant.

people continue to inspire me and my work more than anything.

I hope to write more.. more often.

I love you, most likely.

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