Victorian Trade Union Choir, Willin Wimmin Choir, students from Ballarat Arts Acadmey and Mark Seymour at the Williamstown performance.
The Geelong Trade Union Choir was used to going to rallies and shouting songs and slogans… so they said it was very new for them to learn three- or four-part harmonies instead.
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great to take DUST to different country areas. I wanted to do something that was linked into the community with a good community process but would also get a good artistic outcome. Regional Arts Victoria agreed to come into partnership producing it and we developed a show that could tour to Geelong, Sale and Shepparton. There’s a whole range of people living in regional areas who are really skilled. I wanted to collaborate with them to create really authentic local productions. To do that, I set up a system of ‘Top Dogs’ and in every community, I had a Top Dog of Choirs, a Top Dog of Acting, a Top Dog of Dance and a Top Dog of Production. We paid the Top Dogs a fee and brought them together in Melbourne for briefings and then they would go back into their local areas. They found the talent and they helped develop the local stories. They did some directing and I supported them when they needed it. The local casts were a mixture of people who were politically motivated and people who were artistically motivated. In Geelong, for example, the Top Dog of Dance ran a dance school and she got all her dance students involved. Most of these young girls didn’t really care about asbestos; they just love dancing and learnt about asbestos along the way. In Geelong, we linked up with the Trade Union choir. Overall, we had two professional actors and between sixty and eighty local players in each cast.
