Anni Davey’s bold declaration that circus will not serve the telling of stories… the knowledge that finding the right work for the form and the right form for the work is a critical challenge no matter how much of an expert you are in a form. Why couldn’t Shaun Parker’s work be realised as a world music CD instead of a performance? Unexpected Outcome Number Six: Paschal’s Cheat Pretending that there’s more time than there is, a strategy for artists to take back control of the process, or at least faking it and seeing who else buys into it and makes it real. Unexpected Outcome Number Seven: Feedback Lee Wilson saying that he’s been doing development showings for 15 years and still hasn’t got it right—so as artists, producers, presenters and audiences how can we re-imagine that process, what are the questions we want to ask? What will we do with feedback when we have it? Deborah Pollard said “It has to be a conversation and to constantly let the audiences be in at the level of work that is being made.” Which sounds like a great strategy for the ‘finished product’ too—so we understand what we’re seeing. Is it ever possible to know too much? Can the audience not be a collaborator in the performance? Unexpected Outcome Number Eight: The Artists and the Audiences Deborah again talking about the pressure to jump to the producer model as opposed to doing it yourself as an artist. This named a feeling I’ve been having that presenters and producers can get in the way of the relationship between artists and audiences. And consequently some artists not feeling a sense of responsibility as to who the audiences are outside of needing them as a presence in the work. Unexpected Outcome Number Nine: John Baylis’s Questions for artists in making performance, (which I think could make a great T Shirt) via Deborah Pollard. • Who is your audience? • How can you problematise the work for them? • Who are you in the work? • What expertise do you bring, what moral position? • How do you bring in expertise and frame it? • How do you understand the liveness? • What kind of dialogue are you having with the audience? • What can you offer that’s not already in the public domain?
Which leads to being unprofessional: These comments were made by these named people and reproduced without their permission: • Carlos Gomes talked about the investigation being like a fire “we couldn’t help ourselves”. • Lee Wilson said he felt very emotional—and that cocollaborator Mirabelle Wouters was at home looking after the kids. That he was always concerned about the future of the work. And that he was big on “hanging out” as a mode of research. • Shaun Parker said he kept asking himself why he was making the work and found himself saying, ”No, I still want to do this”. • The women that weren’t at home being unprofessional were very vocal, although not strongly represented in the first panel. • Rosalba Clemente talked about having a degree and being the child of peasants. • Ghassan Hage talked about the “right to be bad “and not from the “dominant culture.” • Deborah Pollard the dramaturg said there was “no such thing as a trained dramaturg”. All this passion, knowledge, failure and circumstance spilling out and over the forms and structures we work within. A radical re-imagining. And we didn’t talk about climate change once.
Unexpected Outcome Number Ten: Sweat and Sweet Sacrifice. Antoinetta Morgillo talked about these huge gaps between one development and the next and asked what do we have to do to sustain practice? Sweat had one answer—they all have other jobs. Paschal Daantos Berry said the unpaid hours are “a sacrifice you have to make to make loving work”. In the corporate sector volunteering is encouraged because it ”…extends a healthy life, develops skills, builds social capital, increases well being and self esteem.” (www.goomalling.wa.gov.au/lifestyle/ volunteering/benefits)
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