The Man With the Golden Jaw

Its Election Time So ...

... I'm reading Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal. It seems that the Chimpanzee who becomes the alpha male of the group gets everyone else to back him in his challenge through 'displaying' himself, 'bluffing', alternating between intimidating or supporting the lowly, liberally dosing out goodies, forming loose strategic coalitions of convenience and avoiding brief jocular conversations with shock jocks at airline baggage carousels ... hang on, I think I'm getting confused now ...

Poorly Formatted Poll

Please contribute to my poll found in the column on the right.

Pretty self-explanatory I think ...

Note: I have now withdrawn the poll ...

I'm Going to Prague ...

... and this is what I'll be talking about:

‘Implacing’ Theatre Practice: A Theoretical Framework

Despite the increased attention that has been directed towards the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance little sustained academic attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by theatre practitioners. In Space in Performance (1999) Gay McAuley concludes that this exclusion of backstage space indicates the extent to which many studies of theatre architecture “are in fact concerned with the building as aesthetic object rather than with its function in a complex social process.” (9)

In this paper I will articulate a theoretical framework through which the function of theatre architecture in performance processes might be better understood. Beginning with Edward Casey’s phenomenological approach to ‘place’, and informed by the work of Edward Soja, I will argue that scholars investigating theatre architecture must take into consideration ‘perceived’ space (space as it is empirically measured), ‘conceived’ space (space as it is represented), and ‘lived’ space (space as it is experienced). The meaning of any place, especially a built place, is always complex and contested, and it is the very tension between ‘perceived’, ‘conceived’, and ‘lived’ space that constitutes the ‘matrix of sensibility’ within which any place is made meaningful.

Such a framework encourages a more holistic understanding of the vital relationship between theatre architecture and theatrical performance and opens up avenues for insight into how theatrical performance is made and re-made in different cultural settings and historical moments.

Best opening line to a story...

From Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis:

"As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."

What is your favourite opening line to a piece of prose, poetry or drama?

Surveillance Culture

I've just been reading 'Encountering surveillance', the final chapter of John McGrath's Loving Big Brother: Performance, Privacy and Surveillance Space (2004). In it McGrath advances some fascinating ideas about how the development of what he terms a 'surveillance society' in many Western nations has involved distinct cultural shifts as well; in effect, we have developed a 'surveillance culture'. McGrath sees the development of such a culture as radically discontinuous with given representational understandings and as "nothing less than a challenge to our consciousnesses." (219) McGrath argues that to ignore these challenges is to lose any control over the various forms of ourselves that are now in circulation.

What struck me in this chapter was the way McGrath sees our engagement in surveillance as "structured in a profound way by death." (211) While the surveillance cameras that increasingly record our daily movements are often presented as protective, they are also "always potentially filming our deaths." (211) The blurred security footage of UK toddler Jamie Bolger or that of murdered Sydney resident Kerry Whelan that we see broadcast on nightly news programs may seem innocuous, but to watch it is chilling because of our knowledge of why we are watching it. Indeed, McGrath argues that surveillance images of ourselves are traumatic because "our own deaths may appear at any time." (211) In effect, like the appearance of missing or otherwise harmed people, "any appearance of ourselves on surveillance footage can carry traces of this trauma-in-waiting, the ultimate surveillance scene that we, of course, will never, ourselves, see." (211-12)

So, the rhetoric that increased surveillance leads to increased security is patently false. The very fact of surveillance readily admits the ever-present potential for injury and death, increasing our awareness of our own insecurity. Ultimately, in our brave new surveillance culture, harm cannot be prevented, only witnessed.

Finally, while on the topic of surveillance, check out the German film The Lives of Others if you get a chance.

Shoes I: These are my boots

These are my boots. There are many like them, but these are mine.* I often wear them on wet days. Together we have travelled through many parts of Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In these boots I can stand up all day long and not get sore feet. They provide my feet and ankles with a hard leather exoskeleton, supporting and protecting them from awkward sideways movements. The fact that they are leather is significant. Leather requires care. I have enjoyed heating them in the oven and then lovingly applying bees wax as a waterproofing agent. The warm leather melts and absorbs the wax, producing a marvellous smell and greasy texture.

These boots are heavy and they lend me a sense of weight. I feel confident in these boots. I imagine that they make my feet sound imposing as I advance along corridors. Indeed, in these boots I advance and never retreat. With their enclosing leather and thick, insulating, rubber soles, these boots attach me to the earth. Whilst wearing them I will not easily be knocked over by anything!

And the red laces are also a great conversation starter ...

* 10 Commonwealth Bank Award points for anyone who can name the film I am riffing on with this line.

Walking Country

There's a beautiful podcast currently available from Radio National's Radio Eye programme entitled 'Ways of Walking Country'. The programme involves interviews with four individuals whose lives engage profoundly with the simple everyday practice of walking.

I've spent a lot of my life walking and no doubt many of you have too! What a simple pleasure that we too often take for granted! Through the act of walking we engage intimately with our surroundings, performing our places of residences and our local surrounds by traversing the 'runs and rills' we find ourselves in. We inscribe and re-inscribe our own embodied maps. Through this the places where we walk also inform who we are; they affect the shapes and habitual rhythms of our bodies.

[Martin Place, Sydney - AF]

When I am in the city I walk faster. Walking through the Devonshire Street tunnel under Central Station I enjoy the mild exhilaration of cruising past and between people, overtaking and sliding through gaps that open around me. I imagine myself as something akin to a V8 Supercar (although stealthier and with less gaseous emissions!) with a similar sense of changing up and down gears. I see a gap, I push into second, third, fourth gear, slide through the gap and then knock back down to second. The tiles underfoot offer little resistance. I can forget my feet; I push from my gut and my shoulders. My legs might actually be propelling me, but in this state I am aware of them only as keeping up to the push of my body through the crowd. Research out of California State University has suggested that city walking speeds have increased by ten per cent over the past ten years. Perhaps the influence of modern transport together with the development of technology that allows for the rapid transmission of ideas and documents leaves our physical bodies straining to keep up in their wake.

As part of my performance practice (such as it is) I've spent a lot of time walking in rooms, with others. Just walking. You can learn a lot from just walking, about yourself, your environment, your relationships with others. Choose a room, clear it of furniture and walk. Avoid patterns. Walk perpendicular to the walls, walk parallel to the walls. Walk in a grid; walk in organic curves and spirals; walk back and forth along the same line. Stand still. Walk at different speeds. Enjoy smoothly transitioning between different speeds. Invite some friends to walk with you. Think about other things as you walk. Think about yourself and your body. How does your body move? What do you notice about the feeling of the air on your skin, the proximity between yourself and others, between yourself and the walls?

In the bush my walk is irregular and conscious. It's a thinking walk. Maybe 'thinking' doesn't have the right connotations ... It's a productive walk, a craft. My muscles and joints have to work out the country as they bring me into it. They lift me onto rocky steps and attempt to stabilise me on uncertain, slippery ground. I can't forget my feet and legs. I'm tied to them. I have to keep watching the ground in front and around them so as not to crash down onto it. If I'm encumbered with a heavy pack I find myself grounded, having to hold myself up as I move. Without a heavy pack the tension lessens; I'm unburdened and can scramble and leap ahead. This bush experience is more removed from the everyday. I associate walking in the bush as restorative and regenerative when compared with my everyday urban travels. Is it really?

I thought of this post as I walked, in the sun, to the shops earlier this afternoon. My spongy thongs kept my feet in a clumsy sympathy with the asphalt, the cracks in the concrete pavement and the lumpy grass of the nature strips. Maybe in the next post I'll think about shoes ...

Let me leave you with four photos of less everyday places I've enjoyed walking in. The first three are from a recent traversal of the Milford Track in New Zealand. The final photo is from the Jameson Valley in the Blue Mountains.

Where do you walk?

[Clinton Valley, NZ - BH]

[Mackinnon Pass, NZ -AF]

[Arthur River, NZ - AF]

[Looking towards Kedumba Crossing, Jameson Valley, NSW - AF]

Learned

[Graduation Day - AKF]

learned (lurn-ed) adj 1 having great knowledge. 2 involving or characterized by scholarship.

Rugged

[Clinton Valley NZ - AM]

rugged (rug-gid) adj 1 Rocky or steep. 2 with a jagged or uneven surface 3 (of the face) strong featured. 4 Rough , sturdy, or determined in character. 5 (of equipment or machines) designed to withstand rough conditions or use in rough conditions.

Back again

It's been exactly two months since my last (rather narcissistic) post. Needless to say, a lot has been happening. In particular I've been doing a lot of teaching and have found myself on a treadmill of reading, preparing, teaching classes and marking. I do love it though - and I'm learning more than I think I ever have.

I watched the movie Sophie Scholl: The Last Days last week. Released in 2005, the film details the last five days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a young German woman involved in the non-violent resistance movement known as 'The White Rose' during World War Two. Along with her brother, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst, she was executed by the Nazis in 1943 at the age of 22. The film generates a great deal of tension because the outcome of the story is known from the beginning; this serves to focus attention on the reactions of Sophie to her predicament, particularly her courage and faith in the face of certain death. The film carefully treads a difficult line by depicting the heroic nature of Sophie's actions without turning into a piece of hagiography.

I was quite emotionally affected by the film and found myself inevitably reflecting on how I might react in such circumstances. How courageously do I stand by my convictions? Not very. I also found the following quote (attributed to Sophie Scholl) particularly challenging:

The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive'. The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as broad avenues, and a little candle burns out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Happy Birthday to Me

[The Birthday Boy]

Yes, I'm 27 today and still going strong! (Anyone wishing to send me a present, please see the previous post.)

Send me to Prague - Please!

[Send me here]

Okay, I need $3500. And I want to lay out this challenge up front: who can provide me with a way of raising $3500? Sponsorship? Scholarship? Publicity stunt? Street theatre? I will try (almost) anything. Spread the word people! Blog it. This boy needs $3500.

Why? Because I am a struggling early career theatre researcher with no institutional backing (and no money) who has just heard about the conference of his dreams. Today I received an email advising me that the Architecture Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research will be holding their first meeting, in Prague, from the 18th to the 20th June, coinciding with the Prague Quadrennial. This is the conference for me. I attended the Scenography Working Group conference in Prague in 2003, and that was good (and you can read the results) - but this will be better. I have spent four years writing a thesis on the finer points of theatre architecture, and now is the time for me to get out there and discuss the results with the heavies! This will not be a holiday!

(Okay, a little qualification, I do have enough money to live, but my wife has been supporting me rather heavily over the last few years and now I need to return the favour by not directing my income (and hers!) towards conferences, books and other academic follies. So, if you think I'm a bit crazed, think of this as a favour to her.)

That's the gist. Help me out! Who has a killer idea for how I can raise $3500?*

*A free foot massage and simultaneous lecture on the backstage areas of Sydney theatre buildings for the person with the best idea.

Home Truths

The Federal Government's increasingly blatant manoeuvring on the issue of climate change is really starting to get to me. Firstly they are going down the well-worn route of casting themselves as the practically minded rationalists, and anyone else (opposition parties, scientists, environmentalists) as idealists and academics, all talk about climate change, but not offering any real world' solutions. The government are set on depicting any possible ways of addressing climate change as 'subject to debate', and are instead trying to play up the worsening drought as the real issue. The absolute short-sightedness of this is daily astounding me. And yet it continues ...

Yesterday, reading the Sun Herald, I was drawn to the headline at the bottom of the front page: "PM's home truths: What John Howard thinks really matters to you." According to the article, Howard has nominated "the home-based issues of economic prosperity, national security and 'self-contained' Australian environmental issues as the keys to a fifth successive victory." The article goes on to quote Howard directly:

"Water, water, water. It's the biggest environmental game in town by a long way. It's within our capacity to do something about it in the forseeable future - it's a self-contained Australian challenge."

Now reading this quote raised a number of concerns. I'll direct my attention to these as dispassionately as possible (but let me leave you in no allusions that I was literally kicking the walls when I read it.)

1. First is the blatant attempt to posit water, not climate change as the 'big issue'. This is smart politics; even urbanites like myself can turn on the television and see the effects of drought on the Australian landscape. Likewise, hearing the percentage left in water storage and imagining the prospect of turning on my taps at home and having nothing come out is particularly concrete (and elicits a rather direct fear). But incremental increases in temperature or sea levels can't be witnessed so directly and so can be more easily edged to one side.
   
2. Then Howard talks about the 'capacity to do something ... in the forseeable future.' Who exactly is he talking about here? Him? His government? The Australian nation? In essence Howard is betraying his very short-sightedness. His idea of the 'foreseeable future' is the next election, not the time when I might be the age he is now. His concept of 'capacity' is measured in terms of how his government might address an issue without incurring political damage. Tackling water entails much less potential for political damage than attempting to curtail carbon emissions.
   
3. Finally, there is the breathtaking phrase that water is a 'self-contained' environmental challenge. What!? There's a fundamentally disturbing nationalistic echo to this, aside from the fact that the 'containment' label is simply illogical. It's also an amazing side-step. Howard isn't worried about whether climate change is important (ie: if it is an important factor in influencing the severity of the current drought), he's simply concerned about what impacts us in the here-and-now of an election year. And if that means reifying our national borders to the extent that they seem to be a factor in the environment, so be it!
   

Finally, and this is going beyond the article I read yesterday, I heard another disturbing - and related - phrase. I can't remember who it was, but I heard a government minister utter the words 'water security' on the radio yesterday morning. And it struck me that 'water security' sounds an awful lot like 'border security'.

So, if you've read this far, help me out. Apart from kicking the walls and blogging, what constructive approach can I take to countering this line of rhetoric from the government and drawing attention to what I see as the most important environmental issues?

A Field Guide to the Birds of Iraq

The first Field Guide to the Birds of Iraq, published by Birdlife International and Nature Iraq, was released on the 26th of January! The book describes and depicts the 387 bird species that are recorded as residing in Iraq. Importantly, during the surveys conducted prior to the publication of this book researchers have found that no bird species have gone extinct since the last major survey in the 1970s. Conversely, it seems that some conservation efforts have improved the situation in the important bird habitat of the Mesopotamian Marshes. Former marsh dwelling people have been returning to the area in large numbers and have re-flooded significant areas of formerly drained marsh.

For more information, visit the Birdlife International site here.

By the way, I'm keen ... anyone up for a bird-watching trip to Iraq?

The Face of Jesus

[British actor Robert Powell as Jesus in Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth]

If you head over to the rejesus website at the moment you can place your vote in their Faces of Jesus poll. The poll asks for you to consider twelve 'faces of Jesus' and then to vote on the question, 'Which of the pictures above looks most like Jesus as you imagine him to be?' So far 26% of the votes have gone to the 'Jesus of Nazareth' image (see above), with the next most popular being the 'Laughing Liberator' with 14%. The poll site is worth a browse as each of the images has an attached text that explains its history and cultural background.

Which Jesus would you vote for? And be honest ...

I've been thinking about depictions of Jesus because this Saturday I start rehearsals for the NSW Bible Society's annual Celebration of Word and Song. This event started over a decade ago as an Easter gathering for supporters of the Bible Society, allowing them to hear the easter story read, to sing together, and to enjoy musical performances. However, over time the bible readings have grown into staged performances of the biblical texts. Staging the biblical texts poses some really interesting questions: How exactly do you present the character of Jesus, and the context in which he lived and ministered, onstage? What impact do your representational choices have on your audience? Are they helpful? Are they a hinderance? And what do your choices say about how you view Jesus?

It seems that in this age, in which the primacy of the visual has reached an apogee, our imaginations are highly influenced by the variety of movie representations that exist, from the rather ponderous The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) to Mel Gibson's almost unbearably gory The Passion (2004). Most of these (with some notable exceptions) seek a large audience beyond the church by attempting what you might call 'historical renderings': Jesus is shown in some sort of recreation of 1st century Palestine as he heals the sick, reasons with the scribes and pharisees (who can be easily recognised by their rather impractical headwear) and hangs out with a bunch of scruffy unwashed disciples and various filthy villagers. But does this Jesus get in the way of us meeting the risen Christ on his terms?

[Jo Kenny and Neil Modra perform during the Celebration of Word and Song 2006 - photograph by Ramon Williams]

For last year's Celebration I opted for a rather traditionally inflected stage presentation. Jesus, and the other characters, wore suitably 1st century-ish garb and handled stage properties that evoked a vague historical setting: scrolls, baskets of bread, swords, a crown of thorns, etc. The staging did however include some necessary stylisation. During Jesus' crucifixion, for instance, the actor playing Jesus stripped himself, applied the crown of thorns to his own head and took up a cross bar which he then held across his shoulders. This took place whilst a narrator described these actions being done to Jesus, effectively allowing the audience to imagine the surrounding scene.

This year I've decided to take a new tack. I realise that I have the privilege of creating a performance for an audience who know the biblical accounts of Jesus, who know his teachings, his healings, his death and resurrection. However, at the same time, in what way do they know it? Is it a knowing that is accompanied (or even formed) by various movie depictions of Jesus (like the willowy form of Max von Sydow?) Has their understanding of Jesus been shaped and determined by these cultural images? As a challenge, this year I've decided to stage an ensemble performance in which five actors will together re-tell the story of Jesus. Dressed in contemporary clothing, and gathered around a large table on which sits the remnants of a meal, they will begin to recount (rather than re-enact) the story using the text of the four gospels. From this they will then start act out episodes, thereby presenting some of the characters. But, in each scene, Jesus and the other characters will be presented by different actors (both male and female). I hope that this will be a Jesus who can in some way be heard (and seen) afresh through the testimony of his disciples.

Dredging up some past work

The days of thesis writing were long and hard, and I often needed a few hours of rest (approx 8) in the middle of the day so as to keep myself in peak mental condition. Here's something I've dredged up from the past. All the best to the new Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews. I hope his policy announcements don't inspire me to similar creative renderings ...

Censoring God (!?)

It seems that on some airlines the version of the film 'The Queen' that has been screened has had all references to God 'bleeped' out. But rather than being a statement by airlines (ala this), it seems that it was just a rookie censor. (Read the news article here. It was referred to on the rather excellent GetReligion blog.)

My thesis is now online!

[My workspace in earlier days - AF]

So, it's late. And you can't sleep due to the heat, the snoring emanating from the prone form beside you, the pangs of a guilty conscience, or a combination of all three.* But wait, help is now only a mouse click away! That's right, my PhD thesis, entitled Backstage Space: The Place of the Performer, is now available online! And you can find it HERE.

So, to whet your appetites, here's a classic section from page 2 where I contend that there is a 'significant lacuna' stemming from the lack of focus (to date) on backstage space, and skillfully set the scene for the 250-odd pages of closely argued text that follows. Enjoy!

In recent decades, the humanities and social sciences “have been experiencing an unprecedented spatial turn.”1 This turn has influenced a “move towards more culturally and geographically nuanced work, sensitive to difference and specificity, and thus to the contingencies of event and locale.”2 Within the associated academic fields of Theatre Studies and Performance Studies this has been manifest through increased attention being directed to the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance, both that which occurs in theatre buildings and that which is site-specific. Despite this, little sustained attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by performers. It is my contention that this represents a significant lacuna in our knowledge of the complex interrelations between performers, the performances they create, and the spaces and places in which they create such performances.

1 Edward Soja, "Thirdspace: Expanding the Scope of the Geographical Imagination," in Human Geography Today, ed. Doreen Massey, John Allen, and Philip Sarre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), 261.
2 Denis Cosgrove, "Landscape and Landschaft," German Historical Institute Bulletin, no. 35 (2004): 57.

*Ie: you went to bed and left the heater running in the midst of summer, thereby exacerbating your partner's sleep apnea and resulting in the midnight realisation that you have foolishly contributed to the further warming of the globe.

Contemplating a bit of writing

I need to start writing. This may seem a somewhat strange comment given the undeniable fact that it is written. However, what I mean is that I need to start writing some truly publishable material. This is so:

1. I can disseminate my wildly original and extremely important research findings to the wider world.
2. I can place myself in a position where someone says 'Wow! Look at your CV! And all those publications for one so young! Why don't you come and work for me in a meaningful and well paid job?'*
   
3. I can provide for my wife (for the first time in at least three years).
4. I can have the joy of seeing my name in print.

Sadly all I have really learnt in eight years of tertiary education is the ability to procrastinate.

I shall start writing tomorrow.