This City is a Body was at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum in 2007.
This package contains the following press:
by Arvijit Sarkar
Original article can be found here.
Spinning outside the artistic – and racial – boundaries“We wanted to explore what happens when these
things come into contact with each other. We talked a lot about that
and what came out was the idea that everything we have in common in
Sydney is our identity as migrants.” The 23-year-old set up the group
Curious Works to bring together “people who don’t usually meet each
other, ideas that don’t usually come together and community groups
that don’t normally speak to each other”. “To the extent that we could
manage it, they are a bunch of strangers in a room trying to find out
common points between each other. It was about people stepping outside
their boundaries, artistic as well as cultural.”
The original article can be found here.
MIGRATION PATTERNS
Torres Strait Island dance meets Indian singing in this exploration of migrants’ lives.
BENITO Di FONZO reports
Immigration and multiculturalism are emotive and potentially explosive issues. Politicians on both sides often use them as footballs to score votes. Yet Mahesh Radhakrishnan, the musical co-ordinator of Standing, a work that mixes song and dance with the stories of migrants, would like to put the politics aside for the sake of art.
Whenever we talk about multiculturalism as more than just people dressing up in traditional outfits and serving food, or whenever we talk of reconciliation outside of Cathy Freeman carrying the Olympic torch, it seems as if we’re being overtly political,” he says. “The very fact that what we’re trying to do is tell migrants’ stories, and the whole question of whether or not we’re being political comes up, is indicative of that.
“I think the important thing is that if we are to have multiculturalism as a concept then I, as the refugee activist son of a migrant living in Lidcombe, should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder and converse with a Liberal voter in Padstow or wherever. Those dialogues don’t happen enough. We want to get people talking to each other, no matter who they vote for.”
Standing initiator Shakthidharan agrees. “We have this great diversity of experience in Australia; we have this common identity as migrants. All of us have arrived in this space at some time and forged a new sense of home here,” he says.
“The reason it’s called Standing is that it looks at the different ways that a body can stand up straight, be grounded.”
Standing is the opening work for the Migrant Project, run by an eclectic artists’ collective including Indian Australian classical musicians, Maltese Spanish dancers, as well as Torres Strait Island dancer and choreographer Albert David, formerly of the Bangarra Dance Company.
A mix of music, dance and theatre, the Migrant Project will culminate in a series of performances and exhibitions next year. “It doesn’t have a conventional narrative, but rather in the sense that the stories move in and out of each other, and there’s a framework that connects it all,” Shakthidharan says. “Each actor tells their personal story, but the opening and closing are geared towards creating a language that covers all these.”
Writer performer Gary Lo says they want audiences to walk away with an understanding about how difficult it can be to be a migrant. “Migrants are often portrayed in the media as freeloaders, coming here and taking ourjobs, our welfare,” Lo says. “My father had to work 16 hours a day, six days a week, and he had to learn the language, and he had very little in terms of government support. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to do this piece to tell the stories that haven ‘t been told.”
Does Lo feel that multiculturalism has less mainstream support than it did a decade ago? “We could go into a big political debate about that.” Well, go on then. “We’d rather let the theatre speak for itself than show our political colours,” he says.
Shakthidharan says Standing starts with an empty stage. “Then we drag all these suitcases on, this baggage, the shit that everyone brings to Australia,” he says. “It’s a complex metaphor.”
Shakthidharan approached David about collaborating on the project after working with him on Lingalayam Dance Company’s production of Shakespeare’s Tempest, in which David played Caliban opposite visiting Indian dancer Astad Deboo. “Albert had a knack of making everyone feel at ease in rehearsals and was very grounded,” he says. “He’s also very open to new ideas. Our show starts with a dance inspired by a traditional Torres Strait Island piece, accompanied by classical Indian singing and all over a flamenco-inspired beat. “We showed him what we’d been getting up to and he just jumped into it. But at the same time he’s also been a kind of mentor, especially in terms of the dance and physical work. “His own ability is quite infectious he makes those around him feel more confident in what they’re doing,”
With 15 artists including actors, dancers, musicians, and a culturally diverse band playing tabla, violin and cello, Standing explores eight tales of migrant experience. “What we want to know is do communities speak with one another?” Shakthidharan says. “We all arrived here at some point, we have that in common, do we feel like we share a space together?” The response to Standing will be used to develop later works. “That’s why we’re having forums after the show, so that people can go, ‘Yeah, that happened to me as well’, or, ‘None of these stories are like me,”‘ Shakthidharan says.
“On our website (migrantproject.com.au) there’s a blog, and on Wednesday and Friday we’re inviting the audience to talk to the artists about their stories. This is just the end of this stage of development, not our final work. We’ll expand a lot from here.”
