Paul Roberts

Monday night, around 8:30.

Usually when I'm in company and I pull out my tape recorder, conversation stops. Not surprising you say, no one likes being recorded? Not true. Wendy Smith loves it.
Actually, closer to the truth is that Wendy loves a good chat, and early one evening in February, Wendy Smith and I did just that. We found all the excuse we needed, to do nothing but sit by the front door, eat dinner, drink tea and talk. It was grand. Here's what happened.

PR So how do you spend your days at the moment?

WS It's quite funny you ask me, today I felt so scrambled with the number of things to do, I couldn't decide whether I was just being incredibly inefficient or I was in fact doing a lot. So I decided this week, and I've never done this in my life (laughs), to keep a check on how many hours I spend on what things... (laughter!) and um I think that it's just that I'm doing a lot (laughs) At the moment I'm doing two fairly new things...like I do Flux stuff um, and within Flux at the moment I've done a fair bit of work and Dave's done some as well, with bringing Nancy Stark Smith out here and Martin's done some work... everybody's worked on it really, to bring Nancy out here at the end of the year so that's been an ongoing thing of preparing for that. So that takes a bit of work.

Bodywork or office work?

I'm trying to do both. There's quite a lot of office work involved in getting the concept right in terms of what sort of workshop we're gonna run with her. She's going to run, as you know, a two-week workshop for the public. So it'll go for five days a week for two-weeks, and we're trying to sort-of chisel out what that workshop will be, to give it a focus

yep

and we'll probably ask people to already have some contact experience, so that people who've been working with the form for a while can go further with it. You know if somebody has never done a contact class you have to teach them things like ìthe rolling point of contactî because they haven't got a hope of surviving without it.

It's a good opportunity to work with somebody like Nancy who can take people of your standard and my standard that much further. There are plenty of people in Melbourne who can teach others fundamentals.

Absolutely. Fundamentals are catered for every week, with [Tine's class and] Flux's class [so there are two places people can go for that] so there's kind of no reason why beginners can't clock up some experience between now and then. We need to give people plenty of warning that that's what it's gonna be and they need to think about that... and just come along to class for six or eight weeks.

yep

And go to the jam.
But for me and the whole thing of Nancy coming and my own physicality and my own process I've been training quite intensively towards it.
Tony, how are you! (Wendy's nephew Tony appears. Greetings all round then he and his bike disappear into the house)
I've hit an age where my body's really starting to change. I've got a couple of really old injuries that are starting to haunt me more frequently. So I had to make a decision that, y'know, I really had to deal with the integrity, on a very fundamental level, of my own body...given that we got the funding, which I was glad we got even though I was kind of surprised. When we got it I thought yeah good, Contact Improvisation is being given the kind of recognition it deserves as a form of dance. And the community around contact is so full now compared to a lot of other dance communities, well, not even compared to other communities just in terms of itself... and it needs input and someone like Nancy can do that, so I was incredibly glad that all happened.

You were talking about trying to prepare your body.

Yeah that's the thing that I'm trying to work on more than ever before. About a year and a half ago I started doing Pilates training, and that was the first thing that I found which really helped stabilise this back injury.

This is an old injury?

Yeah it's about 10 years old...and I kept working at it and working at it and I became more and more involved in what underpinned all the exercises and what the science behind Pilates was.

Is it movement orientated?

It is movement orientated, but not movement orientated like dance. It's much more exercise based and it's very Germanic. Pilates is named after Joseph Pilates, the guy who invented it, or created the form. He was German. He and his wife Clara created it. When he was in England, I think it was before the second world war and he was interned. Any aliens had to be interned into camps in England during the war so that they couldn't be accused of being spies and all this absolute insanity, but that's what happened. That was also at the time, and I can't remember if it was the first or second world war, but it was at the time that a flu epidemic went through Europe and thousands and thousands of people died really quickly from the flu. In his group or cell or whatever you call it, he got them all doing this exercise work that he and his wife had created and not one of them got ill. It's very good work, it's very rigid and regimented in some ways, but the adaptation of it has got much more flow to it. I always look at it from a movement perspective rather than a Hup! heh! heh! heh!(Physical grunts) (laughs)

What's its focus?

The basic idea of it is about stabilising the body so that you don't have pulls going one way or the other... the muscular system in the body is like a pulley system, you know, it's like pulling up a blind, as you draw one string down the other goes up... so it's about stabilising the three dimensionality of the body and the function of the body.

A bit Feldenkrais-ish?

Feldenkrais was working at the same time but all work...

...because he's got an approach that very much focuses on the body as a unified system.

I think Feldenkrais is much more unified than Pilates. Pilates doesn't focus on the body in the same way as Feldenkrais, it's much more exercise based, Feldenkrais is much more an unravelling...I think! I'm no expert on Feldy at all.

Feldenkrais is about reprogramming your neuro-kineasthetic pathways...

That's right, Pilates does that but it also plays a major strengthening role, it really strengthens muscles.

I've just been getting into push ups and sit-ups and all that...

I'll have to show you how to do it properly, there's a real trick...yeah it's interesting and for me, it's allowed me to get really strong. It works on what they call core control so you're getting a lot of stability around your spine, so I've been doing lots and lots of that in the last few months and it's had quite a big impact on me coming out of a period of being quite sick, being strong again and being able to dance properly again. I think it's like anything, when you get really sick for a long time and then you come out of it you're in a really different place from where you were when you went into the illness... you come out and it's new ground, new territory and you have to not go back to the old. You have to establish what's going on now and...

What you've learnt?

yeah, what you've learnt from that, what you need to do now to express yourself however it is you want to.

You said before that now you've reached a certain age and your body is starting to have difficulties with old injuries, I just wonder what sort of issues you're having to deal with, experiencing your body umm

changing...

yeah

It's quite confronting. It's weird cause I...in my psyche, I don't feel any different from how I've felt for the last fifteen years... I don't think so! In my core, my spirit doesn't feel too different... It feels a bit different! But... I still feel really energetic, and keen to dance, and keen to do what I love to do, y'know I love to ride my bike all over Melbourne, you know, just live my life. I've lived my life for the last twenty years really and it kind of hasn't changed... But I'm noticing shifts in my physical being, and that's a pretty weird feeling, oh god... you know it's pretty scary, oh no, oh no I hope this isn't it!
But then I realise it's just different from when I was twenty-two and you hurt yourself. You sprain your ankle or hurt a knee or do something in the dance studio... and I've just got to learn from it you know, and that's what I've been doing. The result is that all the things that were really starting to plague me are settling down and I'm learning how to manage them differently... and also part of it is I'm learning that there are things that I just shouldn't do now.

How do you go about managing your body like that? Do you have systems that you relate to... your release work and contact how does that inform?

Oh yeah, that sort of physical training, or evolution more than training I suppose it is, yeah they all inform me. I realise how many things I draw on when I go to teach at the VCA. I teach Kinesiology, the study of the body in motion, and I realise I have quite a hard time planning the classes. I think ìyeah I know how to teach that through release, no I can do that with Pilates, or contact..î and I end up not having written a word in two hours, just racing around in my brain! But I'm finding more and more that I'm able to mesh strains from each different thing. In the bodywork I do I'm constantly drawing on my understanding from anatomy, my dance practice and Pilates in terms of working on a client. Equally, in a dance class I talk about meridians and energy systems in the body and, as you know, I'll do it in a contact class. I'll teach anything anywhere if I think it's appropriate. But I also do really love at times to teach each of those things in a pure form, or to work by myself in a pure way as with Skinner Releasing movement practises.

Are you working on a piece at the moment?

Yeah with David Hookham, a piece called ìLullaby of the Mundaneî. (laughs).Yeah it's just a little exploration piece more than anything. We just enjoy working together in the studio...

What is it that you find so conducive to working together?

I guess the fact that David and I seem to meet each other with the same amount of interest and energy. It ends up that the sum is greater than the two bits that make it up, and it seems to have taken on a life of its own. We just work together well, I'm not sure why. We like each other as well... and I think that's crucial. We really have a good time together.

How did you come to each other to work?

We started off working I think by just saying... I think I said I'm trying to work in a studio on my own, cause I'm not very good at that. It's a classic thing for a contacter, I just want somebody else there with me, another body to roll with (laughs). I think after I'd done it two or three times I said to David - oh god I'm trying to learn to work on my own in a studio, it's so hard! (laughs) and he said well when you give up give me a ring and I'll come and work with you. I think I was on the phone in twenty-four hours - come and work with me! I'm such a wimp (laughs). So we had a great time, he came along... we didn't start working together with the aim of doing a piece we just liked hanging out in the studio and working physically. He has a strong background in Butoh, and Suzuki. Mainly Butoh I think. And my background is much more modern dance and contact, so we bring really different worlds together. It's pretty interesting to see where the bridges exist. Neither of us were saying we should be doing this or we should be doing that, we just did what we did and had a very good time doing it. We both started doing Julia Scoglio's class combining Feldenkrais and dance technique and that's been great, so then we'd just stay afterwards and keep working. He's actually going away in April, he's going to go walkabout around the world and um, we just sort of said let's do a little piece or get the beginnings of a piece underway before he goes. We envision it as a working relationship that could go on for a very long time. So if he lives in another state when he gets back, that doesn't have to be the end of the working relationship. We're quite capable of keeping things going in a different way. Perhaps travelling between states, doing little intensives together towards the next step in this piece. He'd travel here for a few weeks and then I'd go there for two or three weeks. Just see how the working process evolves. Just keep it going, keep the dialogue happening.

Is it going to be improvised?

No it's more set than improvised. There'll be some improvisation in it but I've worked a huge amount in the last six years or so with improv, which I love... Flux works pretty much purely with improvisation, we always tend to step out there with no idea what we're going to do at all, and that's great, but the challenge for me was to experience developing a piece that was much more structured. So that's what has been, and that's been good. I've really learnt a whole lot about developing a piece. David's really experienced with that side of it, he's done a lot of directing work and he trained with John Bolton. He's done a lot of acting as well, so he brings that whole theatre thing into it and that's been great ! Just developing phrases of movement that just, y' know repeatable phrases of movement, is quite a challenge for someone whose idea of a repeatable phrase of movement could go on for an hour... you know this rolling point of contact that rolls up and down and around and around....

What? You want me to do that again?

(laughs) sure! Rewind! (laughs) So yeah it's refreshing for me, I've worked with Flux for four years, and I'm continuing to work with Flux but to work in a really different way is really invigorating.

With Flux, have you tried working with a theme or anything like that?

Yeah we have, and more often than not it's been disastrous. No that's not true, I tell a lie... isn't it funny, it's always the shockers that come straight to the forefront of your mind ìI wish I'd just never walked out there!î (laughs) Umm, in Canberra we did that, we went out with themes.

What was Canberra?

The last two years Flux and a number of other groups have gone to Canberra and done an improv season at the Choreographic Centre, and we're going again this year. Last year we'd spent some time working with Hoon Hoyne and her paper themes.. We'd never worked in full costume before but we'd gone there saying ok were going to work in these paper costumes that Hoon's making for us. Then we got there and all of us nearly died when we saw them. They were the biggest, grandest costumes you can imagine. Grand emperor's cloaks with these Japanese style head pieces, and one of them was linked by a pipe of paper, so one hat had two ends, one end was on one persons head and the other end was on another persons head... and they were just magnificent and they were all folded and pleated and sewn, they were just gorgeous... but you can't do contact in them, no way, for a start they'd be just too loud, all this paper crackling... so we had to really figure out what we'd do with them so we went with a theme of having a grand procession.

You didn't take them off?

Yeah we did. So we entered in them, in this very processional way and we decided where we were going to go, what the pathway was through space, and then we disappeared behind the backdrop and took them off. We made as much noise as we wanted to taking them off, either a huge amount or not very much, or any scale in between. So anything that happened along the way was okay and some nights we had other scores that we'd layer onto the procession. So, in the processional part we played with scores and pathways and things like that. One score we had was if one person stops everyone stops so you had to really keep your eyes peeled, and that was very beautiful, and also incredibly funny. Y'know lots of very minimal antics gotten up to by various duets, juxtaposed against these incredibly regal, grand costumes made it very funny. I remember Jacob and I at one stage, having this little eyeball conversation, and both of us having to work very hard not to get the giggles, it was great fun... and then we'd go behind and take them off and then it was whatever happens happens, our usual contact performance.

So there were two definite sections?

The costume section and then we would just open it up. And some nights we'd have little themes like, on the last night we said ok, it's the last night in Canberra let's just go out there with the idea of dancing, we all love contact, that's what brings us all together and holds us all together let's just dance and have a really good time dancing. Jacob was leaving the next day to fly to Europe with Strange Fruit, so it was also a ëgoodbye Jacob' dance. I remember waltzing around with him at one stage and going into contact from there, and having my head on his shoulder and whispering little things to each other on stage. It was very lovely. So we have gone into themes like that and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So it's not a particularly rich or inspiring way of working for Flux?

No, it's not always inspiring.

I wonder why that is?

I don't know, I think sometimes themes can get in the way of improvisation. People begin to work really hard to stick to the theme and then become abrupt or cut off things that should evolve, I think that can be a problem.

Do you agree that every time you dance you're working through an inherent theme?

I do. Lots of people think there's a big dilemma of contact in performance. I don't really think that, but a lot of people do.

Why do you say that?

Well a lot of people think that it's a really problematic thing. When we first started performing most people said good luck I don't know how, or I've never seen anyone do any really interesting contact in performance. How weird. I think it's fantastic to watch. But I can see what people talk about, a lack of grammar, or punctuation... contact can become very introverted by virtue of its nature, I mean you have to have a substantial internal focus going on, to be safe, to not hurt yourself or somebody else. You know you're upside down on somebodies shoulders spiralling at 9 million miles an hour, unless you've got a tactile, sensory relationship with your partner you can really hurt yourself.

It's also messy to look at, or at least it can be, and I think for a lot of people that can be jarring.

Yeah it can be, it can also have a beautiful sense of form and shape and dynamic. It's what you invest into that. One of the things I've always really enjoyed about the Natimuk jam is performance night. People go along there and say ìOk I want four dancers thankyou,î and four dancers get up and go and they get into a little huddle and are told what the theme is. The idea is that somebody has an idea and they want to see it performed. So you sit back and watch your idea in action.

Wow...we should do that in Melbourne.

One night they got Shaun McLeod and Martin Hughes and I think it may have been Jacob, may not have been Jacob, could have been someone else, anyhow three really good male dancers. And they gave them the score of, ìI want you to start really really slow and get slower, and slower, and slower, but never stopî. And it was just beautiful to watch, just beautiful, it just took my breath away. One of the most gorgeous things I've seen in a long time. The person whose score it was, I can't remember who it was, they just said thank you, they were so satisfied. I just don't think that there's been that much research into contact in performance. That's why it's fantastic that there are groups like Bird on a Wire on the go now and Two Suits; people out there putting the work out there. You guys in Two Suits are very different from what Flux does and Bird on a Wire very different again. And I just think it's fantastic more and more people starting to spring up saying I want to take this form and put my brush stroke on it in performance. I'd really like soon to have a real ummm not a conference, but a real gathering on contact in performance.

Great idea

Have discussions and then showings, maybe do a series of Friday nights where people say this is what we work with, this is how we're doing it and then talk about it afterwards.

Perhaps Conundrum could be a place for that sort of research?

No, I think Conundrum is something quite different. I think it would have to be specifically contact. Conundrum does play that role to a certain extent.

It does for you guys.

Does for Flux, Conundrum is half Flux and half Five Square Metres and then lots of everybody else we invite, and I mean Five Square Metres are really different from us, very different theatre. It's history that brought the two groups together and I think it works to have two really different sorts of improvisational groups performing on the one night. It gives a good mix to the audience.
But you know with an independent season of contact performance, Ahhh!... I just think contact can be very, very beautiful... if the dancers are able to listen to the rhythms that are going on in the bodies.

Yeah

and really play with the dynamic and the shape and the travelling...

And it's not easy, the sort of presence that that... you need to have a strong performance presence to be able to settle into ahhh, the experience of being on stage, and then to allow yourself to relax into that space, of then exploring and fully committing to the contact...

I agree. I think too often people bolt through that part of it. And you know, quite often you get out there and the adrenalin hits and because you're working with improvisation there's this tendency to up the ante and go faster and faster and faster. The things that I, and this is possibly just my aesthetic, but the things that I've really enjoyed watching as an audience member have been the things that people luxuriate in, and it can certainly have a change in dynamic, it can have a very fast dynamic and slow sustained moments and changes in tempo, and in fact I really like that diversity, but... there is a sense of being inside the movement, of being a part of it rather than ëdoing' the movement; that sense of embodiment, natural breathing and natural phrasing that can take place within it, which is very beautiful I think.

Yeah

And that's the thing for me with contact in performance that sense of beauty inside the movement and appreciating the um, the little gem that exists inside anything. When you peel back all the superfluous stuff there's a core or

essence

yeah, the nucleus of something is very pure and very beautiful in its simplicity. Today I taught a class at the VCA and I spent about half an hour teaching these kids how to go from sitting to standing but really teaching the beauty of integrated movement and you should have seen the look on their faces when they got it . It was just fantastic... ìNow I get it!î That's what underpins the idea behind this piece David Hookham and I are working on, We're really looking at all sorts of pedestrian situations, normal human movement. I've always been fascinated how some people can just lean forward and rest their head on their hands on a table and just look beautiful doing it. Just the integration of their physicality, their luxurious integration. And other people can do it and just look tense and anxious...So we're trying to find in all sorts of basic human movement the beauty that underpins it. What happens when you strip away all the tensions and the... the kind of head space that too many people, myself included, inhabit a lot of the time, too busy in our heads, thoughts going on all the time too much extraneous thought.

And that creates a detachment...

Yes, like a disembodiment takes place with all that extraneous distraction going on. So we're trying to find the embodiment normal pedestrian movements. When you look at dance, there's the essence of pedestrian movement in it. Often when you learn a piece of choreography you can break it right down, and basically you're walking - just in different patterns.

Basically (laughs)

So trying to pull things back to those basics... and find the beauty of unravelling them... and then that place of transition between pedestrian and abstract movement, where you take flight of fancy. I've always had this image of walking down the street and Two Suits does it for me, you guys do it! I just get such pleasure from watching your act, just walking down the street and suddenly you're airborne. Flying up around each others shoulders. Seeing the look on people's faces, it's worth a million dollars, I just love it. One day I'm going to put on a suit and come out too (laughs).
But it's that thing of not trying to seperate out my life. My life is my life and dance is one aspect of it and so is body work, and releasing and sitting here talking to you. I have many more discoveries wandering out in the world than I do in a studio. I think that's what bought me to this piece that David and I are working on. I like to strip it back and find the beauty in the everyday. Because I think we're losing it a lot, I think people are losing the plot a bit, everyone's getting more and more anxious, more and more worried about getting on and succeeding and moving along and you can see everyones body contracting in, rather than (breathes) inhabiting the space that you exist within. That's a bit of a theme for me at the moment, in my work and in my life.

Inhabiting your body?

Just inhabiting my body fully... and that space of integration and stepping off between the everyday world and the kind of airborne world of contact and dance.

I think we should leave it at that.

Ok thanks Paulie

Thanks Wendy

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