sleeping recklessly

with a title like that, i should make a sordid tell-all of my dirty weekends. but frankly, that's none of your business, and would be more self-indulgent than my art practice is already and i don't think you could take it.

thankfully, it's about the workshop i've been doing with mole wetherell from reckless sleepers.

i still don't quite know how to describe what reckless sleepers are, but i guess you might call them a contemporary theatre company. but when i say contemporary, i mean that they really don't give a fuck about traditional theatre and are interested in time and process.

mole was invited to CIA to run a creative lab - passing on some of his processes and getting us to extend, expand and share our process for making work, so that we could learn and possibly create a new work.

it was quite an intense fortnight.
intense in the same way that falling in love is intense.

we really did have a lot of fun, played a lot, but also pushed ourselves and made each other work together. i think it was a pretty good group and i mostly had a great time.

interestingly, the times that i didn't have such a good time were when i found myself reverting to adolescent ways of being: convinced that my difference from others was detrimental (and naturally untrue). i also discovered that a group dynamic that reflects my family environment, i get a bit mental. so passé.

i was really hoping to blog about the process all the way through, but as the weeks rolled on, i had other things to fit in after workshops, or was spending time writing applications, or fixing things, or just resting my addled brain. we had a bit of a blog going all the way through, which was mostly attended to by me, lynda roberts and mole. but that's OK. things happen.



some of my personal highlights:
- i rediscovered the importance of music in my practice
- lying on the floor sideways singing 'these boots are made for walking'
- watching 8 artists shove their head in a sink of water to listen to beak> - the poses, the gasping afterwards and the various types of wet hair.
- seeing my work in a whole different context.
- eating two whole chilis and making a disgusting concoction of stuff in a food processor in front of about 30 people.
- the in-jokes (yawn, is this boring?, wrong!)

other things i learned so far (i'm sure more lessons will reveal themselves):
- i really do use spaces to make people do things
- i over-think things
- i  need to kick my insecurities about my practice to the kerb
- i like performing
- repetition, feedback and testing are important processes i need to formalise from here on in.




to the rest of the sleepers: loves youse all
(jen, mish, ben, lynda, julian, sarah, paea)