Shadow Land

 Currently, while I have been in Denmark, I've seen posters for the theatre production, Shadow Land. The production already toured in Australia last year, where I was able to conduct an interview with one of the team creatives. Seeing that the production would be coming to Copenhagen I could think of no better time to post the interview. -  

For a few special nights last month, Her majesty’s theatre showcased dance company Pilobolus’ performance Shadowland. It was a remarkable performance revealing the best of human imagination, physical prowess, and aesthetic beauty as it followed the development of a young girl as she thirsts for independence. As she enters the frightful world of shadow beyond her bedroom wall, the audience follows her into a world of dreamlike logic and simplistic wonder. To better understand the performance and the work that went into it, creative and executive director Itamar Kubovy give some insights.

Q) There were a range of creatives on this project - did you all have particular tasks, or how was the work divided?

K) Pilobolus always creates with diversity, in expertise and redundancy in the roles. We are all in the room working at the same time but each of us focuses on a different aspect of the work – be it story, in the case of Steve Banks, head writer for SpongeBob Squarepants, or music in the case of David Poe, our amazing composer, or shadow techniques or Pilobolus partnering. It’s important to remember, I think, that in reimagining shadow-making we are exploring a unique performance style so there is no one to call and ask for help. We have to figure it out ourselves.

So Pilobolus is a dance company that seems to utilise a range of dance and performance disciplines, does that often include shadow and silhouette forms, or was this special to Shadow Land?

K) Pilobolus is primarily a dance company that develops movement and dances for the live stage, film, and advertising. Only a couple of our pieces, Shadowland being the primary example, contain shadows at all.

We started working with shadows in 2006, when we made a television advertisement for Hyundia, in which we were asked to make a car out of body shadows, that project quickly led to being asked to perform at the Oscars where we made iconic images representing the nominated films in a similar style.  Over the next two years the word soon realised we had reimagined an ancient art form and asked us to run around the world, creating many little three-minute pieces in shadow. Shadowland is the result of trying to weave what we intended during those years into a single full-evening presentation.

Q) In the performance the hair, the costume, even the body type of Kristina (the female lead), seemed to lend itself perfectly to silhouette performance, were they all deliberate choices?

K) Shadows are not very forgiving. Everything connected to a figure or object’s outline must be considered and deliberate, while appearing spontaneous and accidental.

Q) The scene with the centaur was magical, however I was wondering, of all the animals, mythical or otherwise, what made you chose a centaur? – Why have the female lead as a dog, for that matter?

K) A centaur is associated with sexuality and we knew we wanted to have a sexual rite of passage in that scene but rather than the traditional stud centaur, we were amused by the idea of a centaur who is ashamed of his horse half and can only find his sexuality when he encounters a girl who is ashamed of her dog head.

When the fashion designer Pierre Cardin, one of Pilobolus’ first patrons in the ‘70s, saw Shadowland in Paris a couple of years ago. We went to dinner afterwards with the cast and he kept saying, “the Animals. The Animals.” From the amazing fungus after which we (Pilobolus) are named, to the centaur, the elephant, the spiders, and the dog heads of Shadowland we have always been inspired by the expressive power of the natural world.

Q) The other side of the centaur is having two males in the romance as opposed to one, what was the reasoning behind that, as in why not a more familiar one male and one female dance?

K) Once we had a centaur made of two guys, the duet naturally turned into a trio. We tried to begin and end as a duet and elaborate as a trio. We name all of our moves and our favourite in that trio is know as “Tripplesex” – the Dog Girl and the two sides of the Centaur.

Q) The scene where she almost drowns, to me it seemed like a ceremonial rebirth, was that how it was meant or was there another creative purpose behind it?

K) We tried in Shadowland always to achieve depth with simplicity. We wanted to find a literal low point for the Dog Girl, the moment where she hits bottom. What kind of place could be lower than the bottom of the ocean? When she lands she is truly at the bedrock of the bottom and begins her ascent towards fulfillment.

Q) It seems even with the advance of special effects the continued development of CGI and animation, people are still drawn to theatre like this, theatre where they can see the mechanics behind the illusion, why do you think that is?

K) As the world becomes a more meditated place and we spend all day behind a screen, the importance of hand-made thing, touch and people spending time in the physical presence of each other becomes more important. Something live and handmade can truly captivate in a way that things made by computers can not. Think about the return of The LP.

Q) The encore in creating New York and then the trip to Australia was brilliant, perfect way to end on a high note, whose idea was that?

-       Compliments on the song choice there

Here the Audience loved it, how do audiences usually respond?

K) We try to create a local finale for every one of our performances. We have found a tremendous response around the world when we customise our finale to the audience. It connects is to the audience in a way that makes everyone feel more included. We have a whole team on the road that researches and advances ideas for each of our 

finales. 

Book Thief Interview

I love this book, and this movie, and for others that love it too, here is an interview with the author of The Book Thief.

Dean Mayes

A while back I had the pleasure of meeting Dean Mayes at a writers' fair in Adelaide, and was blown away when he offered me a feature for myself and my book, The Order's Experiments on his blog. Since then I have had the pleasure of reading and finishing Dean's latest book Gifts of the Peramangk and couldn't resist doing a return feature of Dean and his work.

Australian author Dean Mayes has established himself as a writer of great literary style and dedication since the release of his first novel "The Hambledown Dream" in 2010. He continues that tradition with his landmark new release "Gifts of the Peramangk" for Central Avenue Publishing. Dean lives in Adelaide, Australia with his wife Emily and their two children Xavier, 6 and Lucy, 3.

Aside from writing and fatherhood, Dean is also a practicing nurse, but his love of writing has been cultivated from a young age.

I first discovered my love of creative writing when I was in primary school - around Grade 3. I often credit my then teacher, Mrs. Furnell, for being the motivator behind it. She used to challenge me in creative writing exercises which I sucked at for the longest time. But one day, I produced this really cool short piece about a soldier at war in the jungle and I remember articulating his fear which impressed Mrs. Furnell enough that she awarded me the coveted Purple Dragon sticker. Those stickers were really hard to get so it was no small achievement. From then on, I have weaved in and out of my writing life - trying to achieve the Holy Grail of writing a novel.

Which he did achieve a few years ago when he published his first novel The Hambledown Dream. 

The Hambledown Dream was born out of a fascination I had (and still have) with the idea of reincarnation and the possibilities that throws up in terms of story telling. In the beginning I had this vision of a story that was predicated on the idea of what if a good and kind person, with the world at their feet and everything to live for was suddenly cut down. What if they had the chance to come back, but they came back in the body of a person who is duplicitous and mean? From there I played around with ideas of how to tie these two people together and very soon, the story evolved with the guitar and a romantic sub plot that became an important part of the whole.

Australian Denny Banister had it all; a successful career, a passion for the guitar, and Sonya - the love of his life. Tragically, Denny is struck down with inoperable cancer. Andy DeVries has almost nothing; alienated from his family, moving through a dangerous Chicago underworld dealing in drugs, battling addiction while keeping a wavering hold on the only thing that matters to him: a place at a prestigious conservatory for classical guitar in Chicago.

As Andy recovers from a near fatal overdose, he is plagued by dreams - memories of a love he has never felt, and a life he's never lived. Driven by the need for redemption any by the love for a woman he's never met, he begins a quest to find her, knowing her only by the memories of a stranger and the dreams of a place called Hambledown.

However when I met Dean he was still fresh from publishing his latest work, Gifts of the Peramangk. A wonderful novel I recently read and can say was an engageing and well written work. 

I wanted to tell an under dog story about an Aboriginal family living in modern day Australia. I wanted to explore the idea of a child prodigy, who lives in abject poverty, overcoming the odds and succeeding. I also wanted to understand Aboriginal history and the policies of the past which have deeply affected Aboriginal Australians today. It was a huge learning curve for me but I am so glad that I took the challenge.

As you've probably guessed, that prodigy is gifted at the violin, so I asked Dean if he too played an instrument.

I play piano - badly (laughs here) - and I am actually pretty handy with a piano accordian. I have a deep love of music, which has been influenced by my parents, so I wanted to explore music in the literary sense and make it a character in my novels.

In 1950s Australia, during the height of the divisive White Australia Policy, Virginia, a young Aboriginal girl is taken from her home and family and put to work on an isolated, outback station, in the cruelest of conditions. Her only solace: the violin, taught to her in secret by a kind-hearted white woman - the wife of the abusive station owner. However, Virginia's prodigious musical gift cannot save her from years of hardship, abuse, and racism.

Decades later, her eight year old granddaughter, Ruby, plays the violin with a passion Virginia once possessed. Amidst abject poverty, domestic violence and social dysfunction, Ruby escapes her circumstance through her practice, with her grandmother's frail, guiding hand. Ruby’s zeal attracts the attention of an enigmatic music professor, and with his help, Ruby embarks on an incredible journey of musical discovery that will culminate in a once in a life time chance for a brighter future. But with two cultural worlds colliding, her gift and her ambition will be threatened by deeply ingrained distrust, family jealousies and tragic secrets that will define her very identity.

Gifts of the Peramangk not only fictionally explores these themes engagingly, but with acuracy. Dean states he spent a lot of time on political research to shape his story with historial acuracy. 

Gifts of the Peramangk was a two and a half year project all told, though there were periods of time when I wasn't working on it at all. Half of that time was wholly devoted to research - studying the history of the White Australia Policy and case studies of the Stolen Generations. I also made a number of field trips to the Adelaide Hills, the University precinct on Adelaide's North Terrace and the Northern suburbs which feature heavily in the novel. And of course there was the musical elements - particularly the violin - which I was only casually acquainted with prior to the novel. I myself am not an Aboriginal Australian so I needed to really understand them as a people before I could commit them to the written page. I constantly worried about whether I was doing the right thing in terms of treating them with respect but I had a small group of very good people whom I discussed the project with as I was writing it - including Aboriginal Australians - and they were invaluable in their advice and their support.

The Hambledown Dream took a lot less time, due in part to the fantasy driven aspects of the novel which required more of my imagination rather than hard research. I think that project took around 18 months in total.

I asked Dean more about his first novel, The Hambledown Dream, and what personal influences he wrote in, he said,

Of my two published works, there is no doubt that Hambledown is the more personal and one can find a lot of me in it. In crafting the dual protagonists of Denny Banister and Andy DeVries, I drew upon myself, exploring the dark and light sides of myself and I attributed many characteristics to both characters. Even now, I kinda cringe when I read the novel because I really did pour a lot of my dark side into Andy - especially in the earlier chapters.

Currently Gifts of the Peramangk is on the rise. It's up for voting on the Good Reads list of best Modern Australian Literature and gaining more publicity by the day. I asked Dean where he was going to go from here.

Though I am taking some time off over the Christmas and New Year period, already I am working on some ideas for a new story which I hope to start in early 2013. So I guess a third novel is definitely an aspiration I have firmly bedded down.

Gifts of the Peramangk is a great read, I personally look forward to reading The Hambletown Dreamer, but if you're interested in Dean or any of his works, please look to the links below.

AUTHOR LINKS:
http://www.deanfromaustralia.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dean-Mayes-The-Hambledown-Dreamer/263088081779
http://www.twitter.com/Hambledown_Road
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3337737.Dean_Mayes
http://www.amazon.com/Dean-Mayes/e/B004795XX4