Day 3: Public Lecture by Anni Davey

Anni Davey's Public Lecture opened with a television screen showing a head and shoulders view of Anni. We were initially addressed by the screen. What follows are notes from the lecture with all the notes of Virtual Anni's talk in CAPITALS:

HI THERE, DO YOU LIKE IT? THIS IS MY BODY, MY NEW BODY, MY VIRTUAL BODY.

I'VE GIVEN UP THE OTHER ONE. IT WAS JUST GETTING TOO, YOU KNOW, OLD! OH YOU KNOW IT WOULDN'T DO.. STUFF.GETTING IT TO WARM UP WAS IMPOSSIBLE, IT KEPT COMPLAINING, SOMETHING ABOUT INJURIES.

ANYWAY, IT WAS BECOMING MORE AND MORE OBVIOUS THAT THE OLD BODY WAS JUST NOT GOING TO MAKE IT. SEE, I USED TO HAVE ALL THESE EXPECTATIONS OF MY BODY! YOU KNOW, I USED TO SAY STANDING BACK SOMERSAULT BY THE TIME I'M 30, AND THEN YOU PASS 30 SO I MODIFY THE AIM TO STANDING BACK BEFORE I'M 40 AND AS 40 APPROACHES YOU START TO THINK OF IT MORE AS AN ASSISTED STANDING BACK WITH VERY MINOR ASSISTANCE, "I HARDLY LIFTED YOU AT ALL!", OR AN ASSISTED STANDING BACK WHERE YOUR SPOTTER SAYS "NO THAT WAS GOOD, YOUR REALLY STARTING TO GET THE IDEA!" COZ LET'S FACE IT, IT'S IDEAS THAT COUNT IN PERFORMANCE.

ISN'T IT?

ANYONE CAN DO A SERIES OF TRICKS, WELL SOME PEOPLE CAN DO A SERIES OF TRICKS, BUT TO MAKE THAT SEQUENCE MEAN SOMETHING! TO LET THE AUDIENCE FEEL LIKE THEY'VE UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR OWN LIVES, THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO DO ISN'T IT?

THIS VIRTUAL BODY SUITS ME. IT IS COMFORTABLE. IT SERVES MY PURPOSES. IT HAS IT'S OWN AESTHETIC WHICH IS MMM ADEQUATE, IT IS MAINTAINED AT A CONSTANT TEMPERATURE SO ... I DON'T HAVE TO WEAR ANY CLOTHES!

NUDE AND VIRTUAL.

I'M THINKING OF MOVING INTO STUNT WORK. A KNIFE THROWING ACT MAYBE. OR SWORD THROUGH BOX! I DON'T FEEL DIFFERENT. I FEEL JUST THE SAME.

BUT I DO FIND MYSELF INEXPLICABLY CONTEMPLATING THE GREAT QUESTIONS of IDENTITY. IS IT JUST ME OR DOES EVERYONE FEEL THINGS LIKE THIS? IS IT JUST ME OR DOES EVERYONE THINK LIKE ...THIS? WHAT AM I DOING HERE? HOW AM I DOING? I SUPPOSE IT'S A SORT OF EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. EVERYONE ASKS THESE QUESTIONS DON'T THEY?

I MEAN, ISN'T THAT WHY WE GO TO THE THEATRE? TO SIT IN A DARKENED ROOM WITH STRANGERS AND WONDER ABOUT OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD. IS MY EXPERIENCE OF LIVING LIKE EVERYONE ELSES? ARE OTHER PEOPLES EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD SIMILAR TO MY OWN? AND WHEN WE COLLECTIVELY REALISE THAT WE HAVE ALL SHARED IN A MOMENT OF RECOGNITION, OF UNDERSTANDING, WELL THATS GOOD ISN'T IT.

IT'S INTERESTING THAT THE LAST TWO GREAT AGES OF CIRCUS HAVE BEEN AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY. AND WERE ALSO CONCURRENT WITH,

FIRST, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE 19TH CENTURY, WHERE THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY BEGAN TO MAKE THE BODY AS TOOL REDUNDANT.

AND NOW, THE 20TH CENTURY, AND THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION WHICH THREATENS THE BRAIN AS TOOL WITH REDUNDANCY. NOW IN THIS REVOLUTION OF I.T, THE PERVASIVE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE IS SEDENTARY AND MONOTONOUS.

MOST PEOPLE SIT DOWN MOST OF THE TIME. SO, PEOPLE COME TO THE CIRCUS, TO EXPERIENCE PHYSICALITY, AT LEAST VICARIOUSLY , AS A SUBSTITUTE. TO REMEMBER THEIR OWN BODIES. MAYBE THAT'S WHY JUGGLING IS SO UNPOPULAR THESE DAYS. BECAUSE THE ACQUIRED SKILL OF RAPID REPETITIVE MOVEMENTS REQUIRING A HIGH LEVEL OF HAND EYE COORDINATION IS A REGULAR PART OF A REGULAR LIFE. NOTHIN SPECIAL ABOUT THAT!

I WONDER WHAT IT IS WITH STILT WALKERS?

BUT PEOPLE STILL WANT IDEAS! THE GREAT QUESTIONS, AND THEY WANT TO BREATHE THAT COLLECTIVE SIGH OF RECOGNITION, AAHHH, WE UNDERSTAND, THAT AFFIRMING OF OUR EXPERIENCING OF THE WORLD AS NORMAL AND USUAL. WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. WE ARE NOT ALONE! YOU STILL WITH ME? HOW ARE YOU GOING?

SEE PEOPLE DON'T GO TO THE CIRCUS JUST TO BE ENTERTAINED. PEOPLE GO TO THE CIRCUS BECAUSE IT IS LIVE AND BECAUSE IT IS DANGEROUS. IN CIRCUS THERE IS A REAL POSSIBILITY THAT SOMEONE MIGHT FALL AND BREAK THEIR NECK . AND THIS IS WHY IT'S DIFFERENT FROM TELLY. YOU, AS WITNESSES, ARE IMPLICATED IN IT. AND IN CIRCUS, YOU ARE IMPLICATED AND CONFRONTED WITH NOTIONS OF RISK, RESPONSIBILITY AND CONSEQUENTLY, POSSIBLY, GUILT.

SO I'VE DISPENSED WITH THE CORPOREAL ME. NOW I'VE GOT THIS NEW ONE. THIS VIRTUAL ONE, THIS VISUAL PRESENTATION, OR REPRESENTATION OF MY BODY. IT'S AN EXPERIMENT IN THE VIRTUAL ACROBAT. NOW THAT THE BODY AND BRAIN ARE BECOMING REDUNDANT. I CAN BE AN ACROBAT AND I'LL NEVER HAVE TO WARM UP AGAIN SEE NOW, I CAN VIRTUALLY DO A BACK SOMERSAULT! LIKE THIS! Image of head on screen rotates.

WELL, YOU GET THE IDEA ANYWAY. AND I'M ONLY 37! SO DID ANYBODY GET A KINESTHETIC THRILL OUT OF THAT BACK SOMERSAULT? DID YOU GET A VERTIGO MOMENT? DID YOU FEEL A COLLECTIVE MOMENT OF RECOGNITION?

NAH, DIDN'T THINK SO. I THINK I'M A BIT AHEAD OF MY TIME. I MIGHT GO BACK TO THE OLD BODY. AT LEAST IT'S LIVE, NOT PRE-RECORDED.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH I HAVE GIVEN UP, FOR YOU.

Thank you, this is my new body which I am seriously planning to give up one of these days. I'm currently training up in preparation for a rehearsal period with Circus Oz and my arms hurt. I want to talk about a number of things:

Quality, because no one seems to mention it in these contexts,

Globalisation and the tyrannical imperative to tour,

Frame,

The primacy of the performer,

Utopia globalisation,

- I wrote, when I was in Santorini at this conference on globalisation:

"There is a responsibility to fight for the maintenance of local content regulations but there is also a growing need to establish new frameworks of exhibition through new technologies"

But I think that I'm not really interested anymore. I'm not much into incorporating video technology into performance, although I want to.... but I think my new body explained why I don't think it's entirely satisfactory.

New Technology is a tool, it is administrative, it's marketing, it's not ART. This new push toward Globalisation suits Circus. Our artform is popular, transcends language and cultural boundaries through it's physicality. It presents within a number of frames, and this is because it naturally subverts a frame.

A Circus in a theatre is still a circus but the theatre becomes something else for a moment, or a night. Along with this emphasis on exporting our own cultural product, ie showing off, we should also be concentrating on creating environments that nurture our culture, and appropriate frames that display our culture. We continue to create frames for which the appropriate displays are of the american monoculture.

You go to Turkey where they have recently and voraciously adopted western attitudes, and there are all these large entertainment centres, and magazines style telly shows, and a papparrazzi hungry for gossip. But they don't have that stuff. There's all these frames but no content to put into them.

Frame: I believe that circus and physical theatre are so popular these days for a number of reasons besides just that our lives are sedentary and monotonous. It is a theatre that maybe because of it's roots in Gypsy traditions and then it's street foundations, it's capacity to transcend a whole lot of limitations of space, is able to adapt to and or subvert, manipulate and pervert the frame in which it finds itself. A circus in a theatre building is a subversion of that theatre. A circus can belong on a wall, on the street, in a house under a tree in a park on a beach. It is eminently tourable in this era of globalisation but as Barry Kosky says I'll get onto that when i talk about Touring.

Circus as a theatre usually contains multiple narratives and by narratives I mean..... the act act act variety, the multiple levels on which circus performance works with iits concurrent notions of risk and responsibility, it's aesthetic it's skill, it's stories, its kinesthetic and visceral communication.etc and this is how we increasingly experience our lives. A horizontal rather than linear outlook. We look across a whole lot of plains we can see a whole lot of things at the same time. We understand a whole lot of things at the same time. The other thing we can do is Infiltrate and pervert the frames. Do the entertainment centres, take all the seats out and charge $10 a ticket.

And we must also talk about the audience, what they expect, what they want, what they don't know they want. Where they want to experience things, why they want to see us doing it, what they are going to experience, and how they will feel after it. We must lead. And carefully. Yes, shock, confront, pervert, but land them softly. An audience is a vulnerable thing and a damaged audience will not come back. Globalisation is problematic for culture, and particulary local cultures. We need to create appropriate frames for our art. In order to nurture a specific and unique Aust, or Inuit or Maori or Papuan or etc we need to identify and provide appropriate frames. Moment of watching Homelands and hearing first the person in the car going,' fuckin hell look. and the next car, a woman saying, 'I think they're actors'.

I think they're acting! That's good! She got it! That theatre is not contained in buildings. She recognised theatre in a completely non traditional environment and form. That's good. People are starting to know, and recognise.

The tyrannical imperitave to tour: I don't know if it is the encroaching globalisation which has created an expectation, an imperative, to tour. All small to medium sized circus and physical theatre companies tour these days. Is that because we really are inherently itinerant? Stimulation vs insulation. Some people don't like touring. Some people are sick of it, or have children, or hate flying, or find enough stImulation around them.

Quality: Don't demonstrate! demonstration is not art. Circus is an art, it is not a demonstration sport. We all know what's good but it's harder to understand how to be good. We are all interested in meaning and we must not be afraid of meaning a very many things. The inherent nature or meaning of the trick. Teasing out multiple meanings. Never ever take yourself too seriously. Some people are natural performers, they have something, a charisma, an unquenchable urge to show off and a sensitivity to the three primary relationships in the theatre or in the ring. These are:

- their audience,

- the other performers on stage,

- and the space around them, particularly important in circus where the space includes the air.

You can teach someone who is not a natural performer to perform. You can teach a natural performer to be a better performer. Apply yourself to enormous discipline and methodology, practice practice practice.

Primacy of the performer: The organisers of the Olympic Games didn't deliver the "best olympics". The organisers stumbled along, alienating and infuriating everyone, through one disaster after another. The ticketing disaster, the accusations of elitism, the structures that they put in place worked in spite of their flaws. It was only when the athletes, the performers came along that the games actually became great.

The art is what makes this business! So, I'd like to leave you with my idea of Utopia:

It is a world where artists and performers are regarded universally with enormous respect.

IT IS A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE THINK OF ART IN THE SAME WAY THAT THEY THINK OF FOOD. IT IS NECESSARY.

It is a theatre industry where reducing the number of performers is not the first and simplest way to ease a tight budget.

Where it is unthinkable that you would reduce your most precious resource, the artists.

It is a circus industry where companies strive to provide the best environment for creating and producing work that they know how, and where the performers accept that gift and use it wisely and well.

That is our responsibility!

And I hope that I, and you all too, continue to take that responsibility very seriously, and that you as an audience will benefit from and appreciate our work.

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This project has been assisted by the Federal Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.