Live To Win

The air in Sydney is like a glass; clear and full of water it holds you in a crisp commercial embrace, primary colour opinions smiling inside marble television studios It’s dirty and rotten in glimpses As only a big city can be; gaps in construction facades like missing teeth puffs of smoke from the cracks in the concrete ciggie butts chucked under a bush. In Sydney, even the homeless are assertive not content to be swept into a corner they have made a camp on Martin place a free kitchen, library and beds for all who can brave the curious stares of uniformed school excursions. I’m in favour of the noise and the hustle Existentially wandering through the crowds I love people who don’t care Who you are or what you are doing there This of course is rare in small towns with the population of an extended family Christmas gathering there people notice you without looking an...

Recently after seeing a circus show, I was talking to a friend in the forecourt of the Victorian Arts Centre. It had been a warm day and as the chill of the night approached, the warm concrete exhaled a last breath for the shiny jacketed arts patrons clutching glasses of white wine. My friend is a respected sound designer who works for many of Melbourne’s foremost contemporary dance companies. Speaking about the show we’d just seen, he said to me with a look of slight concern ‘I just don’t understand circus. Like, what am I looking at? How do I read it?’ I answered with a joke, but I was struck by the simplicity of his question and the significance of why he was asking it. It speaks to the deeper issue of an identity crisis for Australian circus, which is aching to be taken seriously as an art form, yet struggles to define or justify itself before the self-appointed ‘gatekeepers’ of culture on funding boards, festivals and awards panels. I think that this crisis can be viewed and...

About 5 years ago a climbing magazine fell open in front of me. In bold, exciting type the article’s headline read “Deep Water Soloing – Vietnam’s Dangerous New Adventure!” The picture showed a lithe and muscular climber ascending a face of pitted rock overlooking a sparkling and iridescent tropical landscape. Remarkably, the climber was wearing neither harness nor gear – and there was no rope in sight. Being of mild mannered nature and not prone to taking risks I was instantly intrigued. Soloing, I learnt, refers to the practice of climbing rock faces without the aid of ropes or other protection. Deep Water soloing involves doing so on cliffs that sit over large channels of water deep enough to leap into from great heights. Thus the climber can solo a wall until they fall or decide to jump off. This image stayed with me even as other interests and adventures took place – purposely being so exposed and precariously balanced within nature, driven by the need to challenge and exp...

In 2013 I undertook an Honors year in Theatre and Performance at Monash University. I wanted to understand how magic works, and why we can be so easily fooled by the psychological manipulations of a clever performer. My underlying theory is that reality is a fluid, nebulous concept that is shaped and distorted by those with the power to do so, in order to promote their vested interests. In this way the magician seeking to create an experience of true wonder, is like the politicians, media moguls and those who promote the interests of rampant capitalism - creating an unique reality that backs up their actions. 

Next to my friends' house in Kensington was an old abandoned home, faded and cracked weatherboard, with holes in the deck and fallen timbers cluttering the doorway. One night while we were partying, I slipped under the construction fence with some mates and took a look inside. Almost as soon as we'd entered the house, one of my friends wanted to leave - the energy didn't feel good she said. It felt like there was a old, angry force pushing her out. She left, but me and Ben felt good. It felt warm and dusty and cluttered, like there had been someone living here, growing old, collecting their cloak of darkness around them and their belongings; waiting. There was a large workshop attached to the house on one side of the main hallway, full of hand tools and bolts, all stored in that classic shed fashion of carefully marked containers fashioned out of old fruit tins and plastic cartons. Perhaps it had been a man, alone, dieing slowly who lived here. We felt safe, welcomed, resp...

--> A number of conversations and events have influenced me greatly in the last few months. My friend was harassed twice while on her way home - on streets that I walk every day. One man attempted to pull her into a car. Another time two guys followed her on bicycles taunting and provoking her. Talking about this with my girlfriend I must admit that I was stunned when she told me that on a weekly basis she is verbally harassed and whistled at from passing cars while walking home – again along a street that I use every day without problem. (Here by harassment I mean the type of behaviour by men towards women that demeans their person, and reduces them to an object of that man’s desire – be it via a wolf whistle, calling her a slut, or by using physical force i.e. dragging her into a car.) Thinking about the harassment experienced by women on a regular basis in my neighbourhood caused me to reflect on the nature of gendered space in society. Whereas a man like me walks...