break/s beyond the ballot performance at Walker Art Center

Hopkins Center, Dartmouth

Catching the bus from Boston to Hanover was a little tricky because with the two big boxes of screens, it was more luggage than we could carry, although we had Maggie to help us. We got a porter at the transport terminal, and caught the bus. I liked the bus, you could see more.

Dartmouth College one of the Ivy League Universities and it dominates the town of Hanover. The buildings are beautiful, set around a village square, and the facilities lavish. The film Animal House was shot here, and people tell me that there is a drinking yahoo culture here but unfortunately all I met seemed staid. Our hotel was owned by the University and situated on the square; comfortable with elements like the fittings slightly old fashioned, due to university heritage restrictions, but nice.

During our stay there was a beautiful fall of snow one morning. I was able to get out in it. It was so exciting, although the locals rolled their eyes at my ecstatic comments and said, “When’s spring coming, it’s been snowing since November, we are so over snow.”

The Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College was our host. Margaret Lawrence, the program director, had seen Shadows in Adelaide in 2002, and she had been keen to get the piece over since then. They have quite an extensive performance program.

We were here the best part of a week and Colin and I had a program of talks and workshops for students, both school and university. Sometimes we were separate and sometimes together. We talked to medical students and Native American students; I talked to several groups of photographic students. At one of these talks one of the students from an advanced group said, “I’ve seen your website and there is a lot of raunchy gay photos there, why didn’t you show more of them.” I explained that I’d put the shows together for school children and it was conservative, but I took his advice and included more. Certainly for the gay and lesbian group who hosted a talk. I always fantasize that there will be spunky students at my talk who will become groupies. But there were none, although the talk went well.

Our best gig was at the house of a professor, Susan. The university provided her with a very nice house on campus (the position was rotated every two years), and she was sort of mother to a block or cluster of students. She often provided entertainment and socialization for them. At this event a take out Thai dinner was served to about 20 students and friends in her living room, a very cozy setting. Colin played, and I did a talk about my Chinese origins/family. Colin told me the Taiwanese girl next to him gave deep, guttural sighs of recognition during the talk where she had obviously connected in some way.

I had a connection with the Hood Museum, which is also part of the University. They had a very good collection, the main piece was five magnificent Assyrian stone reliefs, similar to ones in the British Museum but in excellent condition. Their current exhibition had a decidedly contemporary tone and it was about depictions of black women.

The director, Brian Kennedy, I knew from the time he was director of ANG in Canberra, and he had invited me to give a public lecture at the Hood Museum. This went very well. I inserted some of my “raunchy gay photos” which seemed to go over well. In this context, the gay content was seen in educational terms, not commercial terms (of how many people would this attract). I have been giving the generic talk at various places along the tour and I had more or less perfected it here.

Brian hosted a dinner of about 20 Hood alumni and friends after the lecture. Everyone was well educated and socially adept. Brian was a charming host, who led the conversation. The dinner was held at the hotel.

Previously Brian had taken me to lunch where he ate boar sausages and told me that hunting wild creatures is big in New Hampshire, and they have a state motto, “Live free or die.” After lunch he pointed out some interesting things on campus including an Orozco mural in the library which was commissioned in the thirties and which had caused a controversy. The facilities were immaculate and I heard that classes of only eight students are not unusual.

Emily from MAPP visited and took us to lunch. She had brought her parents from a nearby town to see the show. We were delighted to meet her as we had had a year-long email correspondence but had not met face to face.

All the extra curricular activity helped build an audience of 250+ for the one performance at Spalding Theatre. The theatre capacity was 700 but that was a good enough number to play to. The theatre had been built for music concerts so the sound system and acoustics were excellent. I was in good voice (the cold I was coming down with in Chicago had not developed) and Colin was pleased with his playing. It was perhaps the best performance we did. We got a standing ovation at the end from sections of the audience. In other places patches of people had stood up but this was the first time en masse. About 60 people stayed for the question and answer after the performance, which was a good number, said Margaret, who led the discussion. She knew practically every one in the audience, it was that kind of community.

Margaret took us to supper after the show; there was a late night place, the Canoe Club, which served nice hamburgers, with the meat cooked rare. We all agreed the week had gone extremely well.

We caught the plane at Lebanon, a nearby town, for New York and beyond, Colin and Gordon returned back to Sydney and I went to Los Angeles to visit my sister. We thought because it was a remote area the security would be relaxed. No such luck, they singled us out as irregular. They went though every bag of mine, all of Colin’s instruments, and they took Gordon behind a screen to check out his hunch. I was irregular because I was the only non-Caucasian on the flight, Colin had irregular instruments and Gordon was an irregular shape. The only other person who was searched was a person who had his leg in plaster from a skiing accident.

I did enjoy flying out over the snowy landscape.

Boston, ICA/CRASHarts

We arrived in Boston after the early flight from Chicago (where the van didn’t meet us at 4.30am.) We solved that by getting two taxis and that seemed to work okay. Boston is a 3 hours flight from Chicago and we went immediately to the theatre. It was called the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theatre and was situated at the new Institute of Contemporary Art building. Just one year old, the building is sited on the old waterfront. It looks quite isolated set in a parking lot, but there is future development planned for the site. The building itself is very nice, modern, full of views to the bay and the water, which some have said were distracting to the art, but I didn’t find that so. I liked their permanent collection, though not so much the temporary exhibition from the Tate Modern. It lacked guts.

The theatre was spanking new and the crew were terrific. Maggie, our contact there was helpful, the sort of person who would ring up to see if the restaurant she’d recommended was open. David Henry, the Director of Programs was extremely nice, and a down to earth person. He had seen the piece at Under the Radar in New York two years ago. He’d told a friend to see the show in Chicago and the friend had said they loved the show especially the music, to which David replied, “Was there music? I don’t remember any.” He told this to Colin in a kind of artless, straightforward way, which I found most amusing, although I don’t think Colin did.

The presentation was a partnership between ICA, who provided the venue and the production team, and CRASHarts, who did the marketing. They did occasional collaborations and CRASHarts presented programmes at other venues, mainly dance. I never met Maure Aronson, their director. He came to the show on the opening night, liked it, but had to rush off to another production. I thought it was a bit odd but David explained he didn’t always socialize with the artists.

The shows went very well, although it was quite odd performing on Good Friday, which isn’t even a holiday here and neither is Easter Monday. We got 84 on Friday and 113 on Saturday. They really liked it and most stayed for the question and answer. The standard of questions was high and there were black American people in the audience who asked questions which was really good for me. One of them said he thought Shadows should be taught in schools. There’s always a lot of interest in Colin’s instrument, the Great Island Mouth Bow, and David heard the music the second time around.

Later David told me that although they have a great building, they don’t have an endowment and they are struggling to put on performance pieces.  They are still building up an audience. That said, he seemed amenable to having me back.

I talked to some students (4), they were students of photography. They were okay, although I struggled to comment on the work the teacher brought in to show me.

Nicholas Baume, the curator from MCA Sydney ten years ago, is senior curator here. I knew Nicholas in Sydney and he had commissioned a performance piece by me at the MCA when he was there. He took me to lunch, and after the show we went out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant with a group of his gay friends whom he’d brought to the show. They were all quite erudite and had liked Shadows. Keith, the expert in Japanese literature had liked the tonality of the spoken word, which is a change from Australian critics saying it’s a monotone. (Actually the piece itself has improved with age and we are performing it better than ever before.) I enjoyed being with gay people. We drank Australian shiraz, which they pronounce “sherrah”.

On another night we went out with David to a restaurant, the Barking Crab, nice atmosphere. Boston is a fishy town, it’s on the sea, and we were staying in the area of the old fish markets. One shop had huge prehistoric live lobsters which came from Maine. I ate fish at every meal. We also ate at another cheaper restaurant, No Name, which had a set menu of more fish. They had Blue fish, a heavy, dark, oily fish, swordfish, salmon and a generic white fish called scrott or something. You could get them all on a platter, swordfish was the pick.

I enjoyed seeing seals swimming in the tank outside the aquarium. They were local harbour seals, unlike any other seals I had seen, shaped like a torpedo and they swam upside down.

We went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum which David had mentioned. It was the highlight of the trip. Isabella Gardner was a rich Bostonian who collected mostly European art – the old masters – Botticelli, Titian, Piero Della Francesca and wonderful Rembrandts, but also small pieces which were displayed in glass cupboards, and a collection of letters from famous people. There was something of a personal touch to each object. The four storied building was built around a beautiful garden, which with its geometric symmetry, obelisks and the arched colonnade in the background had something of an Islamic feel to it, reminding me of the famous Court of the Lions at the Alhambra in Spain. Although you weren’t allowed to walk through it, sitting by the garden and looking at it from the various floors was enchanting. She lived there too, on the fourth floor, and it had the intimacy of a home. Moreover it was famous for the biggest art theft in the USA. Five paintings were stolen in 1990 including a Vermeer (yes they actually had one, one of only 35 in existence), and the paintings have never been recovered. They were indicated by empty frames on the walls, as Isabella stipulated that the museum not be changed when she died in 1924. Oh and there was a wonderful café, very small, but it served old fashioned dishes which tasted home made. I had a wonderful apple crumble. Sorry, no pictures, as they weren’t allowed, but I’ve reproduced a postcard of the court.

So we liked Boston, even though there was a icy wind blowing the whole time, just another variation of cold.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Our first days in Chicago were rushed as we came straight off the plane to the theatre. One case was lost but found again at the airport: it had fallen off the conveyor belt and fallen behind a curtain. Our hotel rooms were not available so Colin and I spent our waiting time at the Museum of Contemporary Art dressing rooms, which was fine, as I worked on my computer which was what I would have done at the hotel room.

The Chicago MCA is a non profit and educational institution. Like the Walker they have a strong performance art program showing, performance, music, theatre, dance and media arts. They feature experimental and emerging artists as well as established artists. Certainly in the USA, museums show quite a lot of performance which can be as mainstream as Merce Cunningham, and which contrasts strongly with Australian museums which shows very little, and is left up to commercial theatres or festivals to show. I think this museum audience, which doesn’t even exist in Australia, come along not expecting traditional forms.

Publicity had been good. Three articles. We got about 70 people the first night and 48 the second. Certainly not a disaster, but disappointing, since this was our biggest city. Sometimes it’s possible for me to fall through the cracks of a larger city where there is more going on. The people who came certainly enjoyed it and the discussion after the show was very positive.

Ann Rosenthal, our presenter from MAPP, had come over to show us some support, and it was great having her there. She took us to an excellent lunch at the CMCA restaurant. And Peter took us to an excellent dinner after the show at the restaurant at our hotel. Peter told me he liked the show.

Also present at dinner was my third cousin Shauna Quill who works at Chicago University in the music department, programming. Once she had been the booking agent for Pavarotti, ie not his actual agent but the person who booked the USA tour. She said Pavarotti was the easiest act she ever booked because no one argued the bookings. As Shauna told this story Ann’s face clouded slightly, as I know the tour of Shadows has been the opposite: she’s had to work really hard to make it happen. We do appreciate your effort and accomplishments, Ann.

Our extra curricular activity included a talk by me at Little Black Pearl Center, which is a large, impressive, community centre mostly for young people in a poor suburb. Although there was only a few people from the centre, a handful of loyal supporters who had seen the show a few nights before came along, and we were able to have an intimate discussion, about life, as it turned out. My cousin Shauna showed up and I went to have dinner with her so I missed Colin’s performance. He had a slot as part of a regular jazz evening at the centre, which was well attended, and went well.

Heidi, the art coordinator at Little Black Pearl took us under her wing, and the following night took Gordon and Colin to a jazz club. I had come down with a cold and was lying low, also I had a big article to write for Kunsten Festival. However I went with them the following day when she took us out for the afternoon, showing us around developing areas in West Chicago. She was extremely communally minded and knew the changing sociologies of the neighbourhoods. She showed us some interesting places, including a conservatory where she had worked, so it was nice to walk around in the hot atmosphere, and a good Mexican restaurant. We explained that Mexican restaurants in Australia were awful.

We didn’t get back until late, and so I missed seeing the collection at the MCA, which I wanted to see, so symbolically the MCA and I missed each other. This was born out at 4.30am the following morning when we were waiting for a van outside our hotel to catch the plane to Boston. The van didn’t arrive, they had booked it for 4.30PM.

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

The flight from Cedar Rapids via Chicago to Minneapolis was extremely frustrating. Firstly the woman at the check in told us the flight had been cancelled and there was no way of rescheduling us on later flights till the next day. There followed a heated conversation about whose responsibility it was with Gordon and Colin and the woman, and the manager was brought in. Finally after 15 minutes, it was discovered the woman had keyed in the wrong flight. The flight was late anyway and we worried about whether we would catch the connecting flight to Minneapolis. We prepared to do a sprint as Chicago’s airport is huge, but we had a break in that the departure lounge was close to our entry into the airport and the pilots from Cedar Rapids were the same pilots to fly the plane to Minneapolis, we didn’t know this. However the bags did not make it on to the flight. In Minneapolis they were located on a later flight and were delivered to the hotel.

We had braced ourselves for the cold weather as Minneapolis was considered our coldest destination, but it was warm. So warm that the snow began to melt. This caused pools to form in low lying footpaths, and the ground to turn boggy and mushy. The snow which had so seduced me with its brilliance and dazzlingly beauty now showed its other side, it could be slippery, sludgy and unattractive. I am not however complaining about the warmer weather.

The Walker Art Center has a tradition of strongly supporting the performing arts. I brought Sadness here in 1994, and Colin had performed here in 1986. Besides having a very good collection of contemporary art, it had several theatres which were extremely well crewed. There was a friendly, supportive feeling about the place. We set up in record time.

The two shows went very well, about 140 each night. One night there was a reception with Minnesota International Center at the theatre. They were supportive of the Walker; while not specifically giving money to my show, they had arranged a group to come. Colin and I did chat with them for quite a long time, and the feedback was positive. I chatted with some black Americans who like the issues in Shadows and they said the racism issue has not been properly addressed in America. They were a sophisticated audience, and like most Americans they like to give their opinions. Fortunately they liked the show. On another night there was a question and answer after the show with the same response. On that night, Philip Bither, the senior curator, took us to dinner at the 20/21 restaurant where we had a fabulous meal. Philip had seen Shadows at Under The Radar two years before and especially liked the new ending.

Our extra curricular activity was an event at Two Rivers Gallery, Insiders Looking Out: An Evening of Native Performance. The event had been organised by Allison Herrera and Michele Steinwald of the Walker, and the performers curated by Marcie Rendon, an artist herself. It was supposed to be a potluck but it was catered, and the menu was fried bread with a buffalo burger and rice salad. The desert was a sort of stewed berries with an artificial whipped cream.

The event was important to Walker Education as it was one of their first encounters with Native America. Colin and I performed as well; Colin played his eagle feather flute, his small conch shell, and a variety of flutes. I gave a slide show of my family history and current activities as an artist in Sydney. I worried how I should present my gay life, as I wanted to mention it, and decided on a vanilla version. However later in the evening another performer, Kristopher Kohl Miner, gave a flamboyant, Judy Garland referencing, totally over the top Kamp monologue, spiced with strong language and a sense of the melodramatic, where he told a story about going to a Native American wedding and at the end of the night ended up having sex with the groom, although the incident ended in tears. It went over really well. I thought – And I worried about saying I was gay.

Other performers included Sarah Agaton Howes, a poet, young, funky and of a very high standard, I thought; Mark Erickson, a traditional singer with a frame drum; Dorothy Lerma, a dancer; and Raphael Syzkowski, a singer in the style of Arlo Guthrie, who sang humorous songs of the outsider in society. It was all very enjoyable.

We had lunch with Marcie the following day and her I heard her story, how she had escaped from the reservation thirty years ago, with two young children and one on the way. She knew if she stayed she would succumb to a life of drinking. She taught at a school for Native Americans in Minneapolis and developed her skill as a writer. I liked her calm manner, one sensed she had survived a lot. She brought her two grandchildren to see Shadows and she told me the aboriginal story could easily have been a Native American story.

Minneapolis Welcome

William Yang, Colin Offord and Gordon Rymer are now in Minneapolis getting ready for the performances of Shadows at the Walker Art Center in the McGuire Theater.

On Monday, March 10th at the Two Rivers Gallery, the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org sponsored an event with artists Marcie Rendon, Sarah Agaton Howes, Raphael Szykowski, Kristopher Kohl Miner, Mark Erickson, and Dorothy Lerma for an evening of performance, music, and poetry to welcome William Yang and Colin Offord. Below is a link to a video from the event:

http://blogs.walkerart.org/offcenter/2008/03/11/yang-shadows/

Cedar Rapids, IA

Cedar Rapids is in Iowa state, west of Chicago. It could be termed the Midwest, it’s rural, called the food bowl of USA, mainly grain. It’s situated on the Cedar River, although the rapids disappeared since the building of the dam, and the river was lightly frozen. The population is 200,000, and it’s semi industrial, a huge factory making cornstarch dominates the city with its smoky towers. Cedar Rapids favourite son is Grant Woods who painted American Gothic, which is in the Chicago Museum, however the attractive local gallery is full of Grant Woods and other regional painters like Marvin D. Cone. We loved the snow. It was a novelty, though it was cold. Colin came down with a virus.

Our presenters, Mel Andringa and John Herbert of Legion Arts, have been in the district for twelve years. They came from New York where they were involved in the art scene, Mel is a performer and artist himself, and they took over the venue CSPS (Czech Slovac Protection Society), a huge Czech meeting hall with a proscenium arch stage which they converted into a theatre and exhibition space.

Simply put, Mel and John are interested in presenting things that no one else is presenting.

It’s small town, with a strong community. We had several community gatherings with artists, photographers, and the Iowa Asian Alliance. Colin and I did talks at three schools/colleges. Mel was disappointed the local paper, The Gazette, didn’t run more of a story about us, but he said they were very parochial and really only featured local artists.

John had seen “Shadows” at Under the Radar Festival in New York two years ago, still they had to be persuaded by Ann of MAPP to take the show, as they realized the difficulty in promoting the show and the cost involved.

We did two performances. The auditorium held 50. We were more than half full the first night and the second we had to put out extra chairs. In hindsight Mel and John were sorry they didn’t run it three nights. The show had a big impact on the community, five people came twice. Everyone stayed for the discussions after the show. It resonated with the complex history of the Native American tribes (Sac and Meskwaki) of Iowa. We agreed the show was a big success.

Touring Shadows, Maryland

I, Colin, my musician, and Gordon, my stage manager, arrive at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre, Maryland University. The Centre is about ten years old and houses schools of music, theatre and dance. Music is the biggest in size and dance the smallest.Our main contact was Lynnie Raybuck, the Community Engagement manager. Lynnie and Ruth Waalkes, the director of Cultural Participation had seen Shadows when we performed at the Under The Radar festival in New York two years ago and they were both keen to bring the show to Marylands. Cultural Participation is a department whose mission is to “transform lives through sustained engagement with the Arts.” Something like 25 artists were invited to the university each year, mainly musicians, with some of the invitees coming from abroad. The program regarded the impact and benefit to the community as more important than ticket sales. They had a system of donors to finance the program, and many of the donors were actively engaged with the centre.We did three shows. The audience was small for the first, but built to large for the third. There were discussion groups after two of the performances and the piece was extremely well received.

Ash Dargan, the digeridoo player, visited backstage after the show. He had spoken at a discussion session, Cultural Faultlines.

The new ending quoting from the Prime Ministers apology worked well and moved the expat Australians. Below is an email I received from Beatrice Gralton, Cultural Relations Project Manager, Embassy of Australia, Washington.

I’ve just returned home to my little basement apartment here in Washington D.C. and am reflecting on your performance this evening of Shadows. I wanted to convey to you how valuable I feel the work is that you are doing. It succeeds on so many levels; visually beautiful, compelling and poignant. It is brave to discuss issues that for such a long time people have not wanted to discuss. You do this is a manner which is poetic, yet matter-of-fact.

It was strange to be in America for Sorry Day. I ached for home that day. I was glued to the computer, watching the live-stream and for the first timein ages I felt proud to be an Australian. Your work brought that feelingback again. It’s a new time for us all, and like you said, the work has a new ending. It must have been wonderful to have made those additions.

By and large the show went extremely well here at Marylands. The presenters, Lynnie, especially, who had invested quite a lot in the project, were happy. I also gave a slide show to members of the Greenbelt community of Maryland.

Greenbelts were constructed in many part of the USA in the depression as a New Deal providing labour and housing for the people. They were idealistic in their aims. This one had friezes with captions, “We the People,” “Promote the General Welfare,” and “To Form a More Perfect Union.” Several Greenbelts remain today and still function as a community. The Marylands one was thesize of a small suburb and was big enough to have a Recreational Arts Program group and a Greenbelt Gay and Lesbian Pride Group which hosted my talk. Interesting place.

On our day off we visited the Washington Mall, the National Art Gallery, which had a smallish, well chosen collection which was excellently presented, and the Museum of American Indians, part of about half a dozen Smithsonian Institute galleries, all free. Impressive.

The low point was the night I parked our hire car in a restricted car park. How were we supposed to know? The signage was tiny. The car was towed away. It¹s all a scam by towing companies and we had to pay $150 to the company to get it back, besides having to stand in the cold night for hours. Oh and we
all had bad jet lag as well.