As I ride the rails to Gosford, on my way to NAISDA as the appointed director of this year’s End Of Year Show (EOYS) I am thinking of the recent departure of one of my significant long time friend and mentor in Wonnarua countryman Garry Lester. This is the bonus of working at a place like NAISDA, once you enter the premises, wherever it may reside, you never truly leave. Or perhaps you leave a part of yourself. Tethered might not be the correct term, but you definitely become kin.
Not an alum of NAISDA per se, Lester’s NAISDA roots were seeded as a young company member of the independent Sydney based company One Extra. Under the direction of founder Kai Tai Chan, Garry crossed paths with some of our other major Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heroes such as Richard Talonga, Jimmy Gagai and Russell Page.
Garry was one of, or if not, the first Aboriginal person to gain a Doctoral degree in dance and would go on to act as course coordinator and contemporary teacher for Australia’s premier Indigenous performing arts academy in NAISDA.
Mr Lester had a discerning eye, often catching the weaknesses and inaccuracies in my works and despite my ego being dealt a temporary blow, I was always grateful for his input, even if it was ofttimes acknowledged in hindsight.
There was a time where we chatted daily and I naively thought I was the only person to whom he shared such communication. However, at his memorial held at Critical Path, it was revealed that he conducted similar interactions with a bevy of artists.
Moreover, the point of this blog is not only to remember the life and passing of one unsung inspiration to many, but to encourage the dance sector to refocus our commitment to all the artists who have shaped the current dance landscape. Kai Tai Chan said what was at the forefront of all of our minds when he spoke at Garry Lester’s memorial celebration stating that he wished Garry could’ve been present to hear all of the overwhelmingly positive sentiments.
The buzzword of the day in arts circles is intergenerational. The challenge is to make this sentiment more than just an empty platitude. I was happy to hear from Karen Kerkhoven, a contemporary of Lester’s, that she was recently engaged in a project, as performer with choreographer Kristina Chan, on the NSW Central Coast titled Dance as Language. This prompted my most memorable experience of this year’s Sydney Festival which involved Modern dance doyen Nannette Hassal. Sue Healey’s On View series, featured Hassal in a whimsical woven progression towards the camera, along a colonnade. The colonnade promenade was followed by topographic images of Hassal conducting a seamless descent into the ground, which was replicated and repeated to impressive kaleidoscopic effect, from a series of never ending, not quite ovoid stairwells.
In this respect my current engagement with NAISDA as artistic director of the EOYS represents a similar intergenerational fulfillment as I was hired to fashion one overarching theme encapsulating the choreographies of two former students of mine in Henrietta Baird and Glory Tuohy-Daniell. The joy of this process remains in the often ad hoc conversations regarding the dramaturgy of their pieces. Held around the kitchen table, I try to get into their mindset whilst they simultaneously ask for my advice. This was how the title for the current show the trees have voices, the feet have ears came to mind, from Tuohy-Daniell’s expression of the personal impact the state of the environment has upon her and from Baird’s expression of man’s impact on the environment. Baird’s subsequent integration of the title into her work is a testament to the cohesive nature of our kitchen table interactions.
Lastly I’d like to leave you with a poem I read in dedication to my dear friend-
Wonnarua man with a wit full of hard edges quick as a blade and as deep as a plunger with a long handle it could cut that deep
And did
Wonnarua man land owner and not enough cash to rub two cents of which he commonly had no common
Did I tell you about the time he bought a seven kilo jar of red pickled cabbages?
Because they were on sale in the back of a store, the jar was hefty and he thought he was being nifty, thrifty even
And down the sink they eventually sailed, pushed through the grating to clog the pipes
Wonnarua man so much knowledge of nicks and gnats, of this and that, of gob shite and patter it just tumbled forth from everywhere and when and as if from nowhere all at once
Wonnarua man my biggest champion, one time best friend, sounding board and confidante, my nemesis and mirror
Wonnarua man lover of dogs more than people
Wonnarua man dancer on boards and on paper and down telephone lines
All hours of the night and day
I miss you all hours of the night and day
You were the knight of nights
And I was the daylight screaming through windows
So loud and so gauche
Both of us mate
You can’t deny it
Now
Wonnarua man a complex mess
You were loved in unconventional ways
And will sit in the best most creative inducing part of our memories
(To Garry Lester from Vicki)
Vicki Van Hout
FORM Dance Projects
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