Conversation with Australian interdisciplinary artist Lux Eterna about her multichannel dance video The 8th Day, in development as part of the 2022 March Dance. We talk about: relational co-emergence, land inspired sensitivity, desert mothers, hybrid dance, cultural interchange, embodied gaze, haptic visuality, and more.
Aired on Eastside Radio on 14 March 2022, as part of 'Arts Monday: Sympoiesis'.
TRANSCRIPT
IF: Welcome to Arts Monday: Sympoiesis on Eastside Radio 89.7 FM. This program takes place on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land and I pay my respect to the elders past, present, and yet to come. I'm joined in the studio this morning, by artist Lux Eterna. She is about to take part in the March Dance Festival, developing a multi-channel dance video work The 8th Day, which is rooted in land inspired sensitivity and explores the ideas of embodied gaze and haptic visuality, and will go in details of all that in just a few minutes. Good morning, Lux. Thank you for joining us this morning.
LE: Good morning Ira, thank you for having me on the show and thank you to all the listeners tuning in as well.
IF: How’s your morning so far? And what's the beginning of the day usually like for you?
LE: Well, I'm not working today, so it's a real pleasure to come in and be here and have a chat and listen to great music. And I've allocated time until this show ends to move at that pace. So it's lovely.
IF: Are you an early riser, normally? Is morning the time when you function the best?
LE: I wouldn't say the best, but it's definitely more left brain, organizational, that kind of stuff. I'm able to charge through administrative tasks, and sometimes I use the mornings for really stewing my life decisions and choices. And yeah, there's a little bit of dreaming that happens in the morning as well.
IF: Do you dream literally as well? Do you hold dream diaries?
LE: I do. I'm a big dreamer, so I think this is why my sleep is so sacred to me. Yeah, I have some pretty crazy dreams that I absolutely love and enjoy having. But I don't keep dream diaries. But my dreams are quite vivid. And usually when I'm not having to wake up and go off to work, I can sit with them over my morning tea and just kind of make sense of them. Or not make sense out of them; just let them be.
IF: You just came back from overseas … which is a new thing again for all of us. It seems bit surreal still. You came from the States, from Chicago I believe, where you exhibited some of your work.
LE: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, long haul flying is very unfamiliar at the moment, very surreal. The short flights are okay because I had to jump around a couple of cities, but flying to the States and flying back really took it out of me. But I was happy to be home. Usually I don't get jet lag on the way there, but I get it on the way back. But I seem to have just acclimatised to this time zone very quickly, which I'm happy about.
IF: And what were you exhibiting in the States?
LE: I've got a photograph from a work that I'd made here in 2017 while on residency at Bundanon. And then it became a series that launched at the Peacock Gallery in Auburn called Decolonizing the Gaze and the auto portrait of myself managed to be selected for this group exhibition at Northwestern University in Chicago, Evanston, Chicago. So I went there for the opening and a couple of artist talks. That exhibition is going to go on for about six months and tour various academic and arts institutions and galleries.
IF: At the end of this week, you're turning onto another project, which is your dance video work called The 8th Day, and you're developing it as part of the dance residency at March Dance. This project sees you collaborate with six female dancers and explore the relationship between the body and the landscape, as well as the relationship between the body and the camera. Before we dive a bit deeper into all these details and unpack the work in all its layers, could you tell us a bit about what The 8th Day? How would you describe it in just a few words to start us off?
LE: It's something that's come about from my practices over the last ten years. For me, a lot of what I do as an artist, the impetus for it, comes from embodied practices. Even my drawing and filming. I really have to be in my body to do it. And then, you know, having worked around a lot of dancers for the last 10-15 years and with my camera, there was kind of this new dialogue that came about between camera and body. A feedback that I was getting from performers, was that there was a sensitivity and a receptivity of my camera work with them. And I guess that was the first driving tenant. But as the project evolves, it starts to open up and become quite big in terms of what else it's including. It's meant to be a hybrid dance video work. It's bringing together lens based media and screen media with embodied practices and specifically this embodied practice that's taking part on very ancient and sacred land here in in Australia.
IF: Is there a narrative of a sort, or a plot that you're working with?
LE: Not necessarily. Yeah, I can hear one of my old film teachers go: These things never work. [laughing]
There's still storyboarding. Absolutely. There's some kind of articulation and mapping of ideas and sequences and experiences that need to happen. Doesn't need to be in sequence. I do like working with circular narratives. If anything, nothing has to be linear with me. But there's not necessarily a plot. There's just kind of loose sketches of ideas to anchor us in, and then we see what comes about from that, from developments, from rehearsals, and from being present on the land. Because something that you create in a studio, it may not necessarily work out in the landscape and vice versa. And then either of those things might not necessarily work for camera in either of those spaces.
IF: Yes, we will talk a bit more about this land inspired sensitivity which you are touching on right now. But before we go there, I’m curious what are some of those initial ideas that you're working with? What are some of the images that you're giving to your dancers to carry in their bodies?
LE: Having trained in Butoh and BodyWeather where it's about having this omni sensual awareness as a driving force, the process is about opening the body up to receive impulse, to be receptive, to be a conduit. That's the tenet. Working from that space allows you to create from a very present place, as opposed to this very structured idea that you may get quite attached to. And then, in BodyWhether we do work a lot with images, but also sensitivity and imagination; these kind of pseudo imaginings, pseudo sensations, physical sensations. For me, that's a very deep, profound process. It really connects me in with the body. It also connects me in with other worldly experiences, things I can't quite articulate. So that's been quite special for me. Specifically connecting to body. But I also feel like it's a bit of my cultural heritage and a bit of my yearning to have that dialogue with the land. To give you some context, my father recently passed away and my heritage is Palestinian. So, growing up I was constantly listening to him talk about his connection to land. You know, the fruit trees, the orchards, the sea, the mountains, the snow, everything… the desert and how different it is. And I've kind of adopted that for my own life here. And the last two years with the pandemic was really hard because I couldn't go camping anywhere. This is usually a massive recharge for me. A massive reset. It just opens me up to a lot of new ideas. And I think there's those elements coming through as well. So it is the training, it is the embodied practices. It's my heritage. It's also, yeah, wanting to awaken us to a sensitivity. We're living in a world where we're watching horrific things happening on screen all the time and we're becoming desensitized. So, yeah, wondering if there's some way - with dancers, with bodies, with landscapes, and with different camera approaches - that we can create a kind of a soft, sensitive and embodied sense of viewing and spectatorship.
IF: You’ve mentioned the desert, and Australian desert is the landscape in which you will shoot this film. What draws you to this particular environment and how does the image that you carry of this environment inform the creative choices that you are making at this stage in development?
LE: Yeah, deserts have always attracted me, even though they've been really austere and harsh terrains and places. But I guess that's part of the experience. You go out there and you sit and things happen. Every time I've been to the desert, it can go really, really well. It can go really, really intensely. But every time I come back, I'm changed. There's a depth in my being that's had space to integrate. I've got more resolve in my character. I think those vast spaces where, you know, the desert was once under water and is now this dry, arid, empty environment. It's actually not empty, but it opens us up to these existential contemplations. And I'm drawn to the process of that, that austerity. I think so many times we move towards comfort. And that's great, you know; I'm all about moving where feels good. But I think there's also something to be said for going to places that challenge you, that show you deeper aspects of your being. Because I can imagine for some people… Like, I'm very comfortable in my alone time, but I can imagine for some people to be out there with landscape that goes for miles and feels really dry and looks unforgiving; it can be very confronting for them.
IF: How are you preparing your dancers for this experience? What are some of the techniques that you're giving them to develop this sensitivity, this land based sensitivity you're speaking about? To respond to the terrain, but also to cope with all these things that you have just mentioned.
LE: I guess that's not just taking from dance and embodied practices, but all sorts of other types of psychospiritual practices like meditation, somatics, even things like journaling has been really profound. And I do the practice of containment - not trying to understand, not trying to describe, to articulate, to define. Sometimes it's just a kind of generous giving of oneself over to it. So that's also been some of the dialogue that I've shared with dancers, to just be open to that. And it might be very uncomfortable for some performers to be out there in that space. It might be great for most of them, but there might be one or two that find it very confronting. But how do you sit in that? How do you hold that within you and just go: I'm here, I'm going to be here for a few days. How do I move from that place? How do I connect with other people from that place? How do I confront any anxieties or fears that may come up in that space? I mean, having said that, the Australian desert for me has been remarkably gentle, even though a lot of Australian cinema paints it as a really harsh territory for only settler men. It's actually been quite the opposite experience. Travelling and driving around Central Desert Australia, there's just been a remarkable softness and gentleness in the landscape and I feel really held out there. So I guess there's been this desire to want to share it with other people that have a dance practice and an embodied practice, and to do that collectively and see what emerges.
IF: On this project, you're working with a group of female dancers. At some point you were mentioning the concept of Desert Mothers. Is this still something that's relevant to the work, and if so, how does it inform it? What does it mean to be a desert mother?
LE: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple of different threads. And, you know, even answering to the Australian cinematic tropes, you look through Australian cinema and a lot of it's dominated by men in that landscape. So several years ago I had this thought that I wanted to challenge that. But as I started writing more and developing this pitch or this idea a lot further, and I had to research it because I was doing a screenwriting course at university, and one of the questions I needed to research was: Why am I doing this? Why do I have a desire to make this film? And I looked back and realised there's parts of my cultural heritage that drive me, without me being aware of it. Going back to deserts and that time and space in that ancient world where the Holy Land is. And apparently the desert mothers were erased. They were absent from the books and the texts, the sacred spiritual texts. Apparently there were desert fathers, but there were desert mothers too. And their experiences, which were obviously a lot more embodied - they were about just being on the land, sitting, breathing, meditating, just being, being in the body - all their wisdoms and knowledges weren't recorded or celebrated. And all these monotheistic religious, sacred spiritual texts came about that really are the driving force behind a lot of how we live today in the world. The texts only written by men, by our fathers. So it's just wanting to kind of flip the switch there and subvert it, but also to move away from that erasure. And I'm not really into the dichotomies of male and female either. I'm really interested in the many different archetypes of humankind, whether they be the elder, the sage, the child, the teacher, the healer. I think we have so many of those elements to integrate. But yeah, this just came about from an innate drive to make this work. And yeah, it feels like it needs to be female dancers that go out there to create this now, in this contemporary climate, and see what comes out of it.
IF: A couple of years ago, you made another short dance film called Aura Nox Anima, and in it you're also inspired by practices of BodyWeather and Butoh. And in this film, we see five female bodies in another sort of desert landscape - Port Stephens, Anna Bay. And there are also teams of overland travel and searching and seeking in it. As well as the decay and renewal. When I spoke to you a couple of years ago about this film, you mentioned that it is a part of a trilogy. It was a second part of the trilogy. So is The 8th Day, a third and final part of this? Are they connected in some way?
LE: It's a good question because I think it did start out like that, but it's not. I think The 8th Day has a life of its own that's separate. And I do see the previous two works, Dune and Aura Nox Anima as a kind of prologue to this. But this work I feel will be a standalone and the other two will be definitely those contextual works that give that background understanding to my process and to how this next stage came about. Because I think stylistically it's going to be a little bit different. Even though there are elements of female bodies in draped fabric in the desert landscape. But you know, I think that searching and that yearning and that journeying in the pilgrimage and the migrations - those visual elements from previous video works - I think that was indicative or emblematic of that drive to return to an origin, return to the origin stories and actually author some of these origin stories from a more lived in embodied experience, as opposed to this kind of patriarchal ordained cosmology.
IF: You’ve mentioned that it will be stylistically different. And one of the key differences, as far as I understand, is that while with Aura Nox Anima, you worked with wide lens angle and the camera was quite removed from the dancers and mostly still, this time you're taking almost radically different approach where you are working with handheld camera and you're going into the scene with the dancers moving with their bodies and dancing with them, essentially.
LE: It's something I've always wanted to do, and when I have worked with camera and bodies before in performance spaces there has been a lot of that handheld camera and moving very intimately with performers. I guess with Aura Nox Anima, it was of the situation and the weather. You know, the inclement weather we were having at the time. I was kind of limited by that. We had to shoot it in between the crazy weather. So we'd just be sitting in a car waiting to get out there, and then we'd take those moments and quickly do it. So I really didn't have the space to take all that equipment out, load it up onto my body, strap it in, and do these really slow moving choreographic articulations between body and camera and myself. But I'm hoping this next work will be able to show that contrast because I will still have a lot of those static, slow moving, wide scape, wide angle landscape images. But yeah, I'm hoping to play with the contrast of that and then working very closely with the body and the body in landscape and the body with camera.
IF: This particular way of filming also has an effect on the viewer. When we as viewers come closer to those bodies, it engages something that is called “haptic visuality”. And I know that it's something that you are interested in. Basically it means that rather than just watching a film, we are sensing it through our bodies. We are experiencing viscerally, not just through cognition. What draws you to this particular way of working and why do you find it important to engage haptic visuality in this day and age?
LE: I think it's vital. It's a massive driving force behind this kind of dance video work, interdisciplinary practice that I have. There's so much to answer for this question… I guess, having worked in commercial photography and, you know, watching films and then slowly moving away from things like Hollywood because of that periscope vision. And I do, I still like action films. I mean, my favorite genre is science fiction, but when you watch camera work, there's always this constant chasing of an action and it feels like this really overactive periscope that comes out and just chases things and looks at it acutely. And I see that as a metaphor for life. I mean, I see it in academia and health. We only look at something acutely and not in context of everything around it. Its people, its background, its futures. So this haptic visuality is a move away from this heavily oculo-centric saturation of visual media. How do we see but how do we also feel what we see and establish relationships with who's on screen. A lot of the time watching mainstream cinema and Hollywood and all that, I feel very disconnected from the performer on screen, especially when it is female, and kind of wanting to reestablish some sensitivity. You know, rather than treating performers like objects, how are they subjects and how are they having a relationship with this device, with this lens, with this camera, in order to extend a relationship beyond the lens, the screen, and the viewer. And it's also a way - this haptic visuality or being able to sense the film beyond just sight - could it also be a way to help us re-establish or reawaken pathways to sensitivity in us again? Because like I was saying earlier, we watch so much atrocity through screen media and we're becoming desensitized to it. I'm not saying, it's just the way it's filmed. There's a lot of influencing factors. But yeah, I'm asking questions around how can we use lens and screen media to inform more sensitive approaches to viewing and observing and witnessing other people and our more than human kin as well?
IF: When we observe things with our eyes, there is this critical distance and critical stance towards things, while when we come closer to the image through our bodies, there is a greater sense of empathy. So haptic visuality develops environmental care, as well. It is a way to feel involved and a part of this interaction.
LE: We can only hope. I mean, one of the driving questions is, can we do this with screen? Given the climate of the last two years and being trapped in our homes and working from home and working via interfacing with screens, it's like, how can we rethink how screen media is made and how we interact with it? So yeah, there's a creative tenant to this work, but there's also a lot of theoretical questions I have around how visual media is made and how we can use it to create sensitivity and awaken that. Yeah, it's the basis of a lot of questions that I have, and some of it will still be practical explorations. Like I'm still asking questions while I work with the camera, while I work with dancers in that landscape.
IF: I'm curious, why The 8th Day as a title? Is there a significance to number eight?
LE: I think this ties in with the whole Desert Mothers, but unknowingly. I used to go to Germany to do these psychospiritual workshops with the Enneagram like over ten years ago, and they talked about this concept of “Der Achtung Tag”, which means the eighth day, and I read it as creating futures, creating new worlds beyond the current constructs that we are familiar with. It's about challenging this seven day regiment in which we are, in which we find ourselves. So the eighth day for me is a new origin story. It's a new genesis of some sorts that's more inclusive, that factors in voices and embodied practices that have been erased from sacred text. So yeah, that's kind of where it came from. I do like the number eight as well, and it was meant to be a working title, but it's sticking at the moment and I do really like it because I feel like there is that connection to deconstructing the sacred texts and all that kind of stuff.
IF: One of the things or one of the expressions you use when describing this work, is that it explores “relational co-emergence”. Can you talk to us a bit about what that means and signifies?
LE: The word that is circulating around academia is “emergence”, but I've called it co-emergence, if that's such a thing. And I did mention something about, you know, when we look through the camera very acutely or we look at medical issues very acutely, we're not actually seeing things in their context. We're not seeing things or people as relational beings and experiences. And even though in this project there's some kind of mapping of what's going to happen, there's still space ordained for that experience of relational co-emergence. A lot of the time when you work non-verbally with groups of people, and performing artists will know this, there's something that arises in that moment between you and the other performers and an audience and the space that can never be captured again. So I'm really interested in working with that, not necessarily capturing it, but really being present and open to it and seeing how it can inform what comes next. How we can communicate that we are what's happening in that live moment . And when working with groups and people and collaboratively, collectively, how do we bring in some kind of a social awareness? I'm also studying a course with MIT called Ulab, which is about social presencing. And a lot of the critique is, you know, everyone's doing this self-help stuff and meditating and becoming more reflective and mindful. But what good is it if we can't do it together? And there's this real kind of push for social collective practices, pro-social collaboration. That we are aware of ourselves and we are aware of our context in the space at that moment. And I think Butoh and BodyWeather has already been doing it, because you're working with sensitivity and opening yourself up to that. So it's nothing new. I think it's just being articulated with these words such as relational, such as co-emergence or emergence. This is very ancient practice. It's been around for eons. People have always done it. We've actually moved away from it. So yeah, it's just finding a way back and seeing how becoming aware of that can inform creative output. And also I'm curious about how to map out this process, this creative process as a framework for more pro-social experiences in other industries and fields.
IF: You're mentioning BodyWeather and you're speaking about this ability to respond to whatever arises and what comes in the moment. So in BodyWeather, for instance, we practice how to be at the mercy of the elements, at the mercy of the weather, whether this weather is outside or inside of us. Through this practice, we develop certain flexibility in order to be fluid in our responses. Relational. And I know that as a maker, you're also somebody who works with structures, you're very organized, you have clear plans but you marry that with a deep intention to allow yourself to be a channel for the work to emerge through you. So I'm curious, how do you go about this balance and whether having a clear structure actually creates space for that, enables you to be that calm vessel and the channel. To be in this more meditative, fluid, intuitive state when it comes to the moment of decision-making.
LE: I think that's a really, really good question. And up until the pandemic, yes, absolutely. Having a super clear drawn out structure does help. That clarity is a driving force. I've always found in my experience when you're super clear on what it is that you want and how you want it to happen, things just kind of fall into place. But there also needs to be a harmony, a balance between that and receptivity to what can emerge. And we're seeing this with the pandemic as well. Like I've had plans for this since three years ago and it's been hindered and halted. There's still a plan. There's still some anchor points that oversee the project, but I'm also having to adapt and yield to what's going on, with changes and hiccups. And you know, the biggest one right now is these atrophied bodies coming back into the dance space, the performance space and the camera, the lens space, and how do we actually work with that? And, you know, I was chatting to one of my friends who's a social designer and a strategist, and she was saying to me: Well, maybe that's something for you to embrace as part of this post-pandemic climate. How do we come back into our bodies is one of the questions that you can ask. How do we orchestrate ourselves in that way now? What does it mean to move again after being seated and screen interfacing for so long? What does it mean to be outside in a desert landscape, which, you know, I have not been able to go to for a couple of years?
IF: One of the things that it seems to me you're quite drawn to is earthy movements, grounded movements. And I read this beautiful thing in a book I've been reading, and I find it really inspiring as a way to get back into the body. It's called How to Land by Ann Cooper Albright and there is a whole chapter about gravitational force, and it speaks about the exhaustion that we are feeling these days, the fatigue, the burnout and how letting go to the ground is actually the remedy that we need. Am I right to say that you are drawn to the movements that are grounded?
LE: Absolutely. I also find it's easier to work with embodied camera choreography with earthier movements. It kind of creates that slow, unctuous resonance. But I also feel there's a strength and a resolve in these earthier movements, these bodies that are driven by our lower gravitational centers. There's a kind of a laterality there. There’s a breath there. You know, when you move from that place, it feels wide. It takes up space. And for me it's like sinking to the land. Sinking and then spreading. That's the kind of image I like to work with. And then gathering that up back in with you, when you come up.
IF: Yeah, that's exactly what she's writing about, how in order to lift up, we need to sink down first. Or we need to push - even when we walk, we actually push the ground first in order to leap forward. So there is this sense of anchoring that needs to happen first for that fluidity of movement to be available to us.
LE: Absolutely. And I think that's why I've always been drawn to performers and dancers. Because of that, you know, to go up you must go down. And they don't just know it but practice it; it's instinctive in their bodies. And there's that grace. You know, even when you watch them walk, they walk very differently to the common masses. There's a real earthiness and a grounding in their feet and their heels. Just watching their foot articulations across the ground. As we become overstimulated by all this technology, I think it's really important to find ways of how to ground in our body because we are very head based and there is this kind of body-mind schizophrenia that I feel is overtaking us at the moment.
IF: Talking about grounding and feeling grounded… You were mentioning that being in nature is the way to anchor and center and get inspired, and you are planning to film this work in the desert. Do you find it important to spend as much time as possible in this landscape, to sit with it and be in it before you actually go and film there? How important is being in it for a while?
LE: Absolutely. Yeah. So I've kind of mapped out some times I would like to go out to the desert before I get there to do filming and production, only because I haven't been out in a couple of years. And you know, I've always jokingly said, you go camping in the nature. But that's a bit tongue in cheek in how our relationship has been with it. You know, we go to the nature on the weekend as opposed to considering us as a part of it and opening ourselves up to that dialogue. And the de-centering of us. You know, when we are of it rather than visit it. You know, we can't own it. We can't pillage it. We can't do all sorts of things with it. And yeah, there's plans to get out there and connect in with that energy again, which I think is really important and crucial, before I go out.
IF: We started this show talking about sleeping and dreaming. And I'm curious, when you are in the desert, do you dream differently? And also, did any aspects of this project emerge from dreams? Are you the kind of artist who gets inspiration from dreams?
LE: Not necessarily. If I made films or work based on my dreams, I'd be a total surrealist artist. [laughs] I don't think my work would make sense at all. So, no, they're not. They're not the driving force or the visual impetus for what I create. I do see a lot of it as a lot of my subconscious work over time. I see a lot of it as a sensitivity that I'm experiencing while being here that I obviously need to process to integrate. I see dreams as very somatic experience, actually. Like it's very much connected to how I've rested physically that night. And when I'm in the desert, I do dream. Even just driving, you know, if I'm driving out there for hours in that landscape into these vanishing points that when the sun hits the road, looks like it's about to go into the sky. You know, these thoughts I feel aren't even mine, come to me. Questions that I'm not asking are being asked. And memories and experiences that I've felt long forgotten just come back out of nowhere. So it's a really interesting experience that opens me up to that. There's a cosmology in the desert. And I've always said going to the desert is like a really slow acid trip. It's just on slow motion. Like everything just opens up and you have no choice but to be really grounded in that moment.
IF: When you were shooting Aura Nox Anima, your previous dance film, you only spent a day with dancers on the site and the whole project was filmed within a day. And this time you are intending to spend a few extra days with dancers there in the land. How important is to have this extra time and what happens in these additional days that is really valuable for the project?
LE: Yeah, this is an interesting question because I've been quite lucky in my past that I've had these ideas that come and then they just happen and they happen really quickly and they manifest just like that. And I always supported my process with Jodorowsky, who says: I'm an artist. I just work. Sometimes I get the idea and the work just comes. Because I'm not one of those artists that keeps churning out work after work. I'm not one that produces something every month, or. Yeah, so it was really interesting. But this time I've had to think about it. And I have been asked: Well, why don't you just do this one like Aura not Anima? Why don't you go out just for a day and see what comes about? And I'm thinking: Well, I don't want that same experience. If that's what came about without having too much intention, I'm interested to see what will come about with a lot more intention. I'm interested to see what will happen, day after day. Because when you're in the desert and you stay, more and more things start to shift, things start to happen. And to do that collectively with a group of people and awaken ourselves, our sensitivity, our somatic sensitivity to that and see how we can work with it. Like I said, this isn't just the making of an artwork, it's about process. It's about new world making. It's about playing with a social framework that perhaps can be adapted and scaffolded upon in other fields and industries. I'm really interested in that.
IF: Speaking about social framework and process, one of the things that you are engaging in while developing this work is dialogue with the First Nations people in the area. Can you talk to us a bit about this cultural interchange; how do you approach this dialogue and what has emerged through it so far?
LE: This has been really important to me. I'm born in Australia but growing up here I never felt neither here nor there. I was neither fully my parents heritage, but I was never really what people would call Australian culture. And so instead I looked to the land and I was always wanting to be outside, go on camping trips and walks and just sit. And so I feel like that kind of segwayed me into deepening or wanting to deepen my understanding of indigenous cultures. And then it connected me with my parents journey as well. I was really trying to look for ways that we can also see interchange between first nations, between settler and migrant settler cultures, because we're all here now and so how do we create socially cohesive societies and communities? So I proposed my idea, I sent it through to the Aboriginal Advisory Group and the council out there, and they were really welcoming of my idea. They said: This sounds very resonant with the kind of work that we hope gets done out in the desert, out on the sacred land. I haven't met with them yet. I'm hoping to before I go out to film. And I think that's part of the ongoing dialogue. And I've included them in the editing process, before I do the final edits, so to make sure that it's still culturally safe and culturally sensitive to them.
IF: I didn't know that. That's wonderful. Given that you are just mentioning editing, it was something I wanted to ask you because I know that Aura Nox Anima was edited in a very, I guess, internalized process. You were by yourself for 16 hours a day with these images, trying to be as sensitive as possible to the bodies that you're working with. And I guess as an editor, you're still choreographing in a way because you're stitching these shapes together. And this time you're also working with the multi-channel in mind, and you are already planning for it to be seen in a gallery context rather than in the cinema. When you are developing shots right now, when you're storyboarding, are you already thinking about the way you will put it together and does that already inform the way you will film it?
LE: Absolutely. There's definitely intentionality around what I'm going to be shooting, imagining that there's going to be tow or three channels. And I think there's going to be a lot of footage that I'm going to have to go through because we're going to try to do a lot of things while we're out there filming and doing the production, and then things will emerge when I'm editing as well. So it's a bit of both. Like I said, I wanted to work with a contrast which the multi-channel work will allow me to do - between space, body, and sensation. And I wanted to work with soundscape as well. So I'm having that specifically composed for this work, to create that embodied sensitivity. While you watch, there's stuff that's mapped out, there's stuff that's storyboarded and there's stuff that will probably just come up spontaneously while you're out there. I mean, this is the nature of filming what I do. It's not narrative. There's things that you'll film and you think this is going to be so great and then when you sit behind the editing screen, it's just not; I can't use this anymore. And then there's stuff that you may have shot really loosely and you're later thinking, there's something there. It's interesting because those filming process and being in it is sometimes so very different to the editing. It's like two separate worlds. It's like, how do you be aware of how you're going to edit it later? Like I said, specifically with this kind of work that's circular. It's not so linear.
IF: But yeah, I guess you have to think in advance because you don't want to come to that editing booth and think, Oh, if only I took this shot. So, it's lots of pre-thinking and pre-planning and trying to take as many things or as much footage as you can, even if it's extra, but at least …
LE: Which I'm doing. Yeah, yeah. Like, I've got my storyboarding book and I'm mapping out a lot of cinematography cues and scenes that need to be done and need to be done like several times in different ways. That's the thing. So I'm working with a couple of different lenses and different cameras and different angles and depths. So it's just kind of working with that fractal even. Yeah.
IF: And you mentioned that you have also engaged a sound designer to work on a soundtrack or a soundscape. Are you already working (i.e. dancing) with the sound or are you at the moment working to silence? Is there a soundtrack in your mind already as you are directing dancers or training with them?
LE: Yeah, definitely there is. There is actually some loose sketch of sound that's already come up, which I'm really excited about. I love sound. If I had any extra hours in the day, that's one thing I would love to play with. But you know, you've just got to choose your thing and do that.
IF: You're a musician as well?
LE: No, but I was trained in classical music. So that's my background.
IF: You played an instrument?
LE: Piano for years, But I really liked electronic music. I love ambient music. I love soundscape. Like I just love all this stuff. So yeah, there are sounds that I have and I'll hopefully be including some of the desert soundscapes that I've recorded with my own mic. I've been working with low frequency sounds and layering that into the soundtrack. So yeah, there's going to be an element of experiment with the sound. The skeleton is there and we're playing with it. And then I think as we get closer to production, that will start to take more shape and then the final touches will be put on while I edit.
IF: One thing that you also mentioned when describing this film is this term “hybrid dance”, and you spoke to me about your interest in creating this ambiguous space where we are asking ourselves, Is this dance or is it something else? So if it's not dance, what is this other thing? And also, why are you inspired to work within this liminal space of something that is one thing while also maybe something else?
LE: I guess it might tie into my decolonial practice and I feel these eastern dances like BodyWeather and Butoh, or the synthesis between East and West, is about breaking that typical choreography down. And when I've put my previous dance works up against other dance films, it doesn't really look like a dance film. And I've had that feedback. I've had it as a criticism. I've had it as a celebratory comment. So I'm very happy with that ambiguity. But I also feel like if it's just dance, then people who don't come from that background maybe won't access it. And I want it to be accessed by a lot more people. Even though my work is very niche. Like, how do I reconcile that? Um, yeah, it's interesting. It's definitely an interesting aspect to this work. I am going to have choreographed elements and sequences in it, but then I think the majority of it will be unchoreographed and a bit loose, and then depending on how and what gets shot and footage that I have to work with, that'll all change it again. And yeah, I am comfortable with the ambiguity of what is a dancing body. You know, is it something that purposefully goes out and creates choreography? And I think what's driving me to Butoh and BodyWeather is that it’s about being receptive to impulse. You don't create the dance. The dance dances you. And how do we open ourselves, our sensitivities, our soma up to that, to receive that.
IF: Now that you said that there will be a choreography… Another thing that I believe you're drawn to is synchronicity and harmony, and you have spoken to me before when we had a conversation about Aura Nox Anima, how in Western dance these days we often don't have this synchronicity and harmony, and one of the dance theatre groups you're inspired by is Tao Dance Theatre who do synchronicity really well. I suppose these are some of the visual references you're drawing from as well, for this film?
LE: Yeah, definitely. I'm waiting for them to come to Australia. Please, somebody, if you're listening, bring them out here. It's not enough just to watch their videos. Yeah, I guess I'm really intrigued by that synchronicity. And I actually started watching martial arts films over Covid again and the choreography of those fight scenes and the synchronicity is just meticulous. And I think that comes from that awareness of being a contextual being. Like when you're in the space, you're with everybody, you're with the space as well. And there's a real omni central awareness that takes place in the being, and as a collective hub as well. I mean, it'll be interesting coming out of lockdown and pandemic and going into that chorus workspace. I've always loved this idea of working with chorus, working with multiple bodies, because I think there's something very powerful about it. And I don't know if it's because the cartoons I was growing up with where it was about many bodies coming together as one. Like Voltron, you know. It was that kind of thing - this unified collective somatic expression as one body. And I mean one of my favorite music video clips, is Jamie XXS and it's called Gosh. There's a lot of that chorus work. And I just find when you see humans work together in that synchronicity, there's something very powerful. Something almost very ritualized about it. You know, there's something very sacred in that as well. When people can drop their egos, step outside of themselves and be part of something greater.
IF: Mhm. That seems to speak to me again about that relational co-emergence.
LE: Yeah. Definitely. And you know, I've had this experience with performance, and I think sports people understand it as well. You know, I used to row and there were moments where you would just hit that spot with your other three rowers and time and space just shifted and you were in absolute synchronicity. And in that synchronicity, there's no staccato, there's nothing awkward, there's just pure flow. So I'm interested in those spaces as well, those happenstances. What is it to be in pure flow and what is it to be in pure flow together?
To find out more about this project had to @luxeternatv