Michelle St Anne is a theatrical visual artist whose palette lies in the corridor of several art-forms and delights in collaborations across genre, disciplines and industry. Given her obsession with beauty and suffering her work has found its home in both traditional venues and in places that she perceives as hurt and abandoned. For the last twenty years, she has been Artistic Director of the Living Room Theatre and is also a Deputy Director of the Sydney Environment Institute. In her artistic works she often draws inspiration from the research conducted at SEI, addressing climate change and the trauma left on the landscape. Michelle frequently collaborates with dancers and the body is often at the centre of her works, as is the impact that the bodies leave on the environment. Michelle has developed a rehearsal methodology ‘Composing Self’ inspired by many – Cicely Berry, Konstantin Stanislavski, Butch Morris, John Zorn, Jenny Kemp, Tanya Gerstle and Steve Reich. Based on compositional frameworks for music, St Anne has found a group of artists in Europe whose work is created using similar structures known as ‘Composed Theatre’.

Podcast with Michelle was recorded on 8 January 2020, on the Gadigal land of Eora nation, traditional custodians of the land on which we live, work, and dance. We pay our respect to their elders, past present and emerging.

Podcast image is by Lena Kramaric.
Music used is by Trevor Brown.

Artemis Projects production, commissioned by Delving into Dance and Critical Path for the Interchange Festival.

Podcast with Michelle St Anne (full transcript)

Ira Ferris: What three words come to your mind when you think about dance?

Michelle St Anne: Fluid. Nature or natural. And Pina Bausch.

Ira Ferris: Why Pina Bausch?

Michelle St Anne: She to me represents dance and movement, art and insight. And wit, integrity. And to me that's what dance is. She opened up the whole world for me. I am not a dancer nor choreographer and she allowed me to access the dance language and it has become so influential in my own work, in the way I compose my narratives.

Ira Ferris: When you speak of composing, you are actually speaking about composing theatre?

Michelle St Anne: Yes, I should clarify that. Yes, I am not composing music but I’m constantly thinking compositionally when constructing a scene.

Ira Ferris: In your rehearsal process with your performers is there an element of dance and purely movement without words?

Michelle St Anne: I think even when it goes into production. I have very little language and older I get, I have less need to speak, in my work. And that's because I have become so comfortable with allowing an object to sit in the space and speak; it has its own language, its own motivation. But people often struggle with my work and that’s a kind of a problem for me because I probably need to give them some way of receiving it. Because art is generally more prescribed so we are not learning how to receive work, we are just told to sit and listen, here is some language and this is how you make a meaning. But I think the more the world shifts and hurts and goes into trauma the more we need to be able to see and feel rather than hear language which is why I love working with dancers because they are very comfortable in that space, they move in a particular way that allows me to articulate what I am trying to say. And even when I work with actors, they all have a physical background.

Ira Ferris: You often work within multisensory practice and by what I have observed you are not as much interested in activating the cerebral but corporeal, and you want to speak to the body and you want our bodies to feel things rather than think things. And lots of your works, majority of them, are addressing climate change and environmental urgency and you find that speaking to the body rather than the brain is a way to pass the message in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Michelle St Anne: Yes ... My body of work has initially been around violence in home, that was fifteen years of my practice and it was only while working here at the Sydney Environment Institute where I was one of the founding team seven years ago that I started listening to all these lectures and reading papers and there was some really beautiful thinking that wouldn't always motivate people to become involved or become interested so I took these theories and this thinking and looked at how does this represent within the body.  So, it is again trauma. From violence in home to violence in landscape. They are not dissimilar in any way and I think it is true how you articulated it; I'm more interested in speaking to bodies because when people feel then they are motivated, they are compelled to do something otherwise it just becomes intellectual exercise and I don't think that's ever motivated people to make a change.

Ira Ferris: Although you work with trauma you approach it in a beautiful way, there is beauty in your works. What role does beauty play in your practice?

Michelle St Anne: Oh, it is imperative. Beauty alleviates pain, it allows us to see the ugly. With only just seeing the ugly we have no sense of the better world, of possibilities. And I think that is really important.

Ira Ferris: There is this beautiful thing that Kathleen Marie Higgins wrote in 1996 in relation to beauty. The essay is called 'Whatever Happened to Beauty? A response to Danto.' and it was in response to many artworks at the time that were shying away from beauty into conceptualism and dryness, and even ugliness. And she wrote: "Beauty typically urges renewed love of life. Beauty provides the comforting background against which one can think the uncomfortable. Beauty assures us that something real is lovable. With that awareness, we are capable of the courage to face what is not.”

Michelle St Anne: Yeah, there you go. I really do think that's a problem with the way that climate change is communicated, through cerebral facts and data. And what art can do is absorb that and turn it into something that is beautiful because art on so many levels is really beautiful, even if it is very masculine and angular there are still moments where you are just drawn into its incredible, excruciating beauty and I find that exciting. 

Ira Ferris: Pina Bausch is a good example of that - beauty combined with profound sadness I feel.

Michelle St Anne: Yes, I know... You know, it's pity, I always wanted to meet her. Not that I wanted to talk to her but I just wanted to be in the room with her to see what she is like on a quiet moment. Because there is that incredible sadness and maybe that's it, maybe I am actually intrinsically sad, cause people kind of meet me and see my work and comment, 'I can't even see how these are real', because my work is so dark but I think that is actually the realness of me and then there’s the other stuff that gets presented over the top. And I think that is what I am interested in: beauty and how it peels away. But beauty is so important for us; it is so important to be able to access beauty in the time of crises.

Ira Ferris: It's interesting what you said about wanting to be in the space with someone without necessarily talking, because it's one of the things that I think of when I think of dance: sharing the space with other bodies, in movement. How does dance feature in your life?

Michelle St Anne: Well, I'm a secret lounge room dancer. And not so secret Kyle Minogue lover because you can't help it, whether you love her or not you can't help it, you just have to move, she just makes you move. And so to me dance on that level, on the everyday level and the human level is about joy, just unadulterated joy. That's what it is it to me. And I don't think we do enough of it and older you get the less you dance, right? I turned fifty this year and it's such a momentous moment even though you think, ah it's nothing, but it is, psychologically. Thinking about what I was like when I was twenty and I would always go to see live music in the pubs (because we had live music scene then) so you are constantly moving, your body is constantly moving. But you don't do that as an older person; it's always about quiet dining or things like that and so your body moves in a different way so to me dance now represents that freedom and that youthfulness and joy. On the other hand, artistically, it's what I enjoy viewing. I see more dance than I do theatre dance and it's because of its beauty and its compositions. I just love watching it. Being almost inside it because there's something about it that viscerally draws you inside of the work.

Ira Ferris: What do you think stops some people from dancing?

Michelle St Anne: This idea that it's gotta look good. This idea that you have to have rhythm, whatever that rhythm is, cause it is so archaic what rhythm is, it is so white. That stops people. Body image obviously stops people as well. And it is because we think that dance is about something to do with beauty rather than joy and self-expression and releasing of the energy.

Ira Ferris: Have you ever experienced stillness when you dance?

Michelle St Anne: Oh, yes. When I do it at home, because I am dancing to the music and the music is dancing for me so I have that sense of being still for it so that you can feel it. I love that sense of it. Also I know that the very first time I heard Lawrence English live it was a part of the Bird piece at the Art Gallery of NSW. I was just sitting there, listening to this music coming out from massive speakers and I know my body was moving even though it was so still. And I just remember feeling like I was dancing. I was so moved that at one point I wanted to go up to the speakers and hold onto them cause it was so extraordinary, such an extraordinary feeling.

Ira Ferris: And why is to describe this feeling as dancing more adequate than to describe it as pure stillness?

Michelle St Anne: Because you are being moved by something that is inside you which is what I think dancing at home does for you, it's that release, the intimacy that the inside of your body has to the external walls of your body, to propel it to move. And I think in that case, when I was in the art gallery, you could just imagine what it would be like, the very sophisticated crowd and here I was like this little minion [laughs] wanting to explode because the insides of me had the motivation to move, I could feel the movement but I was with my sophisticated lot so I couldn’t actually move. You might close your eyes and you might nod but I was propelled to do much more than that which is why I think it was dance.

Ira Ferris: What role does stillness play in your life in general?

Michelle St Anne: I'm not good at being still. I am not good at being still in my mind. My mind is very active because I have this constant thing of dream versus reality. I trained myself at very young age to be able to do both things simultaneously so I could have a conversation in my mind with somebody I concocted, as well as with somebody in the real life. And I remember it being such a skill when I was having really boring conversations [laughs]; I could then actually retreat and be in another world. So intellectually I am not good at being still. It is really bad for me because when I am in the meeting in my day job I can only stay for forty minutes and then I have to excuse myself because I can't do it, I panic. So stillness for me represents a moment of panic. Even in cars, if I am stuck in traffic and I can't go anywhere, I panic. So I have a very fast inner clock.

Ira Ferris: Perhaps because in those moments you are not actually feeling still, those moments don't make you feel comfortable ...

Michelle St Anne: Yeah...

Ira Ferris: ... and there is this oppressing stillness ...

Michelle St Anne: True...

Ira Ferris: ... but everything inside you is actually aggravated.

Michelle St Anne: Yes... So I don't know what that inner stillness is. I don't think I have it.

Ira Ferris: Have you experienced it when you are in a room with your performers and you are developing a piece and you just feel like you are completely present?

Michelle St Anne: Oh presence ... Yeah, but presence to me is not stillness because you are so hyperaware. As a performer you are hyperaware because you are aware where the audience may be, where the light is, where the sounds are coming from, where are the other performers compositionally to you, spatially to you. So that's beautiful. And I remember when I used to do lots of improvisation, I would always be the most still person on stage but it was also when I was most active. And when you are active in improvisation, that is when you are most still.

Ira Ferris: There is this beautiful thing said by dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, who says: "The only time I am still is when I dance."

Michelle St Anne: So yes... I guess he would be speaking from the point of view that I was speaking from. That sense when you are waiting and compositionally you are aware of where you are and you are present. And isn't it just a gem when that happens. It's what we all strive for. That complete abandonment of everything. If that's what he describes as stillness.

Ira Ferris: I believe that when I’ve asked you for the three words that come to your mind about dance, you said 'nature'?

Michelle St Anne: Yes, nature or natural.

Ira Ferris: Why nature?

Michelle St Anne: Because it seems like such a basic need. And that's when we become one with nature. That's our connection back to nature.

Ira Ferris: When we dance?

Michelle St Anne: When we dance, yeah. Cause it is so primal. It's animalistic, and not in a derogative term but in a heightening term; to become one with the world, the nature, the natural. The more we stunt our sensory, the more we become robotic and analytical and critical and we remain in our paths and in our little clicks because we no longer know what it's like to move. I mean, even look at family homes; there is no communal spaces in family homes. Everyone has their own bathroom, everyone has their own TV; nobody is having to make allowances for who is going to use the bathroom. I think that is really problematic if we want to see communities come together and communities thrive.

Ira Ferris: Imagine a world where everyone would dance. There would be no person who would feel that they can't dance. Days would start with a dance, just like they start with the brushing of your teeth, washing your face, having a shower. What would that world look like?

Michelle St Anne: It would be a happier world. I absolutely think it would be a happier world. Because you can't help it, it's like singing; the endorphins just go nuts. And I think people would grow older more gracefully cause our joints would be moving. We would be a healthier nation both in our wellbeing and physical being. And I think in our cultural being. If only I could do that at work; start a day with a dance fest as opposed to a coffee run. I wonder how that would go down. Like a led balloon I would think but it would be great to try.

Ira Ferris: There is no reason why not to.

Michelle St Anne: That's right. I have my little Dunton room down there. We could have a silent disco.

Ira Ferris: Yeah, maybe blindfolded as well. Cause that's what people are scared of, of being seen, feeling that they are looking silly or something. Which is another thing, … In that world there would be.... It would be a world without judgement or feeling judged.

Michelle St Anne: Yes, it would be a world without feeling judged. I think we can't help it; we are human beings, we are always going to judge.

Ira Ferris: We will take interest. We will look at things and take interest. But maybe not judge... Judging is a very ... We will be curious.

Michelle St Anne: Curious, yes.

Ira Ferris: A friend of mine said to me and it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard: 'Replace judgement with curiosity.'

Michelle St Anne: Yes, that's a good one. That's a beautiful one. Cause then your world opens up.

Ira Ferris: Because there is nothing that we can't actually understand, even the most horrific things; how can someone do something? So rather than judging ...

Michelle St Anne:... ask why?...

Ira Ferris:... yes, why?...

[pause]

Ira Ferris: Have you ever tried dancing in silence?

Michelle St Anne: Oh yes! At VCA. I think we had an Israeli teacher that came out. I can't remember. I think he was Israeli. And he did that. It's.... it's really difficult. Because it doesn't give you that comfort layer and you are doing it in front of your colleagues. It's kind of really weird.

Ira Ferris: How come he made you do it?

Michelle St Anne: I can't remember why he made us do that or why that was one of his exercises. I do remember he had us lying down in meditation before we did the silent dancing so maybe it was about stillness, maybe it was about building up that centre of movement, what it is to move. Possibly… But I remember crying at that point. I remember lying on the ground and crying because I found it so traumatic to be still and quiet in a year when you are constantly overloaded. It was my postgrad and I was constantly overloaded, I was so over stimulated. So I do remember that, quiet well. And then having to roll up to come to standing and dance with no music. I found it really hard.

Ira Ferris: Is it in some way similar to making theatre without language?

Michelle St Anne: Ahhhhh.... [big sigh] Possibly! And this is maybe why I have so many actors who go: 'Oh God! What are you doing?!?!' Possibly! But.... Now....Ira, I have to think about that.... To dance without music, is it the same as making theatre without language? …. Could be I suppose. I guess... yes. It's a support. Language supports theatre and music supports dance. You threw me a curve-ball. Maybe this is why I need to rebrand Ira and make it Living Room DANCE Theatre or something. Or Theatre without Language. Theatre without Language, get over it! [laughs]

Ira Ferris: Yes... it's when language fails us. I am seeking more and more silence in my life. We had this beautiful moment at Woodford folk festival where I went for New Years. Thirty minutes before the new year there was 3-minutes of silence. And it's something I craved for, for so long, for the world to stop for a second, to reset like computers reset. And it was just so powerful, to see everyone who was just screaming and buying things respect silence and hold silence. There is just so much clutter and so much of it is connected to words.

Michelle St Anne: Yeah... When you said that, it remained me of that moment when you come to complete stillness after intense noise. I was always fascinated with the sound-hole; I don’t know what’s the technical term but, you know, that moment when there is this barrage of sound and then it just drops and you feel like you fall forward. I love that feeling....

Ira Ferris: Like a void...

Michelle St Anne: Like a void...

Ira Ferris: Why do you love it?

Michelle St Anne: Because you knew something was there. Even though it is not present, it is not a physical thing. It's the vibration of it. I just find it intoxicating. Lawrence English does it perfectly in some of his work. I went to hear him in another concert and I had that experience and have ever since tried to replicate it in all sorts of performances that I did. I am just fascinated by it. But interestingly I think it works best when the musician is in the space, as opposed to a recording. That's what I find quite interesting. So the physical body that actually... Even though he is just pressing on buttons, not playing anything ... It's that energy and that connection that then communicates out and then when it's retracted or when it drops out into that void, that stillness, that silence ... it's intoxicating. And I think that's my moment of feeling present. Because I don't have to do anything. I'm just existing,

Ira Ferris: Why does dance matter now?

Michelle St Anne: Oh.... Anything that makes us present ...  Anything that makes us feel, like physically feel, which is what dance does... And anything that suggests beauty is really important. All of those things make us human. Anyone can dance, you know... Anyone can do it. There are all these artistic frameworks but I am not buying into that now. I think, just as society, for us to be able to do that is imperative at time when there is no joy. And there is no beauty that we see as a human race. And even when you see people dance in the supermarket and they start moving cause they like the song ... you know ... you can't help it, look you are doing it now, you're smiling just thinking of that image.

Ira Ferris: I saw a beautiful clip of a fireman from one of the affected areas having a little dance break in the middle of the forest.

Michelle St Anne: Oh beautiful!

Ira Ferris: And it made me think that sometimes we need a break in order to keep going. Because there is a lot of guilt associated with having a good time in the time when there is crisis and pain. But, again, speaking about Woodford... just going there for few days and extracting myself from the constant news, depression and anxiety, which is all justified of course, gave me strength rather than took it. And it reminded me of the good that we are capable of and, as you say, of our beauty. And not just our ugliness. So it didn't feel selfish, it felt necessary to dance. As a way to detox, to reset.

Michelle St Anne: Yes, that is beautiful.

Follow Michelle’s practice:

Website: livingroomtheatre.org
Facebook: @livingroomtheatre
Instagram: @livingroomtheatre

Photographers:

Image #1 on this page: Asparay
Image #2 on this page: Nathaniel Fay