the end of nature
September 30, 2024
blog
In 1989, Bill McKibben wrote, “I believe that we are at the end of nature.” Then he clarified: “By this I do not mean the end of the world. The rain
thinking like a consumer
September 23, 2024
blog
Merely mentioning market roles can crowd out our intrinsic motivation. One online survey asked participants to imagine themselves as one among four
eliminate the friction
September 16, 2024
blog
Rich kids should go to public schools. The mayor should ride the subway to work. When wealthy people get sick, they should be sent to public
Look and Look Again
September 11, 2024
blog
I’ve been using video as part of my artistic practice since 1997. This has often meant thinking about the nature of Screendance and how thinking
astray awkwardly
September 9, 2024
blog
An autistic politics: in losing our way, straying away from the marked tarmacs of the conventional, we might find ourselves in different,
sign on the door
September 2, 2024
blog
A link to a conversation between The Place’s Eddie Nixon and Christina Elliot and me from back in 2015. We performed it in public.
ask nature
September 1, 2024
blog
Ask nature: a portal to the wisdom nature holds which seeks to collaborate globally to design a world for the future of all species.
ecosytemic practice research
August 29, 2024
blog
I finally got round to posting a piece of writing for Dance Research called Ecosystemic Practice Research (for the benefit of others):
self portrait as time
August 28, 2024
blog
Linking here to Marcus Coates’ digital video Self Portrait as Time (2016). https://www.marcuscoates.co.uk/projects/154-self-portrait-as-time This is
the comfort/chaos circle
August 26, 2024
blog
A model for thinking about learning, which consists of three concentric circles: the comfort zone, the learning zone, the chaos zone. The circles
things will have to change
August 19, 2024
blog
The secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a research and policy organisation that works on behalf
ladder of inference
August 12, 2024
blog
A model developed by Chris Argyris and Peter Senge (1970) which helps you to no longer jump to premature conclusions and to reason on the basis of
physical connection
August 5, 2024
blog
This co-regulation has measurable effects. Changes in one person’s body often prompt changes in another person’s body, whether the two are
berry on minimalism
July 29, 2024
blog
The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the
stimming
July 22, 2024
blog
Stimming is the rhythmic and repetitive movements that we do to self-regulate and process sensory input. The Stimming virtual space is an
the body isn’t a thing
July 15, 2024
blog
The body isn’t a thing, it’s an event. We exist by happening. – Guy Claxton Intelligence in the Flesh: Why Your Mind Needs Your Body Much More
postcards
July 8, 2024
blog
A Frank Warren project which involves giving people postcards on which they write undisclosed secrets. An example is: I cannot relax in my bathtub
no country
July 1, 2024
blog
No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy. And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one. – Kate
your morals
June 24, 2024
blog
A space where you can learn about your own morality while also contributing to scientific research. https://yourmorals.org/ This was posted by Finn
eating
June 17, 2024
blog
Eating is an agricultural act. – Wendell Berry, The Pleasures of Eating (1990)
irritating in others
June 10, 2024
blog
A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others. – Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living
awakened
June 3, 2024
blog
The purpose of the work is to awaken something in you first, and then allow something to be awakened in others. And it’s fine if they’re not the
transfiguration
May 28, 2024
blog
An ever-evolving digital figure that experiences different forms such as fire and shrubbery. Found via
bits of unsolicited advice
May 8, 2024
blog
I recently read Kevin Kelly’s ‘Excellent Advice for Living’ and liked the following pieces of wisdom: The perfect kind of art to display in your
stockdale paradox
May 5, 2024
blog
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal
hands that don’t want anything
April 3, 2024
blog
Back in 2009 I gave a presentation called Hands that don’t want anything at TaPRA at the University of Plymouth. It was about dancing with Kirstie
singing and dancing
March 25, 2024
blog
Some David Byrne videos that brought me tremendous pleasure. Learning to dance: Singing David Bowie’s Heroes with Choir! Choir! Choir!: Byrne
losing oneself
February 27, 2024
blog
I’m currently in the early stages of some research exploring improvisation and body awareness through the lens of nonduality. In the team I am
given a price
February 26, 2024
blog
From Kate Raworth’s 2017 book Doughnut Economics: [Twentieth Century economic] theory overlooks the fact that some things may be put in jeopardy
on remembering everything
January 10, 2024
blog
I like Ted Chiang’s writing a lot. Here’s a brief excerpt from his short story The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling. The premise of the story is
Godin on ideas
December 19, 2023
blog
Here’s Seth Godin on where ideas come from. For some reason I didn’t write down where I found them but I suspect it was from his book The Song of
three chairs
December 5, 2023
blog
I really like Sherry Turkle’s writing on the ways in which technology is changing (and has changed) our lives. In Reclaiming Conversations she
growth
November 19, 2023
blog
I have finally got around to reading Kate Raworth’s 2017 book about economics called Doughnut Economics. I’m still close to the beginning but
felt in christ
October 26, 2023
blog
I was watching a presentation about somatic dance practices recently with the auto CC feature turned on. The machine learning based closed captions
Freelance Dance Artists’ Working Ecology
September 10, 2023
blog
My colleague Karen Wood at C-DaRE has been working with local freeland dance artists and has recently published a report available for download at
he danced
September 1, 2023
blog
From the extraordinary Hopeland by Ian McDonald: Auberon Brightbourne strode onto the dance-floor. No hesitant, testing steps here. He must throw
listening and pain
August 24, 2023
blog
listening opens that which pain has closed. – Jerry Colonna, Reboot (Chapter 1) Seems like listening is something I come back to on this blog. See
body politics
July 6, 2023
blog
Here’s a videoed walk and conversation between Sunaura Taylor and Judith Butler. They talk about being bodies and I liked it a lot: I’m allergic to
vernacular activities
June 21, 2023
blog
The Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich is best known for his book Tools for Conviviality (1973). Illich used the word ‘vernacular’ to name all the
one sentence email tips
May 21, 2023
blog
This blog is about as far away from a productivity blog as you could imagine, but I really enjoyed Josh Spector’s list of one sentence email tips …
scrutiny
April 24, 2023
blog
For Sebald everything is an uncanny memento mori: even a photograph is a device through which the dead scrutinise the living. I read this quote by
ripeness
March 26, 2023
blog
I’m in the middle of supporting the development of Igor and Moreno’s new choreography Karrasekare. The work is at an intriguing stage some seven
mini essay
March 17, 2023
blog
This is to remind casual and regular readers of this blog that each month I send out a mini-essay to people who have subscribed to my mailing list.
Esther May Campbell
March 14, 2023
blog
I saw these images in Dark Mountain Issue 21 and was enraptured by them. They were taken as part of the Kitchen Table Photo Club started by Esther
a community of practice
February 19, 2023
blog
Back in January I was interviewed for Gemma Harman’s podcast called Resdance — a podcast about research in dance. The interview was published a
a nest for hope
January 20, 2023
blog
I like James Bridle’s writing. Here’s an extract from a recent blog post of his called hope needs a place to perch: To learn, to make
Colin, Simon and I archive
January 16, 2023
blog & practice
Colin Poole and I started working together as “Colin, Simon and I” in 2009. We made politically and racially charged choreographies, and I find it
power of a lifetime
January 10, 2023
blog
The son of an old friend of mine is deep in the world of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Not so long ago, while trying to explain to
now: 4 January 2023
January 4, 2023
blog
Going on for me right now: Reading: Writing Dance by Jonathan Burrows; The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio; Ministry for the Future by
brittle with relics
December 17, 2022
blog
I recently shared my film Children of the Soil with a friend who wrote back that “your film took me very directly to this”: To live in Wales is to
the land in you
October 26, 2022
blog
Over the northern summer I read Paul Kingsnorth’s 2014 novel The Wake. It’s set during the Norman invasion of England in 1066 but the most striking
Adam Phillips on attention
October 9, 2022
blog
My friend Paul Paschal sent me this brief quote from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips’ book Seeking Attention (p.96): Freud is suggesting that attention
urgent time
August 28, 2022
blog
The times are urgent; let us slow down. – Báyò Akómoláfé, cited in Vita Sleigh (2022), ‘Relationships Between the Cracks: Making Oddkin’, Dark
when we party we dance
August 17, 2022
blog
I’m still studying and practising Italian and sometimes this involves doing some writing. Here’s something very brief I wrote the other day (just
an image is a call
August 12, 2022
blog
In February of 2020 I went to listen to Romeo Castellucci in conversation with Joe Kelleher at Roehampton University. I took some rather rough notes
lost
August 1, 2022
blog
Not a recent drawing
types of participation
July 29, 2022
blog
Back in December 2018 I went to a two-day Becky Hilton workshop at Independent Dance in London. We worked on so many different things (the entire
Go in and in
June 12, 2022
blog
Be the space Between two cells, the vast, resounding silence in which spirit dwells. Be sugar dissolving on the tongue of life. Dive
Agatha Yu GIFs
June 1, 2022
blog
Agatha Yu is a designer and human computer interaction specialist who works at Apple. She says that she “focuses on amplifying human senses.” She
one of a crowd
May 18, 2022
blog
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Force Majeure
May 6, 2022
blog
Last year I had the pleasure of working with the animator Magali Charrier on a short film called Force Majeure. It is built around a script that
quality and quantity
March 21, 2022
blog
I repost a lot of material from kottke.org, as if Jason Kottke is some kind of personal (well, not really personal) internet filter. In his December
accents and bravery
March 15, 2022
blog
Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery. – Amy Chua I really like this idea, and the quote itself is all over the internet.
suzannah
February 24, 2022
blog
In 2002 and 2003 I had the tremendous pleasure of working and dancing with Suzannah Edwards. I learned today that she died on 14 February 2022. She
uniqueness and sonder
January 23, 2022
blog
When you start appreciating someone’s uniqueness instead of just seeing them as a label like ‘religious fundamentalist’ or ‘single mother’, you are
would have been
January 16, 2022
blog
My mother Gabrielle Eastwood-Ellis would have been 85 today. Here she is in 1960 on her honeymoon. She was 23 at the time
frame.2 - connecting, moving & making online
January 14, 2022
blog
I’m involved in this terrific series of workshops called Frame, curated and led by Kyra Norman and Claire Loussouarn, and hosted by Independent
the arrow
January 9, 2022
blog
I’ve just finished reading Roman Krznaric’s utterly inspiring book The Good Ancestor. It’s a book about deep time and long-term thinking. Here’s one
emerging experience
January 4, 2022
blog
There is something compelling about the constancy of Antonio Damasio’s focus on the nature of consciousness. With each new publication, there’s a
gabrielle
November 4, 2021
blog
Gabrielle Anne Eastwood Ellis 16 January 1937 - 4 November 2021
stand by me
October 28, 2021
blog
cookie monster
October 8, 2021
blog
You know those cookie consent dialog boxes that now pop up on every website you visit since GDPR entered our world in 2018? This week Nieman Lab’s
now: 4 October 2021
October 4, 2021
blog
Going on for me right now: Reading: Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul, Rationality by Steven
time management advice
September 2, 2021
blog
Warning: long post and there’s no tl;dr. I was recently in the studio with a group of choreographers. One of the things that came up was how they
probably in a good place
August 30, 2021
blog
In Daniel Pink’s slightly flimsy book When: the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, there’s a section called When to Quit a Job: A Guide. Point 3
what one already knows
August 23, 2021
blog
Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows. – Epictetus, Discourses,
the show is over
August 9, 2021
blog
events like this (with attendees jetting in from all over the planet) are no longer viable if we want to ensure a liveable planet for future
belonging is stronger than facts
July 26, 2021
blog
In the podcast I make with Lee Miller called Midlifing Lee and I keep coming back to the ways in which human beings depend on the concepts of us and
now: 25 July 2021
July 25, 2021
blog
Going on for me right now: Reading: Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer by Wendell Berry, Dove Mi Trovo by Jhumpa Lahiri, Consolations by David
weakness of the flesh
July 18, 2021
blog
Weakness of the Flesh is a film by Kevin McGloughlin and Jacob Jonas that uses relatively simple animation to duplicate and people the solo dance
choreography and explaining jokes
July 4, 2021
blog
My friend Rosemary Lee is a remarkable choreographer. Her artistic work captures so much of the spirit of being human: of being together, our
2004 and 2021
June 20, 2021
blog
In 2002 I started initial thinking and dreaming about a work that would eventually become Inert (2006). In 2004 David Corbet, Shannon Bott, Cormac
elvis legs
June 6, 2021
blog
During the initial COVID lockdown British Choreographer Lea Anderson published an online and crowdsourced version of a 1995 work. It’s called Elvis
grateful love
May 23, 2021
blog
A long time ago my mother gave me a copy of a poem she wrote the day I was born. I find the idea of ‘grateful love’ deeply moving. Little child,
the infinite game and choreography
May 10, 2021
blog
In 2019 the author and “unshakable optimist”1 Simon Sinek published a book called The Infinite Game (2019) that made the work of American religious
choosing to pay
April 24, 2021
blog
Ferdy Christant is an “amateur (wildlife) photographer with an opinion” and the person who started www.jungledragon.com. In 2019 he wrote a post
now: 17 April 2021
April 17, 2021
blog
Going on for me right now: Reading: Present Shock by Douglas Rushkoff, Breve Storia del Corpo Umano: Una Guida Per Gli Occupanti by Bill Bryson,
the eyes of the other
April 11, 2021
blog
Tara Brach is a Psychologist and Western Buddhist. In a recent episode of her podcast called The Power of Deep Listening she describes how she and
loneliness, uncertainty and boredom
March 29, 2021
blog
The phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom. Those have always been where
better left unsaid
March 27, 2021
blog
Something to aspire to: I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid. – Plutarch, Cato The Younger, 4
120fps
March 14, 2021
blog
I started some simple experiments last week throwing and catching a camera. Here’s an animated gif of one catch that has been stripped from video
le mani
March 12, 2021
blog
Molto tempo fa abbiamo cominciato a pensare usando le mani, non il contrario. – Gary Rogowski, Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction
before they love
March 1, 2021
blog
I don’t remember where I took this photo, and nor do I know what it means, but I sure do like it
sneaky aspects of group deliberation
February 26, 2021
blog
Here’s Ian David Moss talking about how good groups are at making decisions: one of the sneaky aspects of group deliberation is that it reliably
informational heartbeats
February 23, 2021
blog
I like Rebecca Toh’s blog a lot. She’s a photographer, and her site is full of wisdom, care and beauty. In her post informational heartbeats she
what gordon parks saw
February 21, 2021
blog
This is a short video by Evan Puschak (The Nerdwriter) about the photographs of Gordon Parks. Where I saw it:
rhoneisms
February 16, 2021
blog
Patrick Rhone’s blog Rhoneisms is one of my favourite sites to follow. The posts are variously playful, serious, moving and everyday. I’ve reblogged
ideology
February 14, 2021
blog
This quote is from the Czech dissident (and former president) Václav Havel’s famous 1979 essay The Power of the Powerless: Ideology is a specious
mean world syndrome
February 12, 2021
blog
Rutger C. Bregmans’s book Humankind: A Hopeful History (2020) is fascinating and moving. Here he is discussing our capacity to manage and copy with
dream baby dream and joy
February 9, 2021
blog
It’s pretty obvious I like Bruce Springsteen. Here are previous posts of mine where he’s talking audiences, audiences and common experiences, the
xkcd hug count
February 7, 2021
blog
The amazing XKCD: I’m getting and giving plenty of hugs at home but wow do I miss hugging other people. 2007 was clearly an awesome year. Original
the families
February 3, 2021
blog
There’s a been a blast of these lately around where I live: I wonder if it feels like a hoax for the families of the 100k dead from the virus here
if then else
January 30, 2021
blog
the mission of nearly every corporation. Collect data. Write code: if/then/else. Detect patterns. Predict behaviour. Direct action. Encourage
nobody
January 28, 2021
blog
Nobody is setting up a programme in unemployed studies, homeless studies, or trailer park studies because the unemployed, the homeless, and the
the competency model
January 22, 2021
blog
From Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall’s Nine Lies About Work, and regarding the measurement of performance at work: the competency model is the
the art of reading
January 19, 2021
blog
The art of reading, in short, includes all of the same skills that are involved in the art of unaided discovery: keenness of observation, readily
question your teaspoons
December 28, 2020
blog
Georges Perec on questioning the habitual: Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Ask yourself about the provenance, the use, what will
midlifing
November 27, 2020
blog
Back in October my friend Lee Miller suggested we start a podcast. Yes, that’s what the world needs … another podcast. But we did it anyway and we
how to receive updates
November 27, 2020
blog
This is a post to show you how to receive updates (or be notified of an update) to this website, but also to pretty much any website. It uses an old
how a conversation is going to go
November 19, 2020
blog
Kate Murphy is a journalist and her book You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters is not a scholarly text. She does describe a
uncertainty and continuous updating
November 18, 2020
blog
Remember that when people announce they “believe science” they are believing in something which has features of uncertainty and continuous updating
how to disagree
November 11, 2020
blog
I don’t know how I happened across this website from 2008 but the opening sentence says so much about how much the web has changed since then: The
aroha
October 27, 2020
blog
The radical idea of aroha is replacing a neo-liberal mythology of life as a market based on egos pursuing their own interests, which in New Zealand
atkinson hyperlegible font
October 25, 2020
blog
Atkinson Hyperlegible font is named after Braille Institute founder, J. Robert Atkinson. What makes it different from traditional typography design
secret history of our enemies
October 12, 2020
blog
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. – Henry
popcorn popping
September 27, 2020
blog
More in the slow-motion-is-amazing series (also reblogged from kottke.org)
long form documents
September 17, 2020
blog
Word processors are powerful tools which are mostly used like very expensive electric typewriters. Remember those? What follows are eight
installation view
September 16, 2020
blog
In August 2019 I went and saw Olafur Eliasson’s In Real Life exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The exhibition was a large collection of
three applications for research
September 14, 2020
blog
Last week I posted a set of three principles for a research system. At the end of the post I mentioned that I use the same collection of plain text
asking questions
September 13, 2020
blog
In Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana outline a method for turning classrooms around so
research systems
September 8, 2020
blog
It’s autumn in the northern hemisphere and this means — among many others things, and even in spite of a certain pandemic — that the new University
there is no cloud
September 7, 2020
blog
There is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer. This is a sticker created by designer Chris Watterston that went “global”:
dial-a-spectacle
September 6, 2020
blog
Emilie Gallier is a French artist based in the Netherlands. This is the call-out for her performance work called ‘Dial-a-Spectacle’: Dear all, I
nick cave and mercy
August 30, 2020
blog
Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files is a site online where Cave responds to a huge range of questions from his fans. His responses are at various times
failed institute of failure
August 16, 2020
blog
The 2001 Tim Etchells and Matthew Goulish online curatorial project called “The Institute of Failure” is/was an amazing collection of ideas to do
postcards from before
August 2, 2020
blog
The artist Lil Boyce began a project in Melbourne in 2003. It started as a series of conversations with people about the places they’d lived in. She
slow motion
August 2, 2020
blog
Fantastic introduction by Phil Edwards at Vox into how slow motion works and how seductive it is. reblogged from
advantage of writing
July 19, 2020
blog
The most important advantage of writing is that it helps us to confront ourselves when we do not understand something as well as we would like to
the long view
July 4, 2020
blog
If human beings really were able to take the long view — to consider seriously the fate of civilization decades or centuries after our deaths — we
naps
July 3, 2020
blog
In praise of naps: In many ways, naps are Zambonis for our brains. They smooth out the nicks, scuffs, and scratches a typical day has left on our
tendency to want to do something
June 29, 2020
blog
From this amazing page of mental models, here’s the Tendency to Want to Do Something (Fight/Flight, Intervention, Demonstration of Value, etc.) We
changing minds
June 21, 2020
blog
… people don’t change their minds through confrontation and argumentation. They DO change their minds, sometimes very quickly; but quietly, in
donato sansone concatenation
June 20, 2020
blog
Donato Sansone’s extraordinary work of splicing, slicing, rotating olympic games footage as if to be a single shot. Repost from
comfort in
June 7, 2020
blog
My friend Tamara Tomić-Vajagić once sent me this guide to not saying the wrong thing. It’s spectacularly simple: comfort in, dump out. Image: Wes
confront our errors
May 29, 2020
blog
The real enemy of independent thinking is not any external authority, but our own inertia. We need to find ways to counteract confirmation bias –-
empty
May 24, 2020
blog
This is a short film directed by Benoît Toulemonde that follows the musician Nils Frahm as he collects (and makes) sounds. The film is highly
for nothing is fixed
May 21, 2020
blog
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not
eighteen
May 18, 2020
blog
From 18 May 2002. Got you on my mind
pandemic intimacy
May 17, 2020
blog
Hamish MacPherson and Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau remarkable collection of people’s experiences of sexual and sensual intimacy during COVID-19
one fine day
May 16, 2020
blog
I happened across the video on this brainpickings post. Music and words: David Byrne and Brian Eno Percussion: Mauro Refosco Choir: Brooklyn Youth
too old to dream
May 10, 2020
blog
On 13 December 2000 I videoed a conversation with my Grandmother, Gladys Eastwood. It was one day after her 87th birthday. At one point, she sang
sniff the screen
May 8, 2020
blog
I was just watching a video online about how to make Le Fritelle di Salvia. After Nonna Maria had picked this amazing bunch of sage I sniffed the
to question your knowledge
April 26, 2020
blog
We must credit the child with enormous potential and the children must feel that trust. The teacher must give up all [their] preconceived notions
in my body
April 22, 2020
blog
students in my [improvisation] classes comment on how wonderful it feels to “be in my body three times a week.” This odd expression occurs with such
ige
April 20, 2020
blog
Ian Graham Ellis 20 April 1929 - 18 December 1995 Here he is playing rugby for Sydney University in 1953
consumption
April 19, 2020
blog
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that
small acts of transformation
April 11, 2020
blog
When we cook things, we transform them. And any small acts of transformation are among the most human things we do. – Tamar Adler, An Everlasting
why dance matters now
April 10, 2020
blog
Critical Path in Sydney was partnered by Delving into Dance for their Digital Interchange Festival 2019-2020. They did a call for interest in
running and avoiding
April 5, 2020
blog
The shape of a run while trying to avoid people due to COVID-19 restrictions
scale
April 3, 2020
blog
Starring Finn Ellis-Whitty
memory is like a wikipedia page
March 28, 2020
blog
The upshot is that memory is not a fixed and permanent record, like a document in a filing cabinet. It is something much more hazy and mutable. As
not standing on your own
March 28, 2020
blog
That model of the individual is comic, in a way, but also lethal. The goal is to overcome the formative and dependent stages of life to emerge,
stumbling across down
March 16, 2020
blog
In 2009 I was invited to be part of Europe in Motion — a group of European artists chosen to participate in a series of dialogues, workshops and
autobiography in five short chapters
March 16, 2020
blog
I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a
the pleasure of making things
March 14, 2020
blog
Last week I spent a couple of afternoons with the fabulous, playful and thoughtful undergraduate dance students at the University of Malta. In the
two people together blog post
March 12, 2020
blog
In April and May 2019 I travelled to Odin Teatret in Denmark to work with Igor and Moreno. The residency was to start research and development for a
g
February 29, 2020
blog
the invention of clothing
February 21, 2020
blog
The subject was anything but frivolous: donning a garment is a complicated act. Clothing has practical uses—warming the body in cold places,
embodied and disembodied
February 20, 2020
blog
In dance scholarship we seem to use the verb to embody rather loosely and confusingly. Of the various definitions in the OED—and putting aside some
phones, feelings and radically analogue bodies
February 18, 2020
blog
In February 2020 the German artist Simon Weckert put 99 smartphones into a small red trolley, walked around Berlin and created what he called a
emotions
February 15, 2020
blog
I happened across this fantastic emotion wheel by Geoffrey Roberts over at imgur.com/tCWChf6
are you comfortable there?
February 12, 2020
blog
My friend Bob Whalley used to have different cards printed that she would hand out at opportune (or sometimes inopportune) times.1 A long time ago
being heard
February 7, 2020
blog
Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. – David Augsburger, cited in Chris Bailey’s
discarding tribal allegiance
February 2, 2020
blog
If you had told me, even six months ago, that a climate disaster like this one would strike a place like Australia, I probably would not have
algorithms
January 29, 2020
blog
an algorithm [is] an opinion formalized in code – Cathy O’Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction (Chapter 1)
city roads
January 26, 2020
blog
Beautiful rendering of the roads in any town/city/area: anvaka.github.io/city-roads/ Reblogged from daringfireball.net/linked/2020/01/24/city-maps
beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
January 26, 2020
blog
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too
dance my life away
January 20, 2020
blog
I don’t wanna die, I’d rather dance my life away – Prince “1999” (written in 1982)
git
January 14, 2020
blog
Git is what is known as a Version Control System primarily used by software developers to collaborate, to track the progress of their work, and to
move slow
January 12, 2020
blog
Move slow and take care of things
consent is only meaningful if it is informed
January 12, 2020
blog
The whole thing about whistle blowing [is that] it’s not about me. It’s about us and always is. In a democracy Government derives its legitimacy
just like you
January 12, 2020
blog
Walk gently on this earth with purposeful steps You share this space with seven billion human beings And countless other precious life forms Just
the ordinary people
January 7, 2020
blog
You can cheer the end of Sulaimani and still be anti-war. You can condemn the way Sulaimani was executed but still be relieved that he is no longer
terrible sex
January 6, 2020
blog
It’s hard not to love Nina Power’s attempt to write a theory of dance: Dancers intimidate normal, unhealthy people. Their superior physique and
the long arc
January 5, 2020
blog
I don’t seem to be posting a lot about dance and art at the moment but I couldn’t help but post this clear and succinct summary of the terrible
end of a dancer
January 3, 2020
blog
Where dancers go to die (or open a pilates studio)
stuck on a sentence
December 31, 2019
blog
In August 2018, The New York Times published a history of the critical decade — 1979-1989 — in relation to the science and politics of climate
the worth of an idea
December 29, 2019
blog
All of our days are numbered. We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all. Because the worth of the idea
on silence and speaking
December 22, 2019
blog
Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or
challenge our ways
December 8, 2019
blog
I always thought if we expect our students to challenge things, we as tutors should also challenge our ways of teaching. – Klaus Hoek This is
some dancing
December 2, 2019
blog
Some dancing I was doing back in 2017 as part of daily practice to do with thinking about and sensing time
strong opinions
December 2, 2019
blog
Here’s technology forecaster Paul Saffo from 2008: Since the mid-1980s, my mantra for this process [forecasting] is “strong opinions, weakly held.”
every young person
December 1, 2019
blog
I think every young person who regularly uses a computer should learn the following: how to choose a domain name how to buy a domain how to
education as a privately consumed good
December 1, 2019
blog
What I can say is common between the founding intellectual ideas and the roll out [of neoliberalism] is that the idea that only two things ought to
not about intellectual humiliation
November 26, 2019
blog
The texts I gave students were challenging, but never meant to subjugate, or, as Walter Benjamin when speaking about education more aptly phrased,
new eyes
November 25, 2019
blog
I saw this the other day: It translates to something like: “A true voyage of discovery is not to search for new land, but to have new eyes.” In
a different kind of biography
November 15, 2019
blog
I was really struck by Tamson Pietsch’s blog post on rethinking and rewriting an academic biography.1 Tamson writes, “my academic bio says very
i could have
November 10, 2019
blog
Repost from Sarah Elgart over at Cultural Weekly. Director Anna Galinova’s “i could have” It’s a simple film — like an arthouse music video — but I
sally potter and the best time to start is now
October 14, 2019
blog
The best time to start is now (don’t wait) Take responsibility for everything (it saves time) Don’t blame anyone or anything (including yourself)
the dead
September 1, 2019
blog
What would the dead want from us Watching from their cave? Would they have us forever howling? Would they have us rave Or disfigure ourselves, or be
reliable source
August 18, 2019
blog
From wired.co.uk/article/wikipedia-fake-news-disinformation: while other platforms are mired in debate over the borders between free speech,
civic responsibility
August 17, 2019
blog
From Roger McNamee’s book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe: The internet platforms have harvested fifty years of trust and goodwill
anne boyer rules for teachers
August 17, 2019
blog
Yesterday the artist/choreographer Paul Hughes sent me a link to this list of rules for teachers written by the American poet Anne Boyer. They are
curing affluenza
August 4, 2019
blog
Richard Denniss is an Australian economist and his book “Curing affluenza: how to buy less stuff and save the world” is well researched, clear and
data
July 22, 2019
blog
I happened across this image the other day at changeabilitysolutions.com: Given just how overwhelming it is to understand how data is changing and
shona
July 11, 2019
blog
On 18 June this year the remarkable dancer, teacher and choreographer Shona Dunlop MacTavish died in her hometown of Dunedin in New Zealand. She was
history
June 9, 2019
blog
History as “… a thin thread stretching over an ocean of the forgotten.” – Milan Kundera, The Joke (cited in Waltzing in the Dark by Brenda Dixon
the dirt
May 27, 2019
blog
Look for the dirt behind the shine. – Naomi Klein’s grandfather (in the acknowledgements to No Logo)
overton window
May 12, 2019
blog
I was reading something recently (but can’t for the life of me track down the original source) about politics and policy and read of The Overton
maximum irony and losing your data
April 28, 2019
blog
As Jamie Zawinski has remarked, when it comes to losing your data “The universe tends toward maximum irony. Don’t push it.” – Kieran Healy, The
ahmed and recognising systems
April 14, 2019
blog
Sara Ahmed is a remarkable writer. She writes in loops and tangles of words in which the words start to behave (or mean things) differently. It’s
viola sunrise
March 30, 2019
blog
In late 2006 early 2007 I had a chunk of Australia Council funding to research and develop a new performance installation called Crevice. The
full responsibility
March 17, 2019
blog
Last year I had the pleasure of spending time at the University of Alabama for a short residency with choreographer and filmmaker Rebecca Salzer. We
listening
March 3, 2019
blog
Tara Brach is a psychotherapist and meditation teacher based in Washington DC. I was listening to a podcast episode of hers last night called The
will not compute
February 17, 2019
blog
I happened across a poem by Wendell Berry because of a newsletter delivered by Riverford Organic Farmers with our vegetables. The poem is called
at night
February 8, 2019
blog
And for something different. Some scuba divers at night. Photo by Ian Baker. Taken in the Red Sea, January 2019
dancehouse
February 3, 2019
blog
Dancehouse is a venue in Melbourne, Australia. It began as an artist-led space in 1992 but now is slightly more conventional in how it is organised,
between faces blog
December 10, 2018
blog
Last month I performed a ‘desktop presentation’ as part of Light Moves Festival of Screendance in Limerick. Over the years I’ve played a lot with
started dancing
November 12, 2018
blog
I was trawling through the website of the wonderful Becky Edmunds the other day and stumbled across this utter gem called Have you started dancing
nepotism and privilege
October 14, 2018
blog
MM: Do you think nepotism and privilege might actually be a thing? JS: Nah, it’s the story they tell children to frighten them at night. – heard the
in terms of performance
September 30, 2018
blog
Link to In Terms of Performance – simple yet thoughtful collection of ideas, terms and perspectives about performance and artistic practice
we took photographs
September 16, 2018
blog
In May this year, Paul Hughes, Hamish MacPherson and I had a residency at S’ALA in Sassari, Italy. There were no planned outcomes from the work we
ancora una volta
September 7, 2018
blog
Igor and Moreno’s remarkable dance called Idiot-Syncrasy is being presented once again at The Place in London. It’s on Tuesday 9 October 2018, and
eu copyright directive
September 7, 2018
blog
I’ve posted before about The Electronic Frontier Foundation – the non-profit organisation that defends “digital privacy, free speech, and
real time archive
August 9, 2018
blog
When I was developing as an artist in Melbourne the one magazine that seemed to matter in the world of art, dance, theatre, media art and
resolutions
August 5, 2018
blog
I stumbled across this photo the other day. It was an attempt to help students understand video aspect ratios. Talk about a helpful guide
some things about dance podcast
July 22, 2018
blog
Back in February I self-published an e-book through LeanPub called Some Things About Dance. At the time, the co-founder of LeanPub — Len Epp — asked
internet rules
June 25, 2018
blog
People who are familiar with this blog will know that I occasionally veer off into thoughts and links to do with privacy and security. The other day
microflicks
June 11, 2018
blog
Back in 2006, David Corbet and I were working closely on a bunch of different projects. Often this included working with video in various ways. We
to avoid having to communicate
May 13, 2018
blog
The fantastic Jana Perković wrote/tweeted this sometime ago: If you listen carefully, you will notice that Australians primarily use language not
the system
April 29, 2018
blog
My friend and colleague Scott deLahunta suggested not so long ago that I might be interested in Ellen Ullman’s 1997 book Close to the Machine.1 It’s
skellis dot info
April 15, 2018
blog
When I first started a website I used the domain name skellis.net. About a year ago I mapped (or forwarded) that old domain to a new personal domain
cognitive biases
March 25, 2018
blog
I really like Jason Kottke’s blog at kottke.org where he covers diverse topics about culture, design, and technology (etc). More than a year ago he
wombat radio
March 19, 2018
blog
Matt Cornell is a dance artist based in Sydney. For some time now he has been producing a podcast called Wombat Radio. The interviews – most often
ambition
February 16, 2018
blog
I used to be a member of The Place’s associate artist scheme called Work Place, and I see that my 2011 biography still exists on their site:
writing
January 21, 2018
blog
I recently read a book by the New Zealand poet and academic Helen Sword called Stylish Academic Writing. It’s a thoughtful, considered and very well
advertising
January 7, 2018
blog
In the latest edition of Wired magazine computer philosopher Jaron Lanier writes of social media and the advertising business model of the
we like lists
November 17, 2017
blog
Shannon Bott and I first started working together in 2003. We have had a long, fruitful and sporadic working relationship (see Inert and Recovery)
copy what we want
November 12, 2017
blog
If all people want to do is go and look at other people so that they can compare themselves to them and copy what they want — if that is the final,
sprawl
October 8, 2017
blog
Over the summer Melbourne choreographer and dancer Shaun McLeod and I had some time to prepare a scratch performance for the Dance and Somatic
andree
October 1, 2017
blog
Last Wednesday the esteemed dance anthropologist Andrée Grau died suddenly. She had an inquisitive, sharp and beautiful mind, was quick witted and
not for choreographic purposes
September 11, 2017
blog
In the summer I was working with Eva Recacha in the studio at The Place in London and one of the piano chairs had a sign on it: We all have objects
limitations
September 11, 2017
blog
The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own
educational persuasion
August 20, 2017
blog
As a strategy for racial progress, educational persuasion has failed, because it has been predicated on the false construction of the race problem:
baldwin on america
August 15, 2017
blog
I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary by Raoul Peck about James Baldwin film about power, race, love, and a vision of America that is prescient and
privacy and eff
August 13, 2017
blog
I’ve written a little bit previously about privacy – here, here and here — and it’s safe to say a lot of my fun reading and learning seems to centre
ouspe resist being contained
July 16, 2017
blog
The University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand has decided to dump dance from the School of Physical Education:
obfuscation
July 12, 2017
blog
In the academic part of my professional life I spend a lot of time practising to write more clearly and directly. That is, to avoid unnecessary
practice of value
June 12, 2017
blog
The value of practice gets discussed a lot in dance. I remember US choreographer Deborah Hay saying something like, “99% of my choreography is the
mediawall
June 5, 2017
blog
Last year screendance artist Katrina McPherson asked Owa Barua, Natalia Barua and me to be involved in a project that explored ideas to do with
feeding research
April 15, 2017
blog
A bit more than a year ago I participated in a Research Salon at the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at Auckland University. Each of the
on leaving facebook
April 12, 2017
blog
There are, as you can imagine, a number of posts that list reasons to leave Facebook: there’s the Men’s Journal reasons, the New Year’s resolution
blogging to save the new precariat
March 5, 2017
blog
Contemporary academic life is precarious; it’s fast, mean and lean. Our public aim is to build community around the practices and concerns
showing not telling
February 27, 2017
blog
I’m deep into Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run. I like Springsteen’s music (yes, since that video with Courtney Cox in 1984), and have
anamnesis italiano
February 20, 2017
blog
In 2009 I made a short film called Anamnesis with Cormac Lally, Bagryana Popov, David Corbet, and Liz Jones. Around that time I asked Marika Rizzi
letting us know that they know
February 4, 2017
blog
The thing about conflicts of interest is that they are inevitable. I’ve experienced them from various sides: I’ve benefited from them, missed out
hazelnut chocolate
December 23, 2016
blog
I’ve had this blog since November 2008 and in that time I’ve never posted either a recipe or anything about conflicts of interest. Here’s a recipe
springsteen on pure experience
December 11, 2016
blog
So whether you’re making dance music, Americana, rap music, electronica, it’s all about how you are putting what you do together. The elements
curse of knowledge
October 30, 2016
blog
When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people An example of the
we record ourselves
October 17, 2016
blog
I’m not long back from Ferness in Scotland where I had the pleasure to work with Owa Barua, Katrina McPherson, and Natalia Barua on a screen project
numbers and evil
September 9, 2016
blog
In this sentence psychologist James Hillman could be describing neoliberalism … Working the levers of duty, following the hierarchy of command
documenting the document
August 3, 2016
blog
Previously I’ve posted links to Windows and MacOS copies of my practice-as-research PhD project Indelible (2005). For people using Intel versions of
disciplines
July 24, 2016
blog
Surrenders to conventionality are what disciplines are. The disciplines are social systems that raise their partial ‘as if’ perspectives from mere
one simple assumption
July 13, 2016
blog
As we argue vociferously for our view, we often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I
empathetic writing
July 10, 2016
blog
I heard the term empathetic writing yesterday while talking with two content designers Louise Stone and Lil Boyce. Louise described empathetic
refuses to disappear
June 26, 2016
blog
For the body cannot be easily contained by the consumption imperative. It discovers its own sexual and political being and overflows autonomously in
extend their experience
June 14, 2016
blog
But it is the job of anybody who wishes to continue to write, particularly for the theatre, to extend their experience, not only to observe but
training mind and body
June 12, 2016
blog
One piece of advice: train your body to its limits. As far as you can go without injury. Train like a strong young athlete. But train your mind and
ted talks and creativity
May 16, 2016
blog
When he considered his creative friends as individuals, the literature of creativity began to seem even worse — more like a straight-up insult. Our
green shifting and success
April 26, 2016
blog
There’s this phenomenon called green shifting which is a business or management term for the tendency to say things are fine when they are not. I
shannon and bassano
April 18, 2016
blog
I’ve had the tremendous pleasure of working with Australian artist Shannon Bott on and off since 2003. In May this year we are meeting in Bassano
provoke and disturb
April 3, 2016
blog
Reading the materials these days you’d know that art is about celebrating, bringing together, and affirming. You’d know that its about creative
big data
March 21, 2016
blog
A fascinating bit of writing about machines and our routine, non-routine, manual and cognitive jobs. Reminds me of the exquisite human-ness of
paradoxes for students
February 2, 2016
blog
I spent a couple of hours on a choreography with first year undergraduate dance students at Coventry University last week. Below are the notes I
our white friend copy
January 24, 2016
blog
Colin Poole and I have been working on a new performance project. It’s called Our White Friend. Here’s an initial blurb and link, and here’s the r&d
not knowing what we are looking for
January 19, 2016
blog
Humans see and hear what we expect to see and hear. Philosopher Alva Noë writes it like this: if I mention my hat, and then my scarf and then go on
word, academia and just writing
January 2, 2016
blog
a crucial stumbling block in reconfiguring the economics of scholarly communications for the digital age is Microsoft Word. Specifically, the fact
return to their skin
December 28, 2015
blog
On culturebot.org Lydia Mokdessi discusses Anneke Hansen‘s hymn: Part of it is an affirmative of the undeniably physical nature of existence. We
students
December 18, 2015
blog
I’ve been working and teaching at Roehampton Dance in Southwest London since September 2009. Today was my last day on the job. One of the great
phd proposal
November 10, 2015
blog
In 1999 I applied to do a PhD at the University of Melbourne (through the Victorian College of the Arts). I was required to write a 100 word
attention, friendship and dramaturgy
October 20, 2015
blog
On Saturday 17 October I gave a keynote presentation as part of the Thinking Dance Symposium at Leeds Beckett University. The following is a version
christian wolff and writing music
September 23, 2015
blog
In October 2010 I listened to Adrian Heathfield and Jonathan Burrows in dialogue as part of Performance Matters at Toynbee Studios in London. They
arfaot and dramaturgy in sassari
September 15, 2015
blog
I’m currently working with Igor Urzelai and Moreno Solinas — igor and moreno — on their latest project A Room For All Our Tomorrows (ARFAOT). We are
freedom, privacy and value
August 17, 2015
blog
I’m a dancer, choreographer and teacher and I tend to be surrounded by people who openly value this kind of work. That said, I don’t have to work
reading rafa
August 2, 2015
blog
I recently read tennis player Rafael Nadal’s autobiography Rafa and for anyone curious about the psychological demands of sport it’s a very fine
lisa nelson
July 20, 2015
blog
I happened across an interview with the remarkable US improviser Lisa Nelson the other day. It features prolonged footage of her dancing with Steve
bleeker on dramaturgy
July 6, 2015
blog
He or she is not only an analytical eye from the outside, but also a body who thinks along with the director or choreographer — that is, a
supervision and the loop
June 7, 2015
blog
One of the great pleasures and privileges of my job is to work with postgraduate — Masters and PhD — students who are interested in the
igor and moreno and boldness
May 24, 2015
blog
For the last three or four years I’ve been working with choreographer-dancers Igor Urzelai and Moreno Solinas (igorandmoreno.com). My official role
just one shortcut
April 25, 2015
blog
This is not a tech blog (in the slightest) but this week I’ve ended up for one reason or another watching friends, colleagues and students operating
caring about education
April 19, 2015
blog
I care about education. I care about the people involved – students, teachers and administrators – and their thinking, curiosity and commitment. I
administrative purpose
March 15, 2015
blog
It’s old news I know but Higher Education is wobbling. Marina Warner’s article – Learning My Lesson – is a taut summary of the situation in the UK
seeing people not training
March 10, 2015
blog
When I talk to dancers I often express how I am interested in seeing them and not their training. Here are two quotes from Ohad Naharin that seem to
attention
January 27, 2015
blog
Randall Szott’s Lebenskünstler is one of my favourite blogs. The range of ideas, links, and provocations is broad, but at the heart of the blog is
ideas and noise
January 18, 2015
blog
Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is a good read. I spend a lot of time with students talking
learning journey
January 10, 2015
blog
I was clearing out some old notes over the holidays and happened across this learning journey written back in Autumn 2009. I had a teacher in
higher education environment
December 22, 2014
blog
It’s a tough time to be part of higher education in the UK at the moment, in particular if you are not a STEM subject. I’ve written quite a bit on
on being injured
December 9, 2014
blog
I injured my back pretty much immediately after I started dancing. I was asked to be in a ballet (with next to no training) and I seem to remember
memory and the future
November 23, 2014
blog
We might worry about what it means for justice if an eyewitness can be so easily swayed by a leading question. But there’s a good reason for the
excellent sheep
November 4, 2014
blog
In Excellent Sheep1, American author and literary critic William Deresiewicz explores what is happening to young people before, during and after
where the heart beats
October 26, 2014
blog
This is a blog post for the Melbourne-based architectural photographer John Gollings. I recently finished Kay Larson’s book called Where the Heart
recovery melbourne
October 24, 2014
blog
In 2008 a dance project called Recovery was started by Melbourne-based artists Natalie Cursio and Shannon Bott as a very direct response to the
colin simon and i silence
October 19, 2014
blog
Colin Poole and I are presenting some ideas as part of Of Two Minds at Lilian Baylis on Thursday 30 October, 2pm to 6pm. This is a
dance is a messy business
September 28, 2014
blog
The first and only time I met Meg Stuart was at a workshop in New York City in November 2001. I was floored by the clarity of her thinking and
the para-academic
September 23, 2014
blog
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of being back working with students in the classroom-studio at Roehampton Dance. Their questions were fantastic,
knowing and not knowing
September 4, 2014
blog
The other day I happened across a very small notebook that had five pages of handwritten text in it. These were the first notes I jotted down for a
producer type people
September 2, 2014
blog
Yesterday I heard two different people in two very different contexts say the word(s) producer-type-people. In our planning for Pause. Listen.,
new project and respecting the dancer
August 31, 2014
blog
Tomorrow I begin work in the studio for a dance project that will be shown in the Founders’ Studio at The Place in London starting 17 September. It
performances
August 25, 2014
blog
Early in 2010 the University of Roehampton’s Department of Dance was overhauling its suite of Masters programmes. I was (and am) interested in how
hard to see
August 18, 2014
blog
Dance is hard to see. It must either be made less fancy or the fact of that intrinsic difficulty must be emphasized to the point that it becomes
all day long
August 14, 2014
blog
I’m sitting here in tears listening to Sarah Montague interview Ken Robinson. Here’s a bit: SM: Are you really saying that dance is as important as
skellis.net
August 11, 2014
blog
I’ve been cobbling together bits of HTML and CSS for my own website since 1999 and last year I decided to find someone else to do it. I asked
plasticity and collaboration
August 3, 2014
blog
I’ve been excited by a couple of things lately about dance and choreography that have come out of both practice and discussions with others. Here
eva recacha
July 29, 2014
blog
Tomorrow I head to Bassano del Grappa in the north of Italy for some research for a new(ish) project with choreographer Eva Recacha. We had a first
context and meaning
July 24, 2014
blog
Here’s David Pledger (again) writing on theconversation.com: Whether economic, philosophical, social or cultural, the context in which an artwork
hear me roar
July 20, 2014
blog
People are saying I don’t need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I’m not connected to society. I don’t care how the road got built, I
creative behaviour
July 6, 2014
blog
I thought that art schools should just be places where you thought about creative behavior, whereas they thought an art school was a place where you
passing by
July 3, 2014
blog
I’m passing by the summer theatre at Hammersmith. I pause because I think I recognise one of the cast members. I’m immediately approached by an
becoming witch
July 2, 2014
blog
Charlie Ashwell is a London-based dance-artist who is currently developing a project in which she “traces and invokes the figure of the witch” and
responsibility and organisations
June 24, 2014
blog
I return to Melbourne pretty much each year to work on different projects and in the last 4 or 5 years in particular it’s clear that the scene is
all the things that we can do
May 19, 2014
blog
Part of the work I do as a dancer, choreographer and teacher involves running a Masters programme at the University of Roehampton that is called
dramaturgy and idiot-syncrasy
May 11, 2014
blog
What doesn’t play a role shouldn’t exist. What necessity requires does not need to exist. That’s what you call dramaturgy. Logic, morals or meaning
fighting the good fight at movement research and judson church
April 7, 2014
blog
Late last summer I read with some interest the open call for Movement Research at Judson Church. It seemed like an exciting opportunity to work
many words of dancing
January 26, 2014
blog
Last year I started collecting words to put in front of the word dancing (actually, I don’t know why I started collecting them, but this is what
humbled
January 20, 2014
blog
This is the text of an email I wrote in May 2007, a few weeks after completing the London marathon. I thought it might make an interesting blog post
criticism and listening
January 6, 2014
blog
I’ve been thinking about listening to criticism as a choreographer, and then I read this: The greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when
chocolate
December 31, 2013
blog
This is a vaguely seasonal post that falls under the things part of On dance, art and things. Here is the opening paragraph of Harold McGee’s
ticking things over
December 20, 2013
blog
I spend a lot of time talking to students and professional practitioners about the nature of practice, and the importance of finding a way to
letters to future students
December 10, 2013
blog
I stole an idea recently from Brian Croxall who apparently stole it from Patrick Williams:
Szott, Gove and noticing things
November 26, 2013
blog
I like Randall Szott’s blog — Lebenskünstler — a lot. He writes provocatively and with a great deal of well-placed skepticism about the art world.
liberal education
November 10, 2013
blog
I read Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind in the late 1980s. My very close friends and I were in our early 20s, and together we found its
bruce quote on experience
October 6, 2013
blog
From Bruce Springsteen: A Secret History: From 55:56min What’s your talent? Your talent is … it’s something that everyone experiences first of
tiring of creativity
October 6, 2013
blog
Was starting to get a bit of creativity fatigue myself: Creativity is about the most worn-out, abused concept that used to mean something
sorry if
September 30, 2013
blog
I see that the pasta maker Barilla is providing further evidence that Italy remains a bastion of conservative attitudes towards equal rights. After
anamnesis
September 19, 2013
blog
Anamnesis is a screendance project that premièred in 2009. It was developed by Cormac Lally, David Corbet, Bagryana Popov and me, with support from
what did you do?
September 15, 2013
blog
Last week I had a public discussion with Michael Pinchbeck about dramaturgy and choreography as part of The Place’s Summer House Socials. Michael
teaching choreography
September 9, 2013
blog
Last Friday (6 September) I attended a roundtable discussion at Independent Dance in London called What is it to teach choreography? The session was
provoking not telling
September 8, 2013
blog
A couple of weeks ago I went and listened to Lost Dog’s Ben Duke talk to Told By An Idiot’s Paul Hunter at The Place. The discussion was about
indelible update
August 18, 2013
blog
In 2005 I finished a practice-as-research PhD called Indelible. It’s about improvisation, archives, memory and liveness in dance and performance and
cheap joke
August 10, 2013
blog
Last month I went and saw/listened to Nils Frahm at St John’s at Hackney Church in London. I like his music a lot — particularly the album Felt —
resonating wildly
July 22, 2013
blog
I pledge to focus the majority of my energies on finding and supporting contemporary cultural activity, whatever form that may take, that resonates
blind spots
July 15, 2013
blog
… when you’re researching in media res, the new ideas or details or stories that you stumble across are much more useful to you, because you can
promoting ideas
July 5, 2013
blog
I’m reading A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary1 and it’s full of delicate treasures and everyday written doodles. It’s also creating
working at speed
June 27, 2013
blog
Below is a quote from musician Thom Yorke in an interview he did with NPR’s Bob Boilen in February 2008. It comes in at 9:40min into the interview.
heart places
June 18, 2013
blog
In March this year, I was in Chicago and happened to be part of a group that performed in the very last performance of the original (since 1978)
stories already there
June 10, 2013
blog
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. – Michelangelo (apparently) There is an episode of Radiolab from 2 April 2013
audience performer configurations
June 4, 2013
blog
From Catherine’s Wood’s Mind is a Muscle which explores Yvonne Rainer’s 1968 programme Mind is a Muscle
paxton
May 27, 2013
blog
In mid-January 2012 I went and listened to Steve Paxton at Goldsmith’s University in London. The evening was, in many respects, a moving tribute to
preparing for ghosts - the many melodies
May 20, 2013
blog
This is a reblog from @preparingforghost’s instagram feed. I like how they speak to so many different attitudes or approaches to teaching,
michael vs ken
May 11, 2013
blog
On Thursday 9 May 2013, the UK’s Education Secretary Michael Gove gave an impassioned speech about his concerns about — and plans for — the UK’s
writing workflow
May 6, 2013
blog
I write a lot and for many different purposes: research reports and presentations, blog posts, grant applications, academic articles, responses to
thinking is dangerous
April 28, 2013
blog
Image taken at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
excitement of the new
April 28, 2013
blog
In March 2012 I presented my adaptation of Deborah Hay’s I Think Not at Napier St in Melbourne. It was an invited audience, for the most part
bubble
April 22, 2013
blog
Sarah Crompton has written an opinion piece in The Telegraph about The Place Prize. She suggests that dance can’t “gain a foothold in the wider
material translations
April 17, 2013
blog
Images from Material Translations exhibition at Art Institute Chicago, featuring five Japanese fashion designers — Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, Junya
100 day project
April 16, 2013
blog
Back in January I watched this TEDx talk by Emma Rogan about 100-day projects (such a pleasure to hear her kiwi accent) based on the teaching work
contradiction
April 10, 2013
blog
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. – Walt Whitman, [Song of Myself]1 A professor of
difference and change
April 5, 2013
blog
Melbourne-based choreographer-director Bagryana Popova and I joke that we only ever make one work (for the record, mine is about death and memory,
physical fractals — a response
March 15, 2013
blog
This isn’t a review, it’s more a response to a performance called Physical Fractals I saw a couple of days ago. I first heard of Chaos Theory some
the time it takes trailer
March 15, 2013
blog
The Time It Takes: A new work directed and produced by Katrina McPherson and Simon Fildes. http://vimeo.com/61454437 The film was shot last summer
letter to Mårten Spångberg
March 12, 2013
blog
Dear Mårten I like your rants on Spangbergianism. They keep me on my toes, and this is a good thing for a dancer. Yours sincerely, Simon. PS. In
observation
March 4, 2013
blog
I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I
collected links about practising
February 24, 2013
blog
I’ve been writing quite a bit recently about practice as part of some preparation for a seminar I’m giving in Wolverhampton and Roehampton in March.
decision making and slipperiness
February 21, 2013
blog
I’ve been writing a book chapter with Colin Poole these last few weeks (or is that months) and this is a bit that was edited out. I practice
good fucking design advice
February 16, 2013
blog
Constantly fucking challenge yourself. – goodfuckingdesignadvice.com/#adviceID=158
pursuing interest
November 29, 2012
blog
In the ‘teacher’ part of my professional life, I spend a lot of time working and talking with students about the nature of assessment in
zyx
November 25, 2012
blog
ZYX is an iPhone app by JODI: http://jodi.org Specifically, we noticed the user interface of your app is not intuitive and could not be navigated.
the perfect dance critic
August 8, 2012
blog
I’ve been meaning to reblog Miguel Gutierrez’s “perfect critic” for quite some time. Thanks to Atlanta Eke and friends (via facebook) for the heads
on imagination
August 6, 2012
blog
Earlier this year I was asked to write a short essay for Dancehouse’s (Melbourne) ‘magazine’ based on the theme of “What’s coming?”. Then, last
contradictory ideas
July 14, 2012
blog
Don’t take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but
separation and screendance
July 10, 2012
blog
the process of dancing in a screendance project resembles more closely an actor in a film shoot than it does being a dancer in a traditional
blurred
July 9, 2012
blog
This Sunday, 15 July 2012 at 19.30, Roehampton Dance is presenting some screendance at Chisenhale Dance Space in Mile End. I’m going to be talking
comments are open
June 7, 2012
blog
Fair call about the audio
adverbs: a game to play
June 1, 2012
blog
Below are two lists of words taken from the most recent Sadler’s Wells promotion for Jasmin Vardimon Company’s (new) production called Freedom. See
News #8: European Spring / Antipodean Autumn
May 2, 2012
blog
Here is some brief news about dance/performance things I’m involved in over the coming months … World première of Because We Care by Colin, Simon &
straybird, what matters
April 5, 2012
blog
I’m a fan of Lucy Cash and Becky Edmunds. They make simple yet compelling films that test and prod at the edges of what we might understand the word
Deborah Hay’s I Think Not
March 25, 2012
blog
Time lapse video of performance of my adaptation of Deborah Hay’s solo “I Think Not”. Held at Napier St, Melbourne, 23 March 2012
Kapiti Island, NZ
February 23, 2012
blog
News #7: European Autumn / Antipodean Spring
November 15, 2011
blog
Dear All Some brief news about some things I’m involved in over the coming months … Booth: A Dance Fair has been commissioned by The Place and
comma40
November 14, 2011
blog
COMMA40: THE PLACE 19 — 27 NOVEMBER COMMA is a dynamic series of commissions enabling artists to experiment and expand their practice in relation to
more on blogs and teaching
November 5, 2011
blog
I follow the blogs and social networking updates of a number of teachers around the world. They inspire me and and ask current and difficult
the arrival of self-consciousness?
October 20, 2011
blog
I was shocked by this story — but perhaps not surprised. Do you want people on the internet to see you crying?” She was shocked when the student
blogs in teaching and learning
October 18, 2011
blog
For some time I’ve been working with various kinds of blogs as part of my teaching and learning work. These have ranged from student-led blogs,
work place
October 15, 2011
blog
I’m involved with a group of artists selected by The Place in London for a new initiative called Work Place. We met for the first time (socially)
loss
October 11, 2011
blog
I’ve started doing dance technique classes again. This is the first time I’ve done classes regularly since about about 2002. It is also the first
lists
September 26, 2011
blog
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no
tennis
September 12, 2011
blog
I’ve started work on a project that involves (in part) searching through some old VHS tapes mostly from the very early 1980s. This was not long
how much?
July 19, 2011
blog
Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How
bias towards action
July 16, 2011
blog
IDEO’s David Kelley waxing lyrical about action, creativity and projects … (via Ken Robinson on twitter, 15 July 2011) Good short interview from
greatest gift
June 30, 2011
blog
Lars Von Trier: “You may prefer to regard it like working with an actor …” Jørgen Leth: “Where you push me to extremes …” Lars Von Trier: “The
on friendship
June 29, 2011
blog
If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I. –
single idea
May 28, 2011
blog
The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he’ll fight and die for it. – Francis Crick
berger on collaboration
May 13, 2011
blog
The only rule in collaborations is that one should never strike deals and never compromise,” he says. “If you disagree on something you shouldn’t
rehearsal for leaving
May 12, 2011
blog
Dance4, February-March, 2011. skellis.net/leaving
wild ideas
April 30, 2011
blog
In my various roles as choreographer, video-maker, teacher (what Cat Harrison calls a “slashie” as in dancer slash maker slash …) I seek
better late than never
April 30, 2011
blog
Remarkable bit of filming, editing and work
some guy called Pablo
April 30, 2011
blog
Taste is the enemy of creativity – Pablo Picasso — via dave trott (@davetrott) April 29, 2011
delusion, choreography and dramaturgy
April 20, 2011
blog
I am a choreographer and I understand this work to involve developing imaginative and playful questions of how to represent ideas through embodied
on humour
April 19, 2011
blog
On Saturday night I watched the final evening of the finals of the Place Prize in London. There were four performances — Begin to Begin by Eva
European Spring / Antipodean Autumn
April 18, 2011
blog
Dear All Some brief news about some things I’m involved in over the coming months … 1. Colin, Simon & I Colin Poole and I are currently finishing
restless writing
February 20, 2011
blog
If artists more frequently approached writing in public as just such an extension, rather than a means of explaining or promoting it, they might
assessing information
February 19, 2011
blog
the greatest challenge of our current, digital information age is assessing, not accessing information. – Dwayne Harapnuik (cited or reworded by
veronique
February 6, 2011
blog
I had the great pleasure of watching Jerome Bel’s Veronique Doisneau again (perhaps for the 4th time?) on Friday night during the screenings at the
inadequate
January 27, 2011
blog
A grade is an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgement by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined
practice as research in dance
January 24, 2011
blog
University of Northampton, Avenue Gallery Wednesday 23rd Feb, 1.00pm-5.30pm Moving Forwards offers the opportunity to investigate current agendas in
outside AiR
January 23, 2011
blog
Call for volunteer participants for a workshop and performance project: Mehmet Sander’s Uncomfort Zone. In his renowned ‘Manifesto on Dance’, Mehmet
he is not here
January 23, 2011
blog
Image from showing of He is not here at Roehampton University on 10 January 2011. Choreography: Bagryana Popov Performance: Simon Ellis Bagryana and
cicero
January 20, 2011
blog
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and
good old days
January 17, 2011
blog
Silence. These were in an email from my mother Gabrielle
screendance symposium friday 4th february 2011
December 24, 2010
blog
movement 12
November 28, 2010
blog
I just love what the Movement 12 team is doing — thoughtful, current and adding wonderful richness to the independent dance/arts scene in Brighton
defaulting
November 7, 2010
blog
It’s about time humanists started telling scientists how to think again, as they seem to be defaulting to some quite old stereotypes – Timothy
jonathan burrows mentioning christian wolff
October 8, 2010
blog
I had the pleasure of going to see Jonathan Burrows and Adrian Heathfield last Monday at Toynbee Studio as part of Performance Matters
rhythms of performance
October 6, 2010
blog
I am currently running (walking?) an MA level module called “Dance Practice as Research”. As part of the early stages of their research, I thought
dad
October 4, 2010
blog
My Dad (Ian Graham Ellis) and me — reckon it’s February 1995. He died in December that year. He’s looking cheeky, I’ve got a terrible haircut
an experiment
September 26, 2010
blog
The term ‘experience’ is crucial: for too long spectators have been equated with readers as decipherers of meaning. … The traditional task of
seam 2010
September 24, 2010
blog
From Critical Path: If you’re interested in the cutting edge connection between Dance performance and technology, then take a look at what’s
bechdel and scott pilgrum
September 21, 2010
blog
Guerrilla Semiotics on Scott Pilgrum: http://guerrillasemiotics.com/2010/09/scott-pilgrim-musings-on-misogyny/ Always insightful, always asking
beautiful
September 21, 2010
blog
How beautiful are these days? – Sam Baker
fine fine fine
September 21, 2010
blog
Thanks to Matthew Smith for this one …
reblog: Stephen Fry cutting into the Catholic Church (2009)
September 20, 2010
blog
reblog from: https://literarypiano.tumblr.com/post/1152857853/whilebird-stephen-fry-demolishes-the-catholic https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbvr0m
reaching beyond
September 16, 2010
blog
Henson and Mills represent very different sensibilities, yet what is most striking about these lectures is their common ground. Both strongly assert
crossing borders at siobhan davies dance
September 14, 2010
blog
Looks like a pretty impressive lineup this year … Edit: 21 July 2020: PDF no longer available
skin deep
September 5, 2010
blog
This looks pretty interesting indeed. Strange though, that given the ‘theme’ of the conference they are inviting papers for submission. ABSTRACT
cognitive scientists
September 3, 2010
blog
An email from Random Dance: Dear Friend, For the creation of our next full-length work, FAR (World Premiere — November 17, 2010, Sadler’s Wells,
forty part motet
September 2, 2010
blog
Last week I had the tremendous privilege of experiencing Janet Cardiff’s Forty Part Motet, installed as part of the Venice Architectural Biennale
man on wire
August 31, 2010
blog
My young nephew’s drawing of Man on Wire
the same river twice
August 30, 2010
blog
In our positivistic civilization, one of the inappropriate compliments sometimes paid to literature is to reduce it to ‘artistic knowledge’. Not
shamefully family
July 13, 2010
blog
I suspect this falls into the ‘things’ category of this blog. This is my niece Rebecca and me at the Hairy Canary in Melbourne. She’s trying to give
game intelligence
July 6, 2010
blog
For me the notion of ‘game intelligence’ is so important. It’s simple, it basically means knowing how to associate with other players. The rest
freedom and dignity
July 5, 2010
blog
A composition must make possible the freedom and dignity of the performer. It should allow both concentration and release. No sound or noise is
buber and the interhuman
June 28, 2010
blog
By the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, from Elements of the Interhuman: Let us now imagine two men, whose life is dominated by appearance, sitting
new ways to move
June 21, 2010
blog
this approach was more about how to invite the body into conditions that would create a new way to move. – Steve Paxton,
a moment
June 13, 2010
blog
From the BBC’s The Man Who Shot the 60s (about photographer Brian Duffy): I tell you the thing I’ve always been amazed at … is looking into a
loop jose vidal company
June 12, 2010
blog
Loop Jose Vidal Company The Place London Friday 11 June 2010 The floor is a white square, about 6 x 6 metres, surrounded in black tarket which, in
dan pink autonomy mastery and purpose
June 12, 2010
blog
thomas ostermeier
June 4, 2010
blog
Gerhard Jörder writing about German Theatre maker Thomas Ostermeier: Ostermeier’s understanding of realism is ultimately aimed at enlightenment. He
guillaume nery and julie gautier
June 4, 2010
blog
Reblogged from http://slightlymoving.tumblr.com/post/663083109/makenosound-world-champion-freediver-guillaume
headghgh
June 4, 2010
blog
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/there-grace-god-watches-over-sub-editors
kazuo ohno dies
June 3, 2010
blog
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/arts/dance/02ohno.html
more
May 27, 2010
blog
From my colleague Erica Stanton (awesome person): I am reminded of some wise words from educationist Elliott Eisner and look forward to a time
mini fridge
May 26, 2010
blog
From the personals in latest London Review of Books: If you like attractive, personable, romantic types I doubt very much that you’d get along with
toxification
May 24, 2010
blog
In Luke Jennings’ review of Babel and Political Mother for The Observer on Sunday 23 May 2010 he writes: Dramaturgs are the management consultants
screaming men
May 20, 2010
blog
Reblogged from Capital Idea (http://apentimento.blogspot.com/2010/05/mystery-of-little-import-about-import.html) The remarkable Mieskuoro Huutajat’s
giant smoke ring machine by scott mitchell
May 12, 2010
blog
From Scott Mitchell: Tomorrow night,Thursday 13th May, the Science-Art Club (myself and students from Brunswick Secondary Collage) will be
play
May 10, 2010
blog
Reblogged from Guerilla Semiotics (http://guerrillasemiotics.com/2010/05/what-does-it-mean-to-go-to-the-theatre): Play is most clearly defined as
zebra
April 28, 2010
blog
I never wonder about the audience. It could be a zebra out there for all I care. – Lou Reed, Word Magazine, April 2010, p.11
Monks Aid Rescue Effort in Kyegundo
April 21, 2010
blog
SFTHQ on Flickr. Some rights reserved. First viewed at guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/21/newsbucket
Jónsi and Artaud
April 21, 2010
blog
I will try to elaborate on what I mean in a subsequent post; let me just say that the Jónsi set seemed to realize Antonin Artaud’s theater of
not much to do with art, but fun anyway
April 20, 2010
blog
thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/iCade.shtml
moooooooo
April 20, 2010
blog
thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/screaming-knife.shtml
naked
April 20, 2010
blog
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands, Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round: You have moon lines, apple paths: Naked, you are slender as a
on learning
April 5, 2010
blog
The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies. You
some more on working with Bagryana Popov
April 4, 2010
blog
I’ve just finished working in the studio with Bagryana Popov. She and I have been working together on a solo work since October 2007 when we started
Bagryana adapting
March 19, 2010
blog
I started back in the studio this week on two distinct projects. The first is a solo work directed by Bagryana Popov and the second is a project
no paper?
March 19, 2010
blog
From the main stage of Transmediale, Berlin’s annual international festival for art and digital culture, one of the keynote speakers, information
Charlie Gillett
March 18, 2010
blog
Saturday afternoons are just not going to be the same … www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/17/charlie-gillett-obituary
David Byrne on collaboration
March 16, 2010
blog
journal.davidbyrne.com/2010/03/031510-collaborations.html
dog ramp
March 9, 2010
blog
I’d like one of these, and then I could get a dog
reblogging Guy Watson about meat (not a polemic)
February 10, 2010
blog
I’ve been laughably absent from this blog, which is not to say that I don’t have a stack of things I plan to write about (mostly dance
protecting borders at Christmas time
December 14, 2009
blog
*stunned silence
Moves2010 “Framing Motion”
December 2, 2009
blog
movementonscreen.org.uk/ Deadline 13 December 2009
hitherto
November 25, 2009
blog
Here’s F.M. Alexander on welcoming the unknown: … that the attempt to bring about change involving growth, development and progressive improvement
double-take
November 20, 2009
blog
… will have guests doing a double-take as they admire your creative home or garden style
unlike like other marshmallow blasters!
November 9, 2009
blog
Every household needs one
improve your hearing and enhance your image!
November 9, 2009
blog
A Dead Statesman (1924)
November 8, 2009
blog
I could not dig, I dared not rob, And so I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue, And I must face the men I slew. What tale will
yoga for cyclists
November 5, 2009
blog
Subject: yoga for cyclists starting this thursday 5th November Greetings cyclists, yoga enthusiasts and friends, Hope this finds you all generally
obstacle course for the mind
November 4, 2009
blog
Yes — there are plenty more where this came from
self cleaning
November 2, 2009
blog
This is the first in series of scans from a single magazine, read in route from New York to New Haven in early October. It was entertaining and soul
capitalism is an impeccably inclusive creed
October 22, 2009
blog
In principle, however, capitalism is an impeccably inclusive creed: it really doesn’t care who it exploits. It is admirably egalitarian in its
Yvonne Rainer
October 1, 2009
blog
Beyond the resonance of the title, however, the 21st century dance footage (itself containing 40-year-old instances of my 20th century choreography)
Bacon’s dog
September 29, 2009
blog
Study of a Dog, 1952 Francis Bacon From tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-dog-n06131
the body and walking
September 27, 2009
blog
From Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust: A History of Walking” (p.27) The phenomenologist Edmund Husserl described walking as the experience by which we
failure
September 17, 2009
blog
On Saturday 12 September Colin Poole and I performed a version of our duet “Colin, Simon & I” at The Place in London as part of the Touchwood season
influence
September 15, 2009
blog
Last Friday I went and saw Duncan Jones’ film Moon at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. The film was wonderful — intelligent, moving,
just out of Furness, Scotland (August 2009)
September 13, 2009
blog
embodiment
August 29, 2009
blog
I think about embodiment a lot. Last Saturday I saw a performance at the Royal Court in Sloane Square … Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem is played in
methods for testing grace #2
August 25, 2009
blog
Shopping at Tesco on Christmas Eve
methods for testing grace #1
August 24, 2009
blog
Cycling in London
fleeting
August 24, 2009
blog
I’ve been reading Darwin’s Origin of Species recently, mostly because of having a number of conversations with people about the ethics of medical
Marina Abramović presents …
July 28, 2009
blog
Manchester International Festival Whitworth Art Gallery 3 — 19 July 2009 Marina Abramović, Nikhil Chopra, Ivan Civic
Rose Hacker
July 27, 2009
blog
In the BBC documentary, The Time of Their Lives, 102 year-old Rose Hacker says (initially talking about the Iraq war): … I mean the awful thing is
General Patton
July 26, 2009
blog
I am not sure about why I am posting this. There is something about the texture of the leather and the look on his face. It’s grim, dour, tough and
Recovery
July 8, 2009
blog
Image of Nat Cursio from initial development of “Recovery” (involving Shannon Bott and Nat). Image by Dianne Reid I think
first attention
June 27, 2009
blog
A bit more about Feldenkrais. Last Tuesday I was in another Awareness Through Movement class with Rainer Knupp in East London. We started sitting
realness
June 9, 2009
blog
This is from Eammon Forde’s article in the July issue of Word magazine. He is talking about the black hole created by U2 when they “sucked the life
staying attentive
June 7, 2009
blog
Here is Roger Federer, at the post-match press conference, following his remarkable victory at Roland Garros: But it was very hard mentally for me
feldenkrais
June 5, 2009
blog
On Monday I went to a group Feldenkrais session run by Rainer Knupp in East London. It has been some time since I did any Feldenkrais (the last was
505
May 21, 2009
blog
There have now been more than 500 views of this entire blog. Eat your heart out Ms Huffington
reblog: pretentiousness
May 21, 2009
blog
Here’s Jana Perkovic — the guerrilla semiotician – discussing pretentiousness: guerrillasemiotics.com/2009/05/pretentiousness/ I am hoping she’ll
reblog: when everyone is a curator
May 18, 2009
blog
The term ‘curating’ has definitely been picked up to describe almost anyactivity that involves choosing one thing over another. – Michelle
steve’s palate
May 17, 2009
blog
I’m a dancer. That means that when it comes to performance it’s my senses and the way I’ve trained my senses, I guess the fact that they can be
madness
May 5, 2009
blog
Why must everything be explained, or be possible to translate, why pick it all to bits – as though it were only a camouflage for something else?
dancing lines
May 5, 2009
blog
from Anamnesis shoot Dancehouse, Melbourne December 2008 Images by Cobie Orger One because the lines interest me, the other because it is a bit
Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time
May 2, 2009
blog
Turbine Hall is vast, almost as high as it is long. From the cafè we are guided down the long ramp, given cushions, and enter the Hall. The audience
Forsythe Company’s ‘Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time’
April 30, 2009
blog
From performance this evening at Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. Images taken with my phone, hence their average-ness. Am thinking of writing a
lie
April 30, 2009
blog
I can smell out a lie, the kind that underwrites a life, even if it has been camouflaged in a work of art. It is something you can feel when all
time
April 29, 2009
blog
To live is so startling; it leaves little time for anything else. – Emily Dickinson
mind brain
April 28, 2009
blog
Let me think in my little mind brain – Bonnie Prince Billy, Guest DJ on NPR at npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102242295
two types of blogs
April 27, 2009
blog
lucazoid.com/bilateral/two-types-of-blogs/
happy
April 21, 2009
blog
The lack of basic resources – material resources – contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources do not increase happiness. –
distracted by traffic
April 6, 2009
blog
In the middle of photographing a sign in Barbican yesterday, I was distracted by traffic. The camera swung downwards, and this image is the result
critical running
April 5, 2009
blog
emergencyrooms.org/criticalrun.html
we
April 2, 2009
blog
… we live and move and have our being … – Paul, Acts 17:28
audience
March 22, 2009
blog
I go out and I play to many audiences at night. There is the audience that comes because they want to hear their favourite songs, there is an
irony capital
March 22, 2009
blog
… Britain, the irony capital of the world, where sincerity, especially sincerity tinged with spirituality, is seen, at best, as uncool, at worst as
marketing
March 8, 2009
blog
Dance Massive is on in Melbourne right now. I’ve been performing Inert with the wonderful Shannon Bott. In Melbourne the big dance company is Chunky
on ordinary
March 8, 2009
blog
David Byrne being interviewed by the fantastic Stephen Colbert: Colbert: I have a theory about artists … that they are afraid of being ordinary …
rhythm
February 16, 2009
blog
Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. Rhythm might be described as, to the world of sound, what light is to the
truth
February 16, 2009
blog
We ourselves will be able to determine what is true and what is not. – Joseph Stalin
power
February 16, 2009
blog
… the superb indifference that the powerful have for the weak. – Simone Weil
red sun
February 16, 2009
blog
My shadow at 07:30am as the sun — made a deep red by the bush fires — lights the office space
tube de-advertising
February 16, 2009
blog
spacehijackers.org/html/projects/tubeadverts/april.html
hotel on Eastlink, Melbourne
February 16, 2009
blog
The fourth major work is Hotel, a 20m-high scale model of a high-rise hotel that will give motorists the impression they are driving past a movie
once
February 8, 2009
blog
We only ever experience anything once. – Shirley McKechnie (chatting today over tea)
records
February 7, 2009
blog
Image from front of online version of The Age newspaper in Melbourne yesterday. It’s hard to describe this kind of heat (it’s more than 115ºF). A
tinder box
February 7, 2009
blog
Just along the Merri Creek trail, Melbourne
waving
February 7, 2009
blog
I was cycling to work on Thursday and was caught on the right hand side of car turning right. At the same time a fire engine was roaring up on my
ocean without a shore
February 4, 2009
blog
www.oceanwithoutashore.com/ Incredible
brief
January 20, 2009
blog
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. –
suspension bridge
January 16, 2009
blog
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090115.html
final cut online collaboration
January 13, 2009
blog
As part of a screendance project Anamnesis that I am developing with Cormac Lally, David Corbet and Bagryana Popov, we have been attempting to work
Lapage and the image
January 3, 2009
blog
We’ve always been more associated with image, and our physical work,’ he says of Ex Machina, the company he founded 15 years ago. ’We have always
dance out there
January 3, 2009
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http://dance-out-there.blogspot.com/
quodlibet
January 3, 2009
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http://quodlibet.tumblr.com
give me
January 3, 2009
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Michael Leunig The Age Melbourne 2 January 2009 Original URL: http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/2005/10/04/1128191706446.html
malaise
December 30, 2008
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In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship
wildness
December 29, 2008
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Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the thinking. – J.M. Keynes
Pōhutukawa
December 29, 2008
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The Pōhutukawa — New Zealand Christmas tree. These photos were taken at Piha, on the West Coast of Auckland
the language of groups
December 25, 2008
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Street gangs, sports clubs, political parties, families, people who for all kinds of reasons are regularly together, naturally develop a vernacular
reading
December 18, 2008
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In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he
think tank
December 15, 2008
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Last Thursday (11 Dec 2008), I had the pleasure of attending a ‘think tank’ run by dancer/choreographers Natalie Cursio and Shannon Bott. They are
jacaranda
December 15, 2008
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Right at the end of the season
quantity of ideas
November 8, 2008
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I’ve been working a lot with director/choreographer Bagryana Popov. In the improvisations that form the central part of our rehearsal work ‘on the
melbourne sky
November 2, 2008
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