TRIPLE ALICE 1 Draft Only

Ian Maxwell

IÕve been in Hamilton Downs now for a week, here, within a few kilometres of what is marked on one of the maps pinned to the wall here (the ÔAustralian GeographicÕ one) as Ôthe point of inaccessibilityÑthe point of the Australian mainland furthest from the coastÕ. Things like that have a decidedly exotic appeal to this coast dweller; IÕve come all this way to find out what the Central Australian Desert is like. What it will do to me. What it will do to thirty dancers, students, participants who have come here, to this strange (I use the word advisedly) place, to train in a Japanese performance form, with a Welsh-born woman who spends half her working life in Copenhagen. Who describes this placeÑthe point of inaccessibilityÑas a Ôburning pointÕ: a key place on the earthÕs surface, a point where histories, cultural narratives, peoples are overlapping, brewing, and producing new ways of being together.

ThatÕs one set of ideas that this workshop is intended to explore.

More personally, I havenÕt been able to shake one image all week: that of Joseph Beuys, swaddled in ragged felt, genuflecting to a nonplused coyote in a New York loft. For that extraordinary piece, ÔI Love America and America Loves MeÕ, Beuys was picked up at JFK airport, wrapped, blindfolded and driven in the back of an ambulance to down-town Manhattan, where, unwrapped, unmasked, Beuys spent a week living.caged with a wild dog, amongst stacks of bundled Wall Street Journals. At the end of the week, the process was reversed: Beuys was rewrapped, slid into the back of the ambulance, and flown back to Europe. Now, while IÕve always wondered what happened to the coyote, thatÕs not really the point here. ItÕs just that I feel a bit like I imagine Beuys might have felt: a week ago, a Bondi dawn. Two and a half hours on a plane and IÕm in Alice Springs. IÕm met outside a cafe by Steve and Amber from the Triple Alice production crew, throw my duffel bag in the boot of a brown, Victorian number-plated Volvo, and we take off through the tumbled ridges north of the town. An hour and a half later IÕm here: Hamilton Downs Youth Camp, late afternoon light golden on the escarpments of what I learn to be the Chewings Range. Altogether, itÕs taken about eight hours of travelling (including, strangely enough, a detour via North LondonÑthe in-flight entertainment was a screening of ÒNotting HillÓ, which only heightened my sense of dislocation on arrival) from the cosmopolitan edge to the maximally inaccessible centre.

And it strikes me that this cosmopolitan edge to peripheral centre is not the only inversion going on. Like all the other tourists filing off Ansett Flight 8 last Sunday, I suppose that IÕve come here, following de Quincey not to find some fabled inland sea, but rather the desert itself.

But, the locals keep assuring us, this isnÕt really the desert; itÕs arid, sure: a scorched terrain of dry creek beds and blackened, stunted shrubs and red dust. Desert enough, perhaps, to city eyes, but apparently a life-brimming paradise compared to the genuine desolation to be found another few hundred kilometres up the Tanami Track. The real desert, it appears, is always just a bit further away.

And like Beuys, experiencing the New World as (only) a loft and a coyote, against the best-meaning advice of several dear friends, I am limiting my experience of The Centre, The Territory to this place; no side trips to Uluru, the Olgas, even Alice Springs. Just this stretch of land at the foot of the Chewings. The site itself is an old homestead, established in 1913, abandoned thirty years later, and salvaged a couple of decades ago by the local chapter of the Apex Club for use as a Youth Camp. ItÕs about 75 kilometres west-north-west of Alice Springs by road, substantially less on foot, along the Larapinta trail (about 50 kilometres according to one of the markers on the track). ThereÕs a caretaker, Dougie, who lives in a house up the rise with a cockatoo called Trevor. Trevor spends most of the day perched on DougieÕs shoulder, speaks passable English with a range of accents, and greets (and takes leave of) everyone by squawking Òsee you later mateÓ. You couldnÕt write better characters.

Immediately behind the small compound of a dozen or so buildings rises a low, rounded ridge, slashed horizontally by slabs of exposed, exfoliating red rockÑquite unnerving to walk on: underfoot it sounds hollow, like youÕre walking over a papier mache crust. From the top, a long view opens up onto a broad, scrubby valley, bordered to the south by the Western McDonnell Ranges, a spine of round-shouldered peaks rising from a line of vertical cliffs three or four kilometres from the Youth Camp.

This land is, notwithstanding the localsÕ protests, undeniably dry; as dry as any IÕve been in. Even the locals concede that it has been a good while since any worthwhile rain has fallen hereabouts. Between the ridges, the plains, carpeted by low scrub, roll gentlyÑgood for walkingÑcompletely unrelieved by water, flowing or standing. Instead, sandy creek beds wind the length of the valley; I can barely conceive of these ever being in flow, they are so dry. Just down the hill from where IÕm writing thereÕs a nylon rope hanging from a branch over the watercourse, obviously a swing, but it beggars my belief that there would ever be enough water under it to make the effort worthwhile.

So, what are we doing here? WhatÕs happening?

Well, the day starts early: breakfast (hearty porridge with soy milk, some toast and tea) is ready by quarter past six, by which time the sun is already threatening to make life in a tent intolerable. While most of the participants are sharing a large bunk-house, around which a handful of us have pitched a small tent-city, many are taking the option of sleeping in swags down on the river bed (a swag, IÕve discovered, is a cocoon-like cross between a mattress and a sleeping bagÑpretty much standard issue, along with the mandatory four-wheel driveÑfor your average Territorian).

The morningÕs first workshop activity starts precisely at 7.30am. There is an abandoned tennis court of red earth, raked smooth each morningÑthis is where de Quincey conducts the MB (Muscle-Bone, or Mind-Body) sessions: an hour and a half of movement work to an eclectic soundtrack (Òbad 80s technoÓ one participant whispered to me, but thatÕs not being entirely fair). The participants move laterally across the space, following TessÕs instructions, listening to her body, back and forth, back and forth. Beats pound across the morning, and 30 pairs of skipping, stomping, pounding feet kick up clouds of thick red dust. MB is an intensely aerobic workout, developing strength, flexibility, but, perhaps more importantly for Body Weather, a sense of bodies working in desynchronisation: recall the old trick of patting your head while simultaneously rubbing your stomach, multiply the degree of difficulty ten-fold, and you start to get an idea of whatÕs going on. The dancersÕ bodies are disaggregated through action, reconstituted as new polyrhythmic intensities, reassembled, reorganised. ItÕs hot and dusty, but in the dry air the moversÕ bodies donÕt appear to slick with sweat; after ninety minutes, though, everyone is eager to wash and have a cup of tea.

Late morning is for ÔmanipulationsÕ. Participants assemble in a sun shelter adjacent to the river bed, rolls out mats, and, in pairs, for an hour move through a fixed set of stretches and working of each otherÕs bodies, focussing on sharing breath, aligning bodies and relaxation. Tess is working through the same four of a series of seven Body Weather manipulations each day. This work looks, to this observer, quite extreme, involving the giving of and yielding to weight in what comes to look like a slow, balletic contact improvisation: a fluidly muscular, graceful exchange between two bodies, soundtracked by a sibilant hissing of breath. Returning from this session, the workers are invariably bright-eyed, aglow.

There is no work scheduled for the middle of the dayÑit had been anticipated that it would be too hot for physical activityÑso for two hours the participants take some time to fill out their daily logs, hang out and eat lunch. As it has turned out the weather hasnÕt been nearly as extreme as might have been expected, at least in terms of temperature. It is certainly warm, but most days have been dominated by relieving souÕeasters, ranging from mild to what feels like gale force, whipping up the dust and distributing it evenly throughout, among other places, my tent and sleeping bag.

During the afternoon, Tess leads the group through Groundwork,wing claws. Ten minutes more, and then an end; humans reappear from amongst the creeping flesh statuary, joining together in groups to discuss their experiences. The talk is animated, technical: close descriptions of inner bodily states and sensations as everyone tunes in to the minutiae of their internal landscapes. Several exercises involve blindfolding participants, who are then lead through and around the site on a piece of string by a partner; a subsequent session will see each participant reproducing wing claws. Ten minutes more, and then an end; humans reappear from amongst the creeping flesh statuary, joining together in groups to discuss their experiences. The talk is animated, technical: close descriptions of inner bodily states and sensations as everyone tunes in to the minutiae of their internal landscapes. Several exercises involve blindfolding participants, who are then lead through and around the site on a piece of string by a partner; a subsequent session will see each participant reproducing the sensations experienced earlier, this time working alone and in isolation.

Tess instructs the participants to break into two groups, each of which must construct a blindfold journey through the riverbed for the other half. The journey must engage with as many of the senses as possible, must require as many parts of the body as possible to contact the earth, plants, rocks. The exercise starts, and the landscape fills with crawling, jumping, rolling bodies. One misses a contact point and spends twenty minutes scrabbling backwards and forwards over the same patch of gravelly earth, grasping for an elusive palm leaf. This body twice finds an abandoned tractor, its hard, vulcanised rubber fittingsÑsteering wheel rims, tyresÑslowly peeling from unrusting metal, and crawls over, under around its every surface, pressing itself to, tasting, being in-formed by tractor-ness, seemingly distracted from its primary task, lost in a moment of tractor-becoming. At the end of the exercise, this body is still splayed in the dirt, shoulders heaving, strangely (I find myself thinking as I watch her), exhilarated by the experience.

There is a whole range of exercises, worthy of a closer account; I wonÕt attempt to be remotely categorical here. All are aimed at heightening the participantsÕ awareness of their Ôbody weatherÕ, and the dependence of those states on a range of external, internal and interpersonal influences.

In de QuinceyÕs teachings, these exercises are designed to open up possibilities in performersÕ minds and bodies for subsequent work, rather than being oriented towards producing performances themselves. This project is, explicitly, a training workshop, rather than a rehearsal, or even developmental work; Tess also affirms that Body Weather has no aestheticÑalthough itÕs probably better described as having an anti-aesthetic (itself, after all, an aesthetic). As with any training, however, extraordinary images appear, melt away. While I write, a troop of figures is pacing the creekbed; IÕm not sure what they are doing, but it is a vaguely unworldly spectacle. And I know that in an hour or so, they will file back into the communal area here in the main building, dirty and sun-kissedÑalthough out here it is a clean dirtiness: they will be dusty and dishevelled rather than sweat-slicked and funky. Nor have there been any serious cases of sunburn (although a couple of the cooks came back from a walk this afternoon looking pretty red); high SPF cream is in abundant supply, and almost everbody works in long pants and long-sleeved shirts. A range of sunhats, sunglasses and improvised insect netting folded around heads rounds out this seasonÕs Hamilton Downs collection. Pressed, IÕd call the look ÔTerritorian MotleyÕ.

And when they all come back from the creekbed, theyÕll be in various states of elation, excitement, and, sometimes, upset: itÕs hard, concentrated, physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding work, and people have their ups and downs. In fact, the entire camp has had its ups and downs: put 50 plus people together, work them for three weeks in a place like this and youÕre going to see some action. ThatÕs part of it: on Sunday the collective body weather broke; a brooding, humid fug lifted, abruptlyÑit had been a turgid few daysÑand suddenly people were playing basketball and throwing a frisbee. No-one seems to be able to decide whether the laughter is hysterical or simply joyous.

Evenings here are fantastic. Late last week, a thunderstorm moved slowly down the valley, heralded by an abrupt shift in the late afternoon air. I didnÕt so much get that ozone fizz that anticipates storms out on the coast; just warm gasps of earthy wetness as the breeze swung around to the west. From the top of the ridge behind the homestead the approaching storm looked like one of ChristoÕs curtains, suspended between escarpments; in the adjacent valley to the south, I could see an identical storm marching eastwards, in step with our own. For fifteen or twenty minutes, just before and through the evening meal, rain smacked down on the iron roof, the sunset sky a chaos of lavenders, pinks and greys. By nine oÕclock, the sky was clear, the universe was in full effect, the Milky Way slashed by gasp-inducing shooting stars.

After dinner, weÕve been having talks, slide shows, videos, bands. Most of us try to knock the edge off the indubitable benefits of the macrobiotic diet with a couple of beers or glasses of bad chablis. Bed-time is relatively early by city-slicker standards, and last week the full moon bored through my tent more brightly than any Bondi street light. Sleep, however, isnÕt a problem.

So thatÕs a day at Triple Alice.

IÕve been using the word ÔparticipantsÕ. Participants are the folk who have come here to do the Body Weather training. Numbers have ebbed and flowed over the three weeks as people depart and others arrive; generally, though, there are roughly 30 to 35 participants on any given day (more than three quarters of them women), the majority of whom are staying for the entire three weeks of the project. TheyÕve come from far and wide: Denmark, Norway, France, England, The Netherlands, as well as from across Australia. Some have trained with Min Tanaka, others have trained and made work with Tess before. A handful have little or no experience with Body Weather training, although most appear to have had some training in dance or performance disciplines of various forms. They are here to train, to experience and find out about this place, to take part in something unique.

Then there are various Ôguest artistsÕ, both indigenous painters and other locals working in mixed media forms. They have shared their work in evening slide shows, outside in the soft evening air, and in chats. The project is feeling its way towards artistic exchanges; some installation work has been integrated into the participantsÕ afternoon Groundwork session: Kim MahoodÕs plaster boats or Pam LoftsÕs ragged camp dog pieces set into the riverbed sand; participants integrate them, live with them, depart from them, work with them.

Then thereÕs the photographers and poets. Local raconteurs, politicians, botanists, meteorologists, historians. Some spend a couple of days, join in a bit of the physical training, hang out. Talk. For a little while there there was quite an assortment of chattering class types (I can say thatÑI was one of them) lolling around under a shelter cloth, swapping readings, talking, even having a blue or two (i.e., I got shitty and stormed off). On Saturday evening a couple of us gathered for a late afternoon drink while the participants worked through an exercise in front of us, and for about half an hour, in the still of the late afternoon sun (shamefully, I must admit) sipping a gin and tonic, I felt like a nineteenth century slummer journalist taking in the antics at Bedlam.

Which brings me to the folk like me: Tess calls us Ôthe theoristsÕ: a clutch of academics and fellow travellers, from Monash University, The University of Technology at Sydney, and the Centre for Performance Studies (CPS) at the University of Sydney. Additionally, documenters from the CPS photographed, video-recorded and conducted interviews throughout the length of the project. (The images that you can see on the project website have been produced by these documenters, and will constitute a permanent on-line archive, as well as being physically archived at the Centre. Over time, these will be augmented by commentary and reflective writing about the event.) There is also an on-site web-site design team, uploading material, and, to no small extent, testing the feasibility of an on-line mediation of work being conducted in what is, notwithstanding the relative comfort of the amenities (virtually unlimited bore water, fully appointed kitchen, and apparently the largest solar panel array in the Territory providing light and hot water), a remote location.

The theoristsÕ task is self-defined, I suppose. Let me briefly offer a description of what weÕve been doing. Peter Snow, from Monash, is working on a phenomenology of his own practice with Body Weather as a Ph.D project. On Sunday evening he led the participants in a seminar-forum discussion in which he raised questions about body-knowledge and epistemological questions in general, framed as a critique of an earlier talk by Gay McAuley, Director of the CPS. GayÕs approach to performance analysis is largely semiotic in orientation, taking the position of spectator, and according to that position a formative agency in the construction of performance work. PeterÕs critique sought to redress this primacy of the spectator (to perhaps overstate GayÕs position) by affirming the epistemological anteriority of the performer: Peter will forgive me for straw-manning his position as a radical phenomenology, in which the performerÕs experience is virtually irreducible. On this account, Peter suggested, the creator of a work (a novelist, an artist . . .) is always its first (and best?) audience/spectator. This is great material to open up to a group of people who have been working intensively with embodied forms of knowledge for a fortnight; the ensuing discussions were subtle, thoughtful, and, I suspect, timely.

There is theoretical talk going on in other situations, too. Frank van de Ven, from Holland, has worked with, and is interested in pursuing work with, ideas from Deleuze and Guattari. He is seeking ways of integrating theoretical discourse into performance contexts, and has been conducting short experiments with performance vignettes involving various forms of discourse, improvised in response to movement work, setting up feedbacks with the dancer, or with short prepared pieces of text. This is exciting work, suggestive of new performance directions. Discussion around these pieces has turned on, inevitably, questions of the relationship of theory to practice, and the potential pitfalls of pushing theoretical discourse too far into performative forms (Òno bad performance poetryÓ they cried).

The theoretical discourses being invoked around here generally implicate the usual suspectsÑEdward Casey on place, Jean-Luc NancyÕs The Sense of the World, Heidegger, and IÕve already mentioned the Deleuzo-Guattarian connection (before his death Felix Guattari and Min Tanaka collaborated, including the production of a text, published in Japan). This last body of work is fertile ground for those speculating on Body Weather practice: watching Frank, Tess or Christine Quoiraud move, for example, is like watching Milles Plateaux made flesh. Or bone: the flesh seems here to melt away into the creekbed. Indeed, the question Frank has posed for his own practice emerges from Deleuze and GuattariÕs borrowing from Artaud: how, Frank wants to know, does one become a body without organs? ( The work around the Body without Organs in Amsterdam is instigated by a group of dancers and theorists including Frank van de Ven, Claudia Flammin, Rolf Meesters, Angela Köhnlein and Robin Brouwer of the University of Amsterdam. )

With that question framing my spectatorship, I follow Christine and Frank up the hill. As they work on the polished round rocks in the dry bowl of a waterhole, I push myself to see them as planes of intensity, as becomings, as bodies without organs, without organicity. I offer a commentary, suggesting that we are no longer watching human beings, that the work defies reduction to an economy of representation: these bodies are not imitating trees, boulders, leaves, although clearly these things are point of departure for what their bodies are doing. The bodies move towards being something else, but never arrive; constantly becoming, but not quite being. I think about Gregory BatesonÕs model of cultural synthesisÑschizmogenesis, through which the encounter between two cultures may produce a third entity: a newness rather than the appropriation or subsumption of one by the otherÑand see not Frank-as-stone, but a new assemblage, neither Frank nor stone, but something innominate, something never seen before. In ChristineÕs movement towards a sapling I see desire, but itÕs the self-less, empty desire of a dog for a stick. ItÕs an intensity, a brief, barely stable plateau emerging from the flow of this body-as-flux, a lapse from a boundless multiple engagement with everything into fleeting, but absolute, singularity, signifying nothing beyond its own moment; here there is no economy of desire, just desire itself.

ThatÕs a taste of Triple Alice 1, September-October 1999. IÕll write more, later, when I get home and have time to reflect. For now, I need a nap; itÕs hot, IÕm tired, the kitchen staff are reading each othersÕ tarots and . . . perhaps IÕll go for a walk instead.