Lift the shoulders and breath in……..

Relax the shoulders and breathe out…….

Think of something happy…. Smile…..

Have you got a drink? This may take some words

At the centre of my spiralling self, I am a deep thinker, I am a maker, I am a mover. I am called Viv….. Sometimes Vivienne. My spiralling self is always and at the same time Mum, wife, daughter, sister, friend, artist, mover, collaborator, colleague. There are wider arcs of connection and being but these are my inner circle. Each of these named parts of me come closer and move further away as I follow the curves of time and action through any given day, month, year, decade. I am all of these things but they are not all of me. 

I was born to dance, so I must dance, so I dance. It is my calling in life. Movement is my first response to almost any situation. I experience the world in a very tactile way. A visceral sensation of emotions, thoughts and experience. I would even go so far as to say, I think in movement. 

Despite my calling as a dance artist and my determination and single minded focus in my early life, a career in dance was not something that flowed easily for me. I experienced moderate success but I tripped over my own self doubt constantly, often sprawling face first in the emotional mud. I still do, but I have developed better strategies and techniques for sprawling over time, so that this action becomes a useful process of creative research each time I lose my balance. There have also been some socially constructed obstacles that unexpectedly shifted the ground beneath my feet. Externally driven instability was and is harder to prepare for, more stomach dropping surprise than familiar train wreck coming from an expected direction. As time spiraled out from the centre of my dancing self in the era of my 20’s an increasing level of disillusionment with the funding process for arts practice bloomed in my heart. I began questioning and questing, looking for action in life that would offer financial security, and challenge me to think and create. It was time to explore new spaces and possibilities looping out from my dancing centre. 

So maybe you are wondering…… where did I go each time I looped out from my dancing centre? 

The first loop turned me towards university and further study. Yet almost immediately the return curve was pulling, pulling me back to my dancing centre. In my first year I took a sociology unit and in my lecture instead of writing notes on social theory I wrote notes for new choreographic ideas. It was very inspiring!!! I decided I wanted to become a social researcher with a focus on the arts in society and decided to do a double major arts degree in Social Research Methods and Italian Language. Throughout my degree I would often take my own questions to my lecturers for approval. I didn’t have time to answer arbitrary questions about topics other than dance. I researched dance in the social processes of globilisation, in education, in the sociology of health and in social theories of the development of our concepts of self. It was a joyous time of deep inquiry. But upon finishing my degree I quickly realised I had placed myself straight back into another profession with a grant writing cycle. Well 😭 Shit! 🤬 So 🤔 what then?