Friendship, Laughter, Hope, Humour, Memory, and Listening all help us to create a LANGUAGE RICH ENVIRONMENT in which CHILDREN are less vulnerable – in which we have immunised them against poor language and literacy. Friendship! Laughter! Hope! Humour! Memory! Listening! These essential ingredients furnish effective, wonderful COMMUNICATION.
“Books are a joyful thing,” communicates Cressida Cowl, Children’s Laureate – advising that CREATIVE INDUSTRIES need CREATIVE CHILDREN – these are huge, million dollar industries as well. Cressida is of “How to Train Your Dragon” fame!
WHAT, though, is COMMUNICATION? ‘Communication’ is not interchangeable with words like ‘message’, ‘contact’ or ‘transferring information’ (media). Often people mistakenly say “There is a communication problem” possibly meaning: “We have a shortage of information, but no way of interpreting” – “We aren’t being told what we really need to know” or “We have received different messages which contradict each other.” pp36-37.
Communication demands LISTENING. Listening is an art! Working with this ‘art’ we cannot afford to be too rigid about techniques, because our performance grows out of our personal relationships…To improve, we need courage, patience, generosity and a willingness to experiment. ‘WHY DON’T PEOPLE LISTEN?” Australia’s Hugh Mackay wrote this gem of a book in 1995 – well worth reading or revisiting! Pan MacMillan Publishers Sydney NSW.
“In the dark, your voice will save me!” S.K.Vaughan: “ACROSS THE VOID “
Sphere UK 2019/www.littlebrown.co.uk
‘Love recognises no barrier. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination – full of hope.’ Maya ANGELOU
‘I don’t believe in God, but I’m very interested in her.’ Arthur C. Clarke
“Dinoflagellates,” Stephen said. “Single-celled organisms. They create that light, kind of like fireflies. Bioluminescence.” “Don’t ruin it with your science. They’re ocean stars.” p.252
“Everything in existence is a combination or unity of opposites.” P.243
A survival thriller; impenetrably thick irony – betrayed by superiors in the worst possible way, then falsely exalted by the same. p.286
“There’s no mass grave in the universe that can’t be ploughed into patriotic propaganda by a well-crafted spin.” p.286. Highly recommended!
Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
‘THE WITCH’S KIND’ Louisa MORGAN Orbit UK 2018
A beautiful literary dedication to Painter Elizabeth Lucinda Morgan Campbell, by her grand-daughter, Louisa Morgan, a pseudonym for award-winning Author, Louise MARLEY…”In memory of my grandmother…who understood that art is life.”
“Tatters of cloud shone silver against the violet sky. I felt the pull of the canal as a physical sensation. Its tides seemed to resonate with the tides of my own flowing blood, its life calling to the life in my veins.” Yet again, WAR flavours and shapes myriad elements of this text; glass fragments of the shoreline beg imaginings of their origins, place and purpose – their wonderful ‘everyday-ness’! “I liked holding the glass fragments in my hand, bits of brown or blue or clear glass worn smooth by the water. I tried to imagine what they had once been part of…” p.2 “Deftly captures the greatest magic of all: the love between mothers and daughters.” Jordanna Max BRODSKY. www.orbitbooks.net
ABC CLASSICAL MUSIC (FM2) presented listeners’ 100 FAVOURITE COMPOSERS! Notably the following generated for lovers of music! One comment aired during this delightful time and relaying of the histories of some of the composers: “I think of music as something humans make.” Stories of awe and angst
Beauty and bereavement
Enthusiasm and energy
Magick and mystery
Actual voices, rarely heard
Successful symphonies
Subtle sounds
Startling synchronicities
Simple ‘scores’
Stealthy shifts
Staccato signals
Singular sounds
Symphonic
Spectacular
Soft
Special! Salut! ABC Radio/copyright JAD 2019
A 50/50 WORLD? Australia’s Graeme SIMSION helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and…keeps us laughing. Matthew Quick
“THE ROSIE RESULT” is the third in a trilogy, by Simsion and dedicated to “…the many people in the autism community who have been inspired and supported …(his)…books.” The Text Publishing Company/Melbourne Australia 2019. www.textpublishing.com.au
‘We are all special cases.’ Albert Camus
‘Laugh-out-loud funny, poignant and so ingenious and compelling you feel as if you want to jump into the world of the novel and join in.’ Australian Women’s Weekly
Book Club notes and more available! www.therosieproject.com.au
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“A tree shakes. Its branches flutter. There’s another snapping sound. Gigi’s barking inside the house. I pull the gate open. At the same moment I see someone – dark clothes, hunched posture, hooded sweatshirt – about ten yards away. My pulse racing, I scoot inside the gate…hide behind a tree…my heart pounding, my head spinning, unsure if he’s seen me….”
The TRUTH will be exposed. In photography, answers to logical questions, connecting and deleting lies, with great compassion…
“SHUTTER” Laurie Faria STOLARZ Hyperion, N.Y. www.hyperionteens.com
(Connecting the voices and stories in the world of Letters to Visual Art, Photography continues to develop, to take a new ‘place’, in exhibitions, celebrations in Queensland’s and Australia’s Galleries.)
UQ ART MUSEUM: The World Press PHOTO Exhibition 2019 has been on a world-wide tour and made available at the Queensland College of Art. Included at the college are the works of QUT’s Olivia Lacey who explores intersubjective dialogue in art and Caroline Austin continues experimentation exploring how transdisciplinary creative strategies might be used to address wide-ranging issues through projects, exhibitions, discussions, workshops and participatory artworks. www.bneart.com
VIVALDI! MOZART! PAGANINI! SAINT-SAENS! CHAMBER PHILHARMONIA COLOGNE, GERMANY Beautiful music echoed through St. Monica’s Cathedral, Cairns, with ‘La Tempesta Di Mare’, Concerto for violin, strings and basso cotinuo: Concerto in E Minor for bassoon, strings and basso continuo RV 484. Mozart, Concerto in B Flat Major for Bassoon and Orchestra KV 191. Paganini? Moses-Variations for Violoncello and Orchestra and Saint-Saens: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra op. 28. The Chamber Philharmonia Cologne presented Sergey Didorenko on violin; Karen Ruprecht Bassoon and Dmitri Gornowsky, Violoncello. A beautiful concert.
Welcome Joanna NELL! Australia’s author of a moving, funny, heart-warming tale of love and community… ‘THE SINGLE LADIES OF JACARANDA RETIREMENT VILLAGE’ Hachette Australia, Sydney NSW 2018. www.hachette.com.au
You will love PEGGY SMART. Aged 79 ½, living in the Jacaranda Retirement Village and widowed, Peggy’s closest ally is Angie Valentine. Four husbands. One pacemaker. Glamorous life of the party. Angie is teaching Peggy how to age disgracefully! Peggy is a long-time admirer of Brian Cornell. Handsome widower. Treasurer of the Residents’ Committee. Avid swimmer. All his own teeth! Peggy’s children? David and (overprotective) Jenny + Basil, her senior citizen partially sighted Shih Tzu. Likes: Losing herself in a romance novel. Guilt-free cake after aqua aerobics. Dislikes: Being patronised. Prescriptions. Favourite saying: “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one!” Lots of FUN!!
From the NCWQ archives, another voice – one which paved the way to NOW in the Art world!
“My name is Debbie SCOTT and I draw under the aboriginal name of “Yuluwirree” which means “rainbow”. I am not a tribal aborigine, a fringe dweller, or a person from a mission. I am an urban aborigine. I was raised in a European society. You might say I have the best of two worlds. My art is contemporary aboriginal art and my art form is pen and ink on fabric linen paper. The pen is a rotring pen which has very fine nibs…(this) gives me fine, intricate line work. The paper is imported from Italy. I use this paper because of its resilience to time and wear. The only colours I use on my work is a water colour wash I sometimes put in the background. I like to substitute my linework for colour.”
After travelling to a range of places, Debbie wrote: “I have met very interesting people who now have a better understanding of contemporary aboriginal art and hopefully an understanding of the people who are caught in this “time warp” of being neither truly black nor white. I have made wonderful friends and will have made many more in time to come, all through my art. So you can understand why I like to do my work from the heart because I get rewards from the heart in return.” NCWQ/NCWA 1990.
THE STUNNING TRIPTYCH “A Guidance in Time” created by Quandamooka artists Casey Coolwell and Kyra Mancktelow for the University of Queensland’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) has been unveiled in southern Queensland. I am sure Debbie Scott’s voice would be one to celebrate this tribute in the world of art.
…and a STUNNING SURPRISE IN AN ART MUSEUM IN OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA! I had looked at the huge art work and puzzled over the animals, as I was way across the world, seeking racoons, moose, bear and ground hogs! A wonderful mural, featuring a large work in the middle, shouldered by slender works on both sides. Then I read the inscription: “Diane MELLOR: Mamu, Ngajan and Ngagen MACKAY, AUSTRALIA 1971. MABA-I-BALA RUGU (of the Power of Darkness) 2013: framed triptych with unframed diptych; pastel, colour pencil with wash, glitter and crystal stickers…” AUSTRALIA IS HOME TO ONE OF THE OLDEST CIVILISATIONS, yet when colonists arrived there they considered the land empty. Mellor’s drawings juxtapose two different views – the real presence of Indigenous people within the blue-and-white imperialist landscape. The work also references prominent stars and celestial bodies. Mellor observes that, in Australia, “There is a renewed appreciation from astronomers of Indigenous perspectives relating to star clusters and the stories that they generate.” SDG 4 (Mackay is my Birthplace and is in Queensland on the East Coast of Australia.)
SOME NEW FUNDING HAS BEEN INFUSED INTO TOURISM AND THE ARTS IN QUEENSLAND! Each of the music events below has received refreshed funding.
COOLEY ROCKS ON is said to be Australia’s largest nostalgia music festival and this year the festival celebrated record growth for the event on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
QPAC states that thousands have bought tickets to EPIC BRISBANE OPERA a year in advance. A world-first operatic masterpiece is exceeding expectations. Richard WAGNER’S “Der Ring des Nibelungen” or “The Ring” has already sold thousands of tickets for the Brisbane performance.
“This production is coming exclusively to Queensland Performing Arts Centre and is a pinnacle of opera that will be a 15 hour epic performed over 4 nights,” says Ms. Leanne Enoch, Minister for the Arts. QPAC.
“Where you come from now is much less important than where you’re going…And home, we know, is not just the place where you happen to be born. It’s the place where you become yourself.”
Pico IYER, Vancouver Art Gallery.
In my next report I will bring you more on the explicitness visible and tangible in a range of Canada’s art exhibitions and some news of a Writers’ Fest which carries out its work on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
AND – LAST BUT NOT LEAST…4-5 & 9-12 October
COMMUNITY THEATRE: Tropical Arts, Inclusive Theatre Specialists
Bring to our Northern Region in Queensland,Australia
SHAKESPEARE AT THE TANKS!
Lighten up with the great Bard’s comedy: TWO GENTLEMEN IN VERONA –modernized to 2GEN#CNS brings us Shakespeare at the Tanks Art Centre 2019. Evening and Matinee performances are offered to a growing public, commencing Friday 4th October. TANK 3 – fully seated. Show rating: PG ticketlink.com.au and www.tropicalarts.org .
This community theatre performance has an interesting history and ethos; and is about: Real Humans, Real Theatre and Real Inclusion! Et voila! – WHAT does that mean?
The following material was given to me prior to my departure for Canada and applied initially to the 2018 production of Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT, yet gives each of us a clearer perception of WHAT ‘Real Inclusion’ means, in this dynamic, creative context!
EVALUATION PROJECT – REAL INCLUSION
‘Real Inclusion’ is a project which wraps around the productions. This evaluation captures what we do to foster and support inclusion and collaboration throughout our process of making a play. We investigate the challenges which arise and how we, individually or as a member of the team or community, work through or resolve them. This project is led by Velvet ELDRED , a respected arts leader and very experienced theatre maker and Community Cultural Development worker. Velvet brought in the first ARC participants and developed this important partnership. Velvet works with other project leaders: Avril DUCK, Artistic Director; Melissa ROBERTSON, Communication and Doug ROBINS, Inclusion Specialist. “Real Inclusion” findings will be an ongoing legacy for Tropical Arts with the aim of helping other organisations to understand that INCLUSION is a very active word! ARC=ARC Disability Services Inc. www.tropicalarts.org
