Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello and welcome. I'm here to provide acknowledgement of country. For those who don't know me, I'm kj Karen Jackson, director of Moon Balletic. My genealogy tracks back to Moira Lakes in Bama Forest, and Mount Hope in Pyramid Hill. Giving me my connections to Yorta, Yorta, and Barra language groups. There's a couple of things I'd like you to take away from my acknowledgement. The first is to remember the hidden history of Aboriginal people since invasion, our loss of language removal from country, and our new extinction from massacres and pandemics. The second is our strong and inherent connection to community and country. These connections have given us the resilience and courage to rebuild our languages, gain access to country, regenerate our cultural practices in acknowledging the traditional owners of the country on which you are now on. I'd like to sincerely thank them for their generosity and kindness in welcoming people onto their lands. Lands never seeded and lands that run deep into their being and spirit. I wish to pay my deep respect to the ancestors, elders, communities, and families of the Ang Wri on whose land I stand and who create connection and share knowledge with all of us. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:01:18 Hello, colleagues, and welcome to the People of VU podcast. And firstly, thank you kj, for your fantastic acknowledgement of country. At the beginning of every episode. We always take it seriously and we're so grateful to you. But I want to also acknowledge my own deep respects to the ancestors, the elders, the families of the traditional owners on all of our campuses, be they in Victoria, new South Wales, Queensland, wherever we are, wherever you are, it's an incredible pleasure to have, not only an alumnus, a performer, a dancer, an incredible human being. Jonathan Sinatra with me, known to the world as John o and Jonathan is somebody who studied here during the years 1992 to 1995, has more than 25 years of professional experience in dance, making, teaching, photography. You name it, he's done it. Welcome. Thank you. Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Yes. And I'm so glad you do the acknowledgement to the country. 'cause while I was here, we had an indigenous person in the course or part indigenous and their performance piece. And this has gone back in the nineties when I think, you know, especially in institutions, it wasn't celebrated so much. And I had to do a performance with her just out in the floodplains out there in Ong. She goes, oh, I think you're the person to do that. Wow. So we, we did a, I was invited to participate in a piece they were making on the floodplains. Wow. Making and doing. Making and doing. Which, that's what you're about, eh? Yes. You know? Yes. And it's an incredible crew when you think of it. I mean, I will go back even beyond. And just for explaining, both of us have accents, which you're from somewhere else. So tell us a bit more about that. Where did you come from? I come from a place called Iowa Ames, Iowa, which is in the, the heartland of the United States and people when I first came to Australia in 1981, because that puts me over 50. Yeah. I've, am I, are we vintage now? Or? I think vintage. High. High, high value. Vintage. Yeah. High value. And we both have sort of grain hair. Yeah. That's how good, that's, that's nice.
Speaker 2 00:03:20 My, my father was a, a landscape architect, lecturer at RMIT. So I came out because of, let's say, education institutions. And I was a young kid, and it's like, dad's like, oh, I've got this great opportunity to go to Australia. Back then, it was this, you know, crocodile Dundee hadn't existed. It was who was at Harry Butler, which was a guy, you know, he made these things that went around the world. Alfie Manels was going around Australia at that time, even before that. But AC CDC probably would be the biggest thing you'd know from Australia. I'm sorry for any of the other Australians out there. So we got this opportunity to come Australia for three years. So we landed in 81. And I don't know your first time being Australia, but growing up Midwest America, there's no fences between houses. And, you know, suddenly I saw fences and the, the, the clay tiles and the orange brick houses.
Speaker 2 00:04:15 I remember coming from tele Marine, Marine and driving down that, that was quite a, an amazing experience to say, wow, this is a whole different place. And did you fly straight into Melbourne? We did. I flew. Yeah, we, I, I had to get on a, me and my mother came out first. My dad had organized it. I think he'd been, been here to Australia, did his interviews. Went back. Yeah. We are all moving over there. So my, got on a train with my mother in the middle of the night. Took one of those cross country American trains, got the San Francisco, got on a plane. Did that ridiculous. 18, 24 hours. I think it stopped in Pango. Pango on the way here or something like that. Finally land here, you know, new country with my mom ended up in Q. Oh. Oh, really? Okay. Staying out that way.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 Staying with friends. Ended in Q then grew up in the eastern suburbs. Yeah. My parents wanted me to go to a private school when I was younger, so I went to a private school that's Burke Hall, which is part of Xavier, wasn't my kind of thing. So I've sort of, this is going back then I was dyslexic. Yeah. Sort of probably learning disorders and way of learning, being, being in intelligent, but just different ways of learning. Yeah, yeah. Which was always interesting. And, and where that is nowadays, I mean, like these kids, like things like chat. GTP are incredible at the moment. Like someone gives me information, I can pop it into something like that. Mm. Rearrange it, talk to it, do whatever, and then you can, so I could function like anyone else. It's amazing. Right? Yeah. And so, if you think about it, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:05:47 You've always been interested in movement. You moved countries, moved countries did, when did you discover the dance gene? Well, okay. Oh, that came later. 'cause my, you know, academic landscape architecture. So if I, if I talk about dance, yes. Dance is body space and time for me. Yep. If you fundamentally break it down, I mean, you could look at techniques like ballet or, and this is just, I mean, anyone could interpret the arts how they want. It's very subjective. But if people, like, if you talk about body, like do you have the ballet body or the contemporary? Well, the contemporary body is sort of a modern ballet body with lots of other things. Or the hip hop body or they, I don't know, where wherever your culture comes from, body or then you have time, which is, you know, can be on film or, you know, my lifetime of, you know, of experience of movement or being young that has a fresh body.
Speaker 2 00:06:39 Yeah. Compared to an older body that more seasoned but doesn't want to jump as much. And then time, well I said body space and time and space being really important. So a landscape architecture, forest country grew up near forest, running around the woods coming to an urban place like Melbourne. Yeah, yeah. And just, yeah. So space has been a very important thing. And so interesting. Here we are. Yeah. In a campus. Yeah. Where you were, yes. Yourself. Yeah, of course. A lot's changed here. How did you choose Victoria University at the time? Like, did you have choices and you chose this place? Yes and no. I, so I went through all that, didn't know what I wanted to do. Ended up traveling overseas. Ended up in Tibet on that side of the mountain, trying to explain to people through like charades, how a camera works and various other things.
Speaker 2 00:07:30 I met the Dalai Lama's parents. Oh, I remember. Swapping Russia. And this is before understanding really the, yeah. What the Dal has it, Dalai Lama is currently in a process transformation. Did I hear or something's occurring? I'm not sure. But I can tell you what, having met the Dalai Lama once Yeah. Every day is a transformation. Yes. That's how I would put it. Okay. Spiritually as well. So met, yeah. His mother gave me recipes and, and on that trip, I, you know, realized I wanted to do performing arts. Came back from overseas, came back quite late, ended up in Tasmania doing arts. But I was, you know, doing acting. Yep. And, you know, I always, you know, worked hard, had a stage presence, but not necessarily great with learning my lines or mixing lines up. Yep. And I can remember being like, I'd push hard, ambitious to, there was a small cohort with groups going through my end of year production.
Speaker 2 00:08:24 You know, got the lead, beat out a couple other people that maybe should have had it and you know, did the thing. But earlier on in the year, I had been doing, like, there's other groups that were doing, like studying education and they'd be doing Shakespeare and you'd have to be filling in the background, be, you know, the typical acting thing. A tree in the background or background characters. Yeah. I can remember people come empty and going, you were fantastic in that play. And I'm going, oh, thanks. I worked hard for that. Not the end of the year. Play where you lead when you were a tree on when something else. So I knew there was some other type of performing things. And I guess there was things like committee de latte or that physical theater. Yeah. I was moving towards that. And Victoria University at the time, you know, you go back in Melbourne, you, you think like Melbourne Uni or RM IT or those centrally city located universities.
Speaker 2 00:09:16 Yeah. Or I think as a young person coming through, you think those are the, we're in a new age of technology. You could be anywhere in the world. Yeah. It's like that Australian thing back then. You think if you wanna make in the arts or do something, you gotta go overseas. Yeah. You know, you gotta pass through here, go somewhere else. So coming back, VU felt like Footscray, even though Footscray is such an important historical suburb in Melbourne, it's, it's out. It's, it's not, it's, there was always that psychological barrier of the river here, which I think could be an important thing. Someone should make that a like the, what is it in Sydney when they have that you walk along the sculptures by the sea. Mm. I think they should do rabon sculptures by the river. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think you could make that, that barrier an important point that people come to.
Speaker 2 00:10:02 Yeah, exactly. Well actually maybe we should tell people how we met. Because in fact it was in fact almost like sculptures by the Mari Rabon. 'cause we were doing silent disco by the Mari Barong. You were leading. Yes. We had 90 members of staff and students. And you were very, yeah. You were amazing. Yes. With all of you. You know, it was just great. And after four kilometers of enjoyment over more than an hour, we fi finally found out you were a graduate. Yes. Who had done and what was it called? A human movement degree? What was it called at the time? Ah, geez. It was performance studies. Ah. So yes. Circling back. Yeah. So I had come back, done acting, you know, someone, a friend of mine that I went to school said, there's this course called Performance studies. Yeah. Why don't you look at it.
Speaker 2 00:10:42 And, and I think it was the early days where you, you, you know, you, you, Victoria Uni probably had its strong things and it's, it was Victoria University at that time. Yes. And it changed from being a tech to a university. Yes. 30 days. Now you just dropped off the uni university. So now you just, we call it VU or Uni, it was Vic Victoria University of Technology. Correct. Right. That's Then they dropped the T Yes. When I was here at the time. So it became vu. At least you're not like, is it Ballarat that's got the funny name. Oh, I know. We won't compare though. No, they can have their name. Oh, well yeah, they have a, yeah, you're not even, I think we had to do a silent disco for them once. And they said Don't say our na, our acronym. I don't think we can say that on air.
Speaker 2 00:11:20 No, we won't. No. But I was here doing that performance study course, which was new and fresh. Really interesting. It was really borrowing from ideas of Europe with some of those schools that weren't the institutional, you know, like the old schools. It was actually the new school ideas coming up. Right. So that's what I actually really, you know, was amazed about when I first came to Vu was, you know, that Western Gate, like coming through the doors that we have just down there, they're actually called the, the doors of opportunity. Correct. Those doors have almost been made in, and I didn't realize like this when it was a technical college back in Nicholson Street, that's got a long history in Melbourne. Very long, very long of people coming through, probably immigrants that were very intelligent coming from other places that were doing maths and sciences.
Speaker 2 00:12:13 And so they thought if we're gonna have a performance study course, it's gotta be some really interesting people doing very interesting things. And it sounds like it was a very international group. 'cause I was just looking back and you were mentioning Yeah. People like Russell Duma, who was with Dance Exchange for many years, the French choreographer later in your career, Avi Laroi. But some of these people were actually teaching you in your degree Yes. As well. They took you under their wing. Well, tho those were people that were associated with some of the people that I had here. You had a, when the first was a ma a, a gentleman called Peter Green. Yes. I think he does radio. And he has a whole history of places like La Mama. Oh. So that was great. And, and those, I, I guess, you know, we're in an age where you have lecturers that, you know, lecture, what, 200 people, whatever at the time. You don't really ever get close to 'em. Or, you know, you have big courses. We had very small cohorts and you got very, very close to the teachers in a way of lineage. They were more mentoring. They weren't just coaching you saying, you know, do this paper. The, you know, Peter Green gave me opportunities to go over and work at LA Mama on places like that. He'd been through the Pram factory and he'd mixed with a woman called Jude Green. Yes. I was here for quite a while.
Speaker 2 00:13:30 Jude Walton, sorry, not Walton Green. Peter Green. Peter Green, Jude Walton, Chris Bobinski, who had been with Taaz Dance and her partner Herb, who was great, you know, brilliant. He, he does all the sculptures that you see around the town that are in kindergartens. Yes. Just a brilliant thinker. So lots of people were in this cluster and, you know, the interesting thing, and they're bringing Yeah. Bringing various people in. Yes. Years before. Yeah. 'cause in 2018 is when we introduced the block model with small group teaching. Yeah. You were doing small group teaching instead of the traditional model. Like you were pretty much 20 years ahead of your time with a model that's now taken the world by storm. Namely. Yeah. The arts has told us all about what a masterclass is. You did it as an undergrad. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think the, yeah. Those, those models were working in it.
Speaker 2 00:14:15 And even I had an idea while I was at University of Tasmania, I think called V Fest. Yeah. Where they had, like, back in the days you had the, it was at the SRC, the student unions and things, which have changed quite a lot. They weren't too far from where we're located in East. And they, they had little grants, so we got some money from them. So we got, while we're doing all these like class projects, we, we started saying, what happens if we mix together the years and we put on a performance event. And so we put on a performance event and there used to be a, a building called Warren and Brown across the road. Yeah. Which I think the university must have sold. And they let us have it as it was sort of in decline. It's now beautiful apartments. And we were allowed that, you know, we took the walls, that we did everything back then.
Speaker 2 00:15:03 You know, we were really allowed to inhabit or create a happening. Wow. At the time we had a, a guy, an artist, I think he's an artist, he's done well around Australia, called Corey Thomas. And he wrapped himself up in plastic and he was just sort of beast. And he let us out from Ethere up to Ballarat Road. And this is, I don't know, some Saturday night, you know, maybe slightly rainy, slightly dark, maybe it was in, was it September? And I watched a police car, a divvy band come flying down, you know, like whatever. And they looked at this guy who was in Efan with a hundred people behind him. You know, and you could see the looks on the officers like, no, we don't stop. We have, they obviously go into somewhere else, but going somewhere else. Yeah. Probably invited, you know. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:15:46 And so the thing that most people hearing this wouldn't realize is just the strength of this arts community arts transformation push. Yeah. In the nineties, which was really strong at Vu. Like, I mean, you were really part of it, right? Yes. And where did it lead? Like did you go with people into, say Sydney or overseas? What, what happened afterwards? Well, various people. I, I sort of ended off going off and, you know, working with Circus Hall or doing some other things. But I remember what was important at the time too. 'cause you, you, let's say at the time there was a stigma. I'm, I'm doing this strange course out at Footscray. Yeah. You know, it, it, it doesn't have, you know, a hundred years of VCA or it doesn't have that clout of what that what that course. Interesting to see where those types of courses or that conserv conservatorys, that's what you call those places where they're at now.
Speaker 2 00:16:35 'cause they're sort of breaking down to, I don't know, I think they're in some type of confusion in their model at the moment. And a lot of them, like we would be this rag, have a bunch of people that have, some of us have all gone off to do really interesting things in our fields, but they like the freedom we had if that was a model. They were so like, you know, you gotta learn this and this. We were like this other model, you are free, but choose something. I remember I had a great lecture there. Once, we had a bunch of students that were in a bit of revolt. He, he came and he said, right, what do you all want to do? And, you know, whatever it was. 'cause terms are now quite different. Oh yeah. I remember you'd start and it felt like a long time for the first six weeks.
Speaker 2 00:17:16 He's like, whatever you wanna do, I'm not gonna teach you anything. It's self-driven. And a couple of the students that was like, no, I'm gonna complain. This ter person's terrible. And a bunch of us realized like, if you put an idea up, he'd get behind it and go, let me help resource you. Right. And then you just grow that. Yeah. And, and then he was giving you the information. There's a whole lot of pe pedagogy around that with, you know, peer led. Yeah. You know, which is, which is great. So when you had, you know, decided that, okay, movement dance Yeah. Was gonna be one, one of the major things in your life. Did you, were you taken into a company of any sort? Like did you travel overseas with the company? Yes. I, well, while I was still here, there was a form that we, I guess we can talk about is contact improvisation.
Speaker 2 00:18:02 Oh yeah. Yeah. Steve Paxton who, and the Justin Church. Out of those sort of free sort of, these were people that had been in dance companies like Mers Cunningham, Martha Graham, what have you. And realized like we're, we're trying to recover. What is it? Like the, when I worked with Russell, he talks about the Ian body, which is the everyday body. Yeah. But these were performers trying to say, well, you could make everydayness the everyday person that as performance that that early sixties. And Steve was like, well, I'm into, you know, judo and I'm into social dancing. I'm into this and I'm gonna have this form where people throw themselves at each other in contact. Mm. And that is a form, which is, it's quite an amazing form. It's been around for 50 years. Okay. And him as a ma him as an instigator of the form with some other people that gathered around him in the beginning, he eventually said, I'm not gonna, you know, formalize the form.
Speaker 2 00:18:55 I'm, you know, I'm gonna step away. It is what it is. Yeah. I'm not, it's not my baby. It, it just sort of grows. 'cause a lot of people say Steve's the father of it, but it's sort of grown Ah, yeah. With the different people engaging. Yeah. What you were saying is called contact improvisation. Yes. Okay. And that's a kind of a school of thought around dance itself or you know, the way it could happen. Yeah. Very, very much improv though. It's, yeah. I guess it's an improvisation. Yeah. And I think what I really love about it is, like, one of the important things I think in stance is we're, and, and anything in life we're, we're creatures built on habit. Yeah. And for improvisation, Russell Duma, the person I worked with, great sort of thinker. When I chat to him about it, a lot of, some of this information's coming through, you know, working with him.
Speaker 2 00:19:37 And thankfully a lot of those people, when I first went to Vu, knew him quite well. So I knew of this person, didn't think I would be in that kind of realm of work and went off and did other things. And then eventually went, no, I should be going towards this person. So eventually years later, ended up working with him in Sydney and then had a, like a 20 year working relationship. Where did you go? What kind of places? Oh, Russell. Russell had great connections with in New York. Yeah. So he'd go over and show in New York. And he had connections with friends in Finland, then in, in France. He had a place he bought in France. Yeah. Which is still now running as a whole big sort of contact center now, believe it or not. So it was so funny for me being in 2005, going to this place going, oh yeah, you know, I'm doing this work with Russell, but I want to go off to these contact festivals that were somewhere else.
Speaker 2 00:20:27 And being at this place, and you're in Europe, you know, that was the thing out of Australia. You're in Europe, but you're so close. It's in Germany somewhere. And now this place that I grew up so long, it was a very important place. It's like going to this retreat. Yeah. You know, we pay so much money to go to retreats. Yeah. For, to me it, it, it, everyone said, oh, you're going off to work with the Russell. It's like, I'm in the middle of this forest in France near no one working with this person, you know, seven days a week all day long. Yeah. It was, it was intense. It's hard. Yaka as a, it was hard yaka. I think it, it was, it was like being in the, the military service. Like weren't the arts military service, but you're super fit. Super fit it.
Speaker 2 00:21:06 Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. At the time then. And so when you look at the, like the bio, right? Yeah. Look at all the people you've worked with. French choreo choreographer. Yeah. In 13 rooms in Sydney. Yeah. Opera House as well, I think as well in some performances. Russell no, Ru Xavier was Sydney for John Kor. Yeah. Who had this whole project. Yeah. Russell was the opera house. Oh. He called me. You know, I, he, I did a Seldon opera house and Yeah. We were having a conversation before going on air about you. You can bring me back to the points of like gratitude or understanding when you arrive Yes. At places. Yes. Like, I think, you know, someone who has dyslexia, lots of other things. It's always about trying to do things or having, and also I'm adopted, which is very, we were talking about my last name being Sinatra.
Speaker 2 00:21:48 Am I related to Frank? And yes, I am, but I'm adopted. And I think being adopted, I've always known, you know, love the parents that adopted me. But there's a sense of identity. You know, I don't know if, if you know your parents, you can look at 'em and go, oh, this is what I might look like one day. Or this is where my genes come from when you're adopted. And this is also the, the very interesting thing I find too, of also being in foot gray or working in this part of town. 'cause there's, you know, foots Gray has such a demographic of different cultures that have come and moved through this. It's, it's a real melting pot. And it's never completely been gentrified in some ways. It's, it's, it's got a, it's got a life to it, which I've always loved. You know, the West is a very wonderful place and Footscray is the center of this wild west out, this what we have in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 00:22:41 But you don't have, you don't know what you are and an identity. So you, you, you can, you always like acting. You can, you just become something or do that. I've lost my train of thought. Where, but so John, let's talk about the journey. 'cause the journey is really interesting. Yeah. So we'll just trace it back. International, come here. Yeah. And then you discover a place which is progressive off the wall different. Yes. And then you take that with you. Yeah. Everywhere you perform Yeah. Around the world. Yeah. I think it's a fascinating thing. And you just talked about the identity. It's the journey, not just the destination. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah. Yeah. You know, all the way through the process has been so interesting and so inventive. Yeah. And so if you imagine, you know, when I first saw you Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:20 And you had the earphones on, you're working with Dodo guru, you know, the silent discos downtown. Yeah. Or anywhere. Yeah. It's kind of like you're helping any number of people lose their inhibitions and just love music. Right. Love music. And I've got a great story for you because I was, you know, we're gonna talk maybe about my daily dance. Yeah. Which is a whole thing of process. I'm an a very process driven artist. Yeah. But also trying to make something that's very tangible and real with each, each iterations, each disco or each daily dance that you do. Or each dance project. I love Russell, when I worked with him on his philosophy, people make works or make pieces. Yeah. Russell makes a, Russell has a body of work and a way of working. Yeah. And to me to, I don't know if he would describe himself that way.
Speaker 2 00:24:05 I think he was ultimately like a gardener. This is how I see him. Ah, that he's growing this beautiful garden with lots of things growing in processes. Yep. At any one time he's going, the tomatoes are right this time, the lettuce is good. The zucchinis aren't right this time. Yeah. I'm gonna bring in these processes to, to present at a particular moment. He had a work called Circular Key that people didn't quite get. It was about, you know, a ship goes and comes back. But it's always, it's changing all the time. Yeah. But it's the same work. Yeah. And sell that idea. It's very hard to sell that idea in the world. People go, no, I I want that fine art. I want, I want that thing. He's like, yeah. But that thing is in process all time. Yeah. So this, this person on the street the other day, I was having a chat with them.
Speaker 2 00:24:50 They came up, they saw me doing my dance. They go, I get your vibe. Mm. Because if you're gonna ask me what I do in silent disco, they're like, all right. And they, they started playing music and we're swapping and sharing music. And they're going, are you feeling this? Are you feeling this? And I'm going, yeah. I'm feeling it's going, what are you on the frequency? What is that frequency? And I'm like going, I I, I don't know. Is it 1 28 bpm? But I did know I did. Deep down they go, no, no. It's, we're, we're we're feeling the love. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're dropping into the love, the dopamine, the whatever that the good time, the great feeling. I mean, so much pop music or music is about love or loss of love or all sorts of things. And they were so right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 00:25:27 It's true. This personal on the street. Yeah. Really insightful. Yeah. So when you think of it, how lucky are we to have such a diverse place that somebody who's creating music, dance movement. Yeah. Like yourself. Yeah. For generations now. Yeah. And for now, how many people do you think you have taken on various classes in these? How many hundreds or thousands of people do you think? Oh, influence is huge. I could, I couldn't even think. And it, well, and you don't even think, 'cause you think, let's say I'm out with, I was this morning with a group of, you know, parents and kids. Yeah. We did, like, I thought of an idea of school holiday program. And my, my mission wasn't just that play great songs for the kids that the parents are checking them into. It's actually playing great songs for the parents. Ah.
Speaker 2 00:26:06 So the parents can be big kids and the kids can be adult 'cause they're out with their parents in the city. Yeah. Having a good time. Yeah. It's not just that 50 people. It's, you know, I, I can think of 10 or 15 people that started interacting with us that directly were interacting with the street, let alone the people that see you walking past or, you know, it's nice to have friends going, oh, I saw your, your friends in the city going around. We do the Queen Victoria markets. And it's, you know, I don't know how many people, it's amazing. Circulate through it. And for those who can't imagine and haven't done it yet and haven't had the privilege, the fascinating thing about silent disco and you really show it is it's not just like a, a bounded performance for somebody in a theater. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:26:49 It's for the world. Yeah. And there's as many people joining in Yeah. As who are already joined. Yes. It's a fantastic thing. Like it just gathers people in. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of the art form. It's beauty of the art form. And I can, I can, I can circulate it back to the contact improvisation and what it is. 'cause people go, you know, people amazed you, you do this contact thing, you're amazing how you bring it. But it's not just me. Mm. It's like when I do contact improvisation, that thing of habits, I have my certain habits. And if I start ding in interacting with someone else on their habits, like we're both thinking and trying to do things, but our habits get in the way or assist each other in a way, you know, it, it makes you go a little bit faster, slower, or pushes you this way or that way.
Speaker 2 00:27:31 So two people's habits can't, you know, it's, it's not my own habit. I'm suddenly makes me do something different. Well you're sharing sharing, you're sharing it, sharing a habit. Yeah. And I think a silent disco's the same. You can only start things, but that group grows. I mean, we have a couple different DJs that do it in different ways. I'd say that one or two of the DJs have, like in the beginning, I, I, I like always diversity and do in doing many different things. And one or two of the DJs have a particular style where they use the same things a lot. Yep, yep. And you know, I, I realized I was going, oh, they're doing the same in why can't you be both? But I realized no group's the same. No, exactly. They know they start there, but they're watching what the group does inside that, which makes the experience.
Speaker 2 00:28:18 And you see so many of the things that people do with you are about celebration. Yes. You know, whether it be 21st birthdays or, you know, weddings or in advance of weddings Yeah. Life itself. You know, any number of things, individuality, you know. Yeah. It seems to me, and when you were here, you were evoking this campus in that celebratory way. Yeah. I was so grateful. I had never seen it in that light before. And everybody who was involved now talks about it and says, when are you coming back? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no. It is, it is that wonderful. I, you know, I watched people nervous at the, you know, this morning. At the beginning. I mean, that's a great thing. I have some people apologizing. Like, oh, we, we weren't, you know, we weren't that gray. I said, you shifted from this point to that point, which is a huge shift.
Speaker 2 00:29:00 I have some groups that are jump, they're, they're, they're off the dial at the beginning. Where are you gonna take them? You Exactly. You can't get hot higher than being as do you know, spinal Tap? Yeah. Remember that film? Absolutely. When they're on 11, you know. Yeah. What do you can't go much higher. Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah. And so just to sort of bring it all together, if you imagine all the places Yeah. You know, around the world and back again. Yeah. Sydney Opera House, New York, back to Foot Scrape back to Melbourne. You are daily. Yeah. Helping people achieve something they never imagined they could. Yeah. And that's our aim at Vu too. Yeah. So look, you could not mean more of a vu citizen out in the world than you are every day. Yes. And I think it's a fantastic thing. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 00:29:39 You know, and it's, it's very interesting how I've ci circulated back to Vu. You know, I I, I did in my undergrad in 95, then I started working with this choreographer and he's doing his doctor here. So we're using the university, I think it was like 2007 to about 2013. Then I, I was doing some courses afterwards. You know, I stayed lived in this area. Yeah. All the time. I've come over here daily dances. Made some things. Yeah. We talked about identity. For someone who feels a sense of, I don't know what I identify, Footscray of the West is very important to me. Yeah. Yeah. I really see that. Yeah. Really see that Midwest to west west, to West West. And I think, I think Footscray really is also, it's on the, it's it's actually on the fringes of the west as well. Yeah. It'd like to say it's at the center of the West, but really, I mean, you could say Werribee or somewhere 'cause it's so vast.
Speaker 2 00:30:35 Yeah. But we're, we're at the edge. We're at the city edge. Yeah, exactly. We're at a very interesting dynamic place. Yeah. So between river indigenous knowledge Yes. Where we're situated, we can't wait to have you back in our hundred and 10th birthday year because I'll tell you what, that's next year. Yeah. In 2026. I guarantee you there'll be something special and people will see you pop up in the most unusual vu space. Oh, awesome. Okay. Pleasure. And thank you again for talking today. It's just great. No worries. Thank you for that. Yeah. The opportunity to share stories 'cause it's, that's so important to that come through or be recognized, acknowledged in that, especially in institutions and p people like yourself that take time to go, wow, there's these amazing people out there with stories that make up things. And it's all about the stories of our graduates and the people who are here. The view family continues to grow and you're a big part of it. Thank you so much. Thank you.
