Solo Performance
Performance Space, Sexes Season
Carriageworks, Sydney, 14-17 Nov 2012
“… Later, seated in Track 8 with the huge doors flung open, we hear a car blasting Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” screech to a halt outside. Car doors slam and a tired but determined looking Long strides into the room. She hauls recyclable shopping bags full of groceries around the perimeter of an expansive pink square of carpet and places them next to a neatly stacked pantry. Not far behind her is her sidekick, Narelle Benjamin, also hauling shopping bags and sporting a crocheted onesie. Car emptied and doors closed, Long moves to a table in the middle of the carpet and makes packed lunches, buttering bread to the music…
As she moves from buttering to other household tasks, her dances become increasingly radical transformations. Taking on a sort of sexual ferocity…
Eventually the stage is quiet. Standing under a single spotlight in nothing but a white slip, Long presents herself in stillness to the audience. Time expands. I am able to look over her flesh, to let my eyes linger. Gradually it dawns on me that I am seeing more than just the bright and bubbly side of this woman tonight. I am seeing something serious, too. I feel that I am being let into something that is real, and quite private.
… I am flooded with a mix of emotions. I find myself close to tears as I watch her pendulum-like movement, limbs and upper body swinging with such ease.
Yet this performance doesn’t so much mourn invisibility as simply acknowledge that it happens. It playfully illuminates both difficult and ecstatic moments within invisible experience, paying special attention to the possibilities and dignities that persist in that context. Yes, we can know ourselves to be wildcats, bombshells, oracles…even when the wider world doesn’t see it so clearly.” (Cleo Mees, RT113 )
| Created and performed by | Julie-Anne Long |
| Co-performer | Narelle Benjamin |
| Lighting | Karen Norris |
| Production Management | Clytie Smith |
| Sound Mix | Gail Priest |
| Mrs Robinson video projections | Samuel James |
| Video co-performer | Matt Prest |
| Other collaborators | Deborah Kelly |
| Caroline Downs |