Image via www.mons2015.eu
From the relationship between writer and editor, to a playwright’s script as interpreted by director, dramaturg, actors and designers, good art is often about collaboration – and international collaborations can be the most demanding of all.
But despite – or perhaps because of – having to negotiate such complicating factors as language barriers, multiple time zones, cultural differences, and the tyranny of distance, international collaborations can also be remarkably rewarding.
Directing over 16,893 kilometres
For the last six years, dance maker and performer Shannon Bott has been collaborating with choreographer Nat Cursio on Recovery, a work inspired by untimely deaths within each artist’s family and the human capacity to cope with loss.
‘When we did the first development we began to realise, from being inside the work, that it was much harder for us to make some chorographical decisions. We both really thought, “Let’s try for an experience where we’re in it as well as making it,” and so we also had a director involved,’ Bott said.
That director was Simon Ellis, a UK-based dancer, choreographer and filmmaker.
‘Once a year across the last six years he has come to Melbourne, so we have picked up the project in those moments, but alongside that we have used techniques like blogs, and we’ve kept feeding him ideas that way. But this time round he’s not been back the last six months, so we’ve been working towards the performance without him here. And so that in itself has resulted in some really fantastic elements in making the work, and then also challenges to making the work,’ Bott explained.
‘As you can imagine, the time difference is one – and of course there’s so many mediums through which you can communicate, and we’re sharing information and getting feedback about what it is – and the fact that there is a time difference that’s not happening in real time in the studio has meant there’s been moments where we will present materials and by the time Simon’s had a chance to look at them and respond, we’ve already moved on.’
While his time-delayed directorial responses have often corresponded with directions Bott and Cursio have made themselves, at other times Ellis will offer different considerations and recommendations.
‘And that opens it up for another discussion, and another way of working … that space has allowed us to ask some really difficult questions,’ she said.
‘I know that Simon has really taken that role of all care and no responsibility – and he has stated that from afar, that he is absolutely invested and will continue to present suggestions to us and ask difficult questions.
‘And maybe the space has allowed for that. Maybe email allows for that, maybe Skype allows for that. It’s like a provocateur in a way – the distance has given a lot of clarity to the way we have engaged in discussion around the ideas. Because it’s not three people in the room absorbed in that one moment; there’s this very big perspective that happens across the space,’ Bott said.
‘I remember saying to Simon not long ago, “If you were here, we’d be making a different work”. And that’s not a bad or a good thing; it’s a particular work that’s being made under these conditions, and I think we were all ready for that. After all these years we were ready to make this work and we were going to make it, however we could. And in doing it, it’s presented each of us as choreographers with a great new challenge in our working methodology, you know? It’s really been great for that.’
Bringing the world to Broome
Based in northwest Australia, dance theatre company Marrugeku are renowned for creating richly textured works inspired by a range of cultural touchstones, including Burning Daylight, which reflects on the shared history of Broome’s Aboriginal, Japanese, Chinese and Malay communities; and Gudirr Gudirr, danced by the company’s co-Artistic Director Dalisa Pigram and created in collaboration with Belgian choreographer Koen Augustijnen and visual artist Vernon Ah Kee.
Marrugeku’s latest work, Cut the Sky – an exploration of climate change from an Indigenous perspective – will premiere at the 2015 Perth International Arts Festival, and has been developed in collaboration with a diverse team of artists, including dramaturg Hildegard de Vuyst (Belgium), co-choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly (Burkina Faso/Belgium) and sound and video installation artists Sonal Jain and Mriganka Madhukaillya (India).
This cross-cultural approach is typical of Marrugeku’s work, which is focused on long-term outcomes, said Pigram.
‘Our company has committed in our intercultural process of working creatively in this way, of including this kind of collaboration that is across the seas. We’ve invested in that for a few reason; there’s a bit of reciprocity where you learn a lot from others from other walks of life and other cultures and political environments. But it’s also extra-challenging to paint the story of what our picture is, from an Aboriginal perspective anyway; it gets quite difficult to explain our whole history in the space of a short creative development. Often it takes years. So we invest in the relationship, really,’ she said.
Such a considered approach to developing work helps ensure the company and its artists can overcome language barriers and other challenges common to international collaboration.
‘The language barriers are quite challenging; trying to explain certain concepts, cultural concepts and other things when we’re on the floor trying to build material … These kinds of things start to become very difficult to explain, so sometimes the dance language speaks for the answers a lot more than the explanations in English, and we discover some amazing things by doing that,’ Pigram explained.
‘For example with Serge, working back in 2006 on Burning Daylight, we quickly discovered so many differences between cultures. Because we’re fellow black people, if you like, we thought we’d have a lot more similarities in the way we look at dance and life; but actually, due to our histories and the dance history across his country and from ours, it’s really quite different, both physically and from what it’s been drawn from; so those kinds of things are really great to discover because it gave us shared ground to speak about Cut the Sky.’
Pigram also stressed the importance of artists knowing one another’s countries when making cross-cultural works.
‘A lot of the communication we do first and foremost is upfront, face to face, so we had that husband and wife, Sonal and Mriganka, come across to Broome and then out to Fitzroy Crossing and the Kimberly to witness and immerse themselves in this place that they’re going to draw from in design. And it was in the middle of the build-up season which is really hot, so it was quite full-on for them; but I think by doing that it gives a whole other level to our work, to make them feel that place first and foremost.’
She also stressed the importance of ensuring such collaborations benefited all parties equally.
‘You have to be clear on what you’re collaborating on and what both sides want to get out of it. If it seems one sided, if the collaboration is just to gain and not to give, then obviously you won’t get a lot out of that. I think that reciprocity, of being understanding that you’re invited in to learn what we have to offer from our perspective, and also that we value what they have to offer from their perspective, I hope that we’re going to see that on a wider stage – because we perform remote, nationally and internationally, and for those kinds of audiences we need to speak across all kinds of cultures and languages barriers; so I think by involving other people from other walks of life, that’s one way to gain understanding of certain issues that you’re exploring conceptually through art,’ Pigram concluded.
From Castlemaine to Mons
Based in the regional Victorian town of Castlemaine, live-arts organisation Punctum has been selected to represent Australia in the Belgian city of Mons, the European Capital of Culture 2015.
The result of three years of collaboration between Belgian and Australian artists, Punctum’s Migratory Complex will present a 10-day program of durational and small to large scale performances and installations, critical dialogue, public gatherings and investigations, featuring re-configured works by 11 Australian artists and five Belgians.
An awareness of the time needed to develop the project, and openness to seeing works evolve and change as part of the collaboration, has been essential to the project’s success, said Punctum’s founder and Artistic Director, Jude Anderson.
‘Because the works are collaborative and involve participation, one of the important things in reconfiguring works for the greater work that we’re undertaking in Belgium was working with Belgian artists here. And they’re young, they’re emerging artists that we’re bringing into these projects as part of the reconfiguration of the works,’ she told ArtsHub.
‘So they came out to Australia, and we’ve been to Belgium – separate artists have been to Belgium to continue the reconfiguration process. So giving time to that is a critical factor of success in our case, because no-one is feeling that the reconfiguration of the work is undermining the work; they all feel that it’s enriching the work – and that’s a critical thing for artists.
Being open to change at both a personal level and an artistic level is vital where international collaborations are concerned.
‘The way we talk about it is “shift happens”,’ she laughed. ‘And really that is what you have to embrace. Because fundamentally, art is about transformation, so if shift doesn’t happen, then to some extent the art hasn’t worked, or hasn’t done its work.’
What advice does Anderson have for artists interested in undertaking international collaborations of this nature?
‘Humility is really critical, and I suppose respecting the reciprocal nature of what you’re doing; really respecting what the other can bring, being open to what that can change and generous to what you can put on the table,’ she said.
‘And do you research. Give as much time to the research on the place that you’re going as you would to your art form and the project in hand.’
Making some attempts to learn the language of the artists you will be working with is also valuable, she added.
‘Often the other people with whom you’re collaborating and working, they will have already made a great effort to understand English, so often they will be translating legal documents and agreements into English, and some very funny phrases turn up in legal documents that you then have to deconstruct and spend time over … So giving time over to the administrative processes is very important as well, because where you have that as a solid basis, where everyone’s agreeing about the agreement, then you don’t need to worry about it anymore. But to give time over to that is very, very important. And where possible, learn the language.’
Anderson also stresses the importance of learning about and respecting local cultural protocols.
‘Often you don’t understand what structures and what protocols you’re having to work within – and they go unspoken because it’s part of a diplomatic process. So diplomacy is a huge part of it and I think people underestimate that, and underestimate the protocol processes that have to go on internally, that [your collaborators] might be dealing with,’ she said.
‘So for example, with the European Capital of Culture, they’re dealing with the city, the department, the region, and then the greater Belgian context and then the European context. So the flow of information that has to happen before a decision is made, as you can imagine, takes longer than local government!
Her final piece of advice for artists wishing to engage in international collaboration?
‘If you can do it, do it.’
Recovery
Choreography & direction by Shannon Bott, Nat Cursio and Simon Ellis
The Substation, Newport
www.thesubstation.org.au
2-9 December
Marrugeku’s Cut the Sky
Regal Theatre, Subiaco
27 February – 1 March
www.perthfestival.com.au
Punctum’s Migratory Complex
Mons 2015 – European Capital of Culture
www.mons2015.eu/en
www.punctum.com.au/works/migratory-complex
