‘Moving Landscapes of the Yarra Valley’ - Art Seed Pod
< Cat McKay, Karina Doughty, JonRa Seward >
As part of the National Sustainable Living Festival 2018, the Valley Dance Collective & Warburton Environment presents an immersive multimedia dance performance telling an emotional story of love, connection & loss.
'Moving Landscapes' highlights the beauty and fragility of Yarra Valley’s native forests. Through sound, movement and film projections the audience is immersed in the timelessness of the ancient rainforest and the fast-paced destruction of native forest. As the truth of what is happening is revealed we feel connected to and moved by the contrasting landscapes, finally arriving at a place of solidarity and connection - ready to take action for a better world.
Friday, 9th of February 2018
Performance and Q&A session 7.30 - 8.30pm
Followed by a Special Soul Dance Workshop 8.30 - 9.30pm
Warburton Arts Centre Mechanics Hall, 3409 Warburton Hwy, Warburton, 3977
Tickets available at the door or book through the Art Centre 03-5966 4500
This event is proudly supported by the Yarra Art Rangers Network as part of their Art Seed Pod Project 2017, with support from the Yarra Ranges Council, Produced by Valley Dance Collective under the auspices of Yarra Valley Arts.
Read on to find out more as Cat McKay shares with us some of the inspirations, insights and aspirations for ‘Moving Landscapes’
Meeting the Tall Trees... the tallest flowering plants in the world
When I moved to the Yarra Valley in 2012 I became instantly enamoured with the tall tree Mountain Ash forests and the lush temperate rainforests surrounding us, so different to the landscape of the Territory. My close friend Karina Doughty, who had already made the tree-change to Warburton a year or so earlier than us, has an intimate insider’s knowledge of these forests and is passionate about educating the community about the importance of protecting them for future generations to enjoy. The idea for Moving Landscapes came out of the direct emotional responses Karina and I felt when visiting the forest landscapes of the Yarra Ranges, feeling uplifted by the tall trees and old growth forest and then experiencing a contrasting sense of loss and grief when witnessing the logged areas, sometimes literally adjacent to the intact forest.
Finding our Way to Sharing the Story
Prior to the creative development of ‘Moving Landscapes’ Karina & I spent many hours in conversation about the idea of creating a site-specific dance work, one where we could let our bodies express the emotions we were feeling in these contrasting landscapes, as a process for ourselves, as well as a way of sharing this story with others.
The Art Seed Pod Project provided the impetus to bring some of our ideas into a creative reality, but also gave us the framework and support to investigate some of the questions that arose during this development.
As part of her work with Warburton Environment Karina has led many small groups into the forest and has witnessed their own emotional journeys take place. We began to contemplate ways we could express some of these emotions in a performance and provide an opportunity for further education, discussion and also provide avenues for positive environmental action.
Some of these incredibly beautiful but also deforested environments can take time to get to on unmade forest roads. Unfortunately, with logging being the primary activity in our state forests, the roads are not always safe for visitors and tourists, who may encounter oversized logging trucks and signage that is not clear and consistent, this can make navigation confusing unless you are a regular ‘bush user’ or walker. After guiding people into our state forests for over 15 years, Karina has observed emotional, psychological and physical hurdles which prevent people from entering these unknown places. So it raised the question for us - How can we share this emotional journey with a wider audience without expecting them to overcome these barriers and travel out to these unknown places?
Using projections and an immersive video/soundscape offered us a way to draw all of this into a performance which could be combined with a Soul Dance Workshop, so that we could give the audience an opportunity to process the emotions they were experiencing as a result of viewing the performance. We were also excited to bring a performance into the Warburton Mechanics Hall – the very space that we have danced in over the previous 5 years of Soul Dance.
Finding Friends Along the Way - Collaborators and Creatives
We contacted JonRa Seward, another ‘Soul Dancer’ and video artist and invited him to be involved. We were interested and inspired by JonRa’s craft and method of working with dancing silhouettes, combining the dance with the projections to create a layered and textural videoscape. We were also keen to add a collaborator who could skilfully take control of the some of the filming, and the technical side of the projections and video-mixing.
We are also extremely fortunate to be able to use the incredible work of one of Karina’s environmental contacts, Peter Vaughan in the video element of our performance. Peter has been documenting the destruction of Victoria’s native forests and lives with his family at the coal-face of logging in the East Gippsland region. Video has become the art form that has allowed him to communicate his passion for saving our environment. We are presenting some of his rarely seen, cutting-edge drone footage which shows the extent of some of the logged areas of Victoria’s native forest.
From Creative Development to Performance
Our preview performance at Earth Art Beat Festival in November was extremely well-received leaving many audience members incredibly moved. The performance stimulated some deep reflection and important conversations amongst the audience and particularly within families.
Building on the feedback and success of our preview we have now had time to reflect, refine and rehearse, so are very excited to finally debut our production of ‘Moving Landscapes’ to the wider community on the 9th of February 2018 at the Warburton Art Centre. We will also give the audience the opportunity to ask questions and be part of a Q&A discussion and the option to dance with us at a special Soul Dance session responding to the themes of our performance directly afterwards.
Find out more about Cat, Karina & JonRa
My work as a multimedia artist was largely put on hold for more than a decade while I focused on the more immediate creative project of raising four children. My oldest child is now 14, and my youngest is 4, and finally there is space opening up to get back to some of my artistic passions. Having a background in video production and dance, my previous arts practice explored emotional stories combining video projections with bodies in movement. I love the textural quality that video imagery can have, especially close-ups of nature. But I also love it when abstract imagery can tell an emotional story. I am really interested in the ways in which nature, bodies and emotions intersect and interact. My multimedia arts practice is also a way of expressing my deep connection to the earth.
I created two similar multimedia performances combining video and dance when I was living in the Northern Territory. The first explored the seasons and textures of the Top End while navigating a story about long distance love and loss – so many people living in Darwin had family or loved ones far away. The second explored the emotional trauma of the two historic events bringing Darwin to the edge of destruction – first in the WW2 bombing and then with Cyclone Tracy in 1973. Both of these tragic events live strongly in the identity and psyche of Darwin. To continue my connection with the Territory my future plan is to tour the ‘Moving Landscapes’ performance to Darwin, possibly recreated with an NT environmental focus.
Karina has had a conscious dance practice for over 20 years and after moving to Warburton she gathered some friends with similar dance/facilitation backgrounds to create Soul Dance- the weekly conscious /expressive dance practice in Warburton.
Before having children Karina worked as a forest campaigner for The Wilderness Society for many years. Moving to Warburton and being confronted daily with the reality of the nearby forest being devastated and carried out to the Warby highway (on the back of trucks), was enough to reignite her desire to take action once more. She joined a small environmental group called Warburton Environment and later become their president, while raising her second child.
Throughout her work as a forest activist, Karina has found ways to marry her creative and spiritual inspirations with her activism. The drive to marry these ‘ways of being’ comes from a need to reveal the deeper meanings and connections to the true significance of this ongoing loss of life which we are all part of. It is also a type of fuel to sustain her own action and passion.
Jono Seward (AKA JonRa) is a self-taught creative visionary who brings 25+ years of unique creative experimentation, exploration and expression to the project. By combining old multi-media and new digital media he has produced a prolific body of work now synthesised with digital video media and projection mapping. To control video projections in real time of various visions/scenes, he has embraced VJ software and digital projections. Having spent a lot of his life away from the city and in more natural environments he has a great love for nature and the ecology of this country. This theme plays out in the evolution of his works, with much video content taken from nature.
More about Soul Dance and Valley Dance Collective
Soul Dance is a weekly expressive dance practice held on Friday nights from 7.30 - 9.30pm at Warburton Arts Centre. For some it is a powerful exploration of spiritual and emotional depth, for others a great workout, or a place to have a fun and playful time connecting with others through dance. The Soul Dance community provides a space for connection and belonging, promoting well-being and support, and a place where creative connections can be made as has been the case for the Moving Landscapes project.
To book Moving Landscapes for your event, or find out where they are next performing, click here > Cat McKay
If you have any questions about our native forests near Warburton, would like to visit them yourself or get more involved in their protection, please open the following links or call Karina on 0146 181 171
Warburton Environment https://www.facebook.com/WarburtonEnvironment/
GECO http://www.geco.org.au/
Great Forest National Park https://www.greatforestnationalpark.com.au/
