COWRA-CANOWINDRA INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNITY ARTS PROJECT
Summary by WeiZen Ho and Alan Schacher
Voice and Movement Workshop Facilitators, 23 Sept – 4 Oct 2013
written 15th Oct 2013
It was encouraging to see through the process with some of the workshop participants, especially the ones who initially felt disheartened because they had “nothing” to offer. Through exercises and discussing various approaches to body and voice/sound formation, the group was able to experience the possibilities that simple actions like standing, sitting to lying down, vocalising numbers and reciting family names can create mini performances.
Amongst many things observed, I was struck by the ages on the name plaques – 3 month old to 97 years old which allowed me to visualise families being interned. Some things gleaned and played with from reading the internees’ stories, the personal histories from the workshop participants and significant people who shared their stories:
“…never seen so much milk before…’’
“…from desert to garden…”
“…building things from scratch…”
“…the red soil got in everywhere…”
“…suspected sympathisers…”
“ I speak no other language (than English)…”
“…desperate to abandon the family name…”
“ I live here, l live here! I live here…it’s only a place that I live”
“Every morning, I go through the little barb wire gate to get to school…”
“I was nineteen…I climbed up a tree and cried…”
Alan Schacher devising a performance for Voice and Movement Workshop
– post by Weizen Ho and Alan Schacher
– photo by Mayu Kanamori
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