Catastrophes
Author Identifier
Renee Newman: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-8419
Document Type
Original Creative Work
Publisher
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
School
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
RAS ID
70351
Abstract
Artist Statement:
We are old friends and became mothers within a few months of each other in 2018. We shared abstract yet lucid experiences across states and time zones. In the early days of parenthood there was something crude yet brilliant about the delirium and the downright righteousness of the parenting experience. This chaos seemed to mirror the state of the world: post-truth, populism, climate and pandemic denial and rampant consumerism. A world accelerating toward the greatest existential threat of our times – rising waters, drying lands, burning trees, chaotic storms and melting ice.
Emerging from this ‘rambling’ came ideas that spilled into seemingly chaotic vignettes – political, scientific, sociological, autobiographical, of the micro and macro catastrophes that the world keeps offering up. Due to the nature of making theatre in ‘unprecedented’ times, our timeline and our children, grew and grew. Since then, the work has grown to be a responsive catalogue built from text messages, conversations, articles and a shared love of Grand Designs, that now spans five years and will continue to grow for as long as the show does.
We always wanted to play with the autobiographical performance (authenticity feels important when the world is on fire) with a poetic, gestural and sonic/image-based performance style, to explore the absurdity and humility of the interior/exterior catastrophe of being a human. At the core of the work is the notion of parrhesia which is a kind of truth-telling that is risky and brave. We have come to realise that to tell the truth is an act of self-care. More and more, in a world where the notion of the actual truth is at risk, truth-telling is a radical act – a radical act of kindness.
Our thoughts have never been so huge, endless, random, chaotic and constant. Through this hectic grappling we were given a beautiful, relatable, accessible and humbling sense of the world as it is now. Interestingly, while the world is a very scary place, especially raising young children, we are filled with love. We have endless people to thank. Our team – Mark, Ben, Will, Catherine, Emma, Andrew, Amalia, PICA, The Blue Room Theatre, ECU and WAAPA, and the various eyes that have been our eyes when we couldn’t see it anymore. Thank you also to our friends and family that loaned us our chairs and have given us endless support. These past years would have looked very different without you. To our partners Mark and Federico, thank you for everything. To our children Frankie and Beniamino (Benji) – beacons of hope in a shitstorm of chaos – thank you for existing.
The hope for the future is seemingly endless – a future for the children, a future of children, a future that resembles a child. New beginnings… and bees. Lots of bees.
Comments
Newman, R., Hetherington, E., Haslam, M., Collins, B. (2024). Catastrophes. [Live Performance]. Renee Newman and Ella Hetherington with PICA. https://catastrophes.pica.org.au/