Gratitude

Thank you!

To all my dance teachers in the Sydney swing scene! Thanks for sharing your passion for dancing, building an inclusive community.

To international dancers and musicians who started me down the fascinating road of jazz and blues history and origin: Sam Carroll, Adamo, Dan Nash, Brenda Russell, Katherine Sivenig, Catherine Palmier.

To mi amiga Janine Israel who got me into Blues, the gateway drug to my other partner styles Lindy Hop, and Brazilian Forro. And also thanks to Eamonn for getting me into Contact Improv. Also to my friends Johnny Daly, Alex Wood, Nick Toth for sharing your passion for black music with me and bringing the culture to my hometowns of Dublin and Sydney.

To my parents – much love and gratitude for supporting my passions growing up, opening my mind to the world. Art lessons, books, travel, weekly trips to riding stables etc... I still find a use for almost everything I've learned – even Latin came in handy in Italy!

To friends and strangers who share my dance odyssey: hosting me, feeding me, showing me around new places, and of course, dancing with me!

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Physical poetry – Contact Improv in Madrid

On my first visit to Madrid, I wrote about exploring Lavapies Tabacalera by day – sophisticated art installations in warehouse galleries. On this second visit to Madrid, I discovered the Tabacalera studios by night – a living, breathing art community. Cuban flautist and poet Liz stayed in touch after our chance meeting in Lisbon, and joined me for this contact improvisation adventure. Tabacaleras are former tobacco factories, given over to the arts by many Spanish municipalities. Passing through the unmarked portal into this furnace of creativity, I quickly felt relaxed and at home. Liz said she had never seen anything like it it. To get the dance studio, we traversed a cavernous room of giant murals into a corridor of spectacular street art, past booming reggae and African DJ dens, out into the yard. A few oil drum fires burned, and people gathered around to keep warm, under the gaze of Albert Einstein. If only he could see his two-metre high portrait, spray painted on old wo...

From seaweed to bananas – Contact Improv in Dublin

The dancers were sitting in a circle when I arrived. A stranger, I was greeted with words of welcome and invited to join the end of a class by Yaeli. We danced as seaweed buffeted by waves, brushed by fish... first anchored on rocks, then taking flight into the water. This seaweed dance was one of my best trio experiences, taking turns with David and Fergus in the roles of weed or wave or fish. A friendly jam followed, including dances with Isabel and Jacob. When the jam was over, we said goodbye with hugs. I felt great... welcomed to the community, emotionally and physically invigorated. I walked to my bus stop with a smile on my face. Though bus rides are usually tedious and smelly in the damp Dublin winter, I smiled the whole way. I got off and walked the few hundred metres home in the freezing rain. Soon I was home with hot tea, a hot bath, and downy bed – a happy body, drifting into dreams. Going bananas at the Lab The offer to share dance skills came at a d...

Beggars 2017/10/03 Pamplona, Spain

It pains me that four of the nine black people I've seen here in Navarra are are beggars. Today I bought shampoo from a friendly black lady in the market. But at two of the four market gates, a young fit black man stands, with a cup in hand, eyeing passers by. Of course I get the full eyeball, up down. Same thing at the supermarket across the road. Black people are a highly visible, small minority here, so there is that moment of recognition and then a very uncomfortable moment. I would like to feel solidarity, warmth. Instead as they stare, I feel harassed... the guilting of a beggar, plus an undertone of sexual harassment. One of the beggars is more polite... smiles more, stares less... but I still want to avoid him. Passing them, I feel anger, fear, contempt. Two kinds of fear... of the beggar, and of the racism that feeds off their image. I don't choose to feel this way. Without wanting to blame the victim, I'm ashamed of how they inhabit a negative stereotype, perpe...

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