Sunday, October 08, 2017

#31for21: Dancing with Wombats and Jennie Irving #mentalhealthweek

Irving is a drama and music and dance teacher.

She also has four children who she calls Wombats after their interests, like Dancing Wombat; Train Wombat and Freewheeling Wombat.

I don't know where exactly I found her; though I had probably read about her in a newspaper a few months ago.

Then I realised it was probably in the Executive Functioning page on the Thinking Persons' Guide which Finn Gardner had written and the responses to that page.

Or probably the homeschooling comments.

She writes a lot about the senses that she and her children experience.

This month the family had to rescue their guinea pig. It's interesting to think about the different points of view the children and the family have each.

And there is a poem she wrote about a certain kind of loneliness.

Dancing Wombat is a lot like me at that age! She enjoys reading magazines, taking lots of steps, travelling and she feels successful colouring in.

Dancing Wombat website with blog; music; drama; dancing

Kaye Shanks and her art on Facebook

Hey Sigmund! A Facebook page about anxiety - good for Mental Health Week

Also Mental Health Week has begun around here.

I found Irving's posts inspirational and confronting and challenging as I read through the last year and two for the Wombats and the students Jennie has in her classes. They have done lots of plays and skits about explorers. The Wombats love to explore too.

One very cool thing I have done is to go to the Ian Potter Museum of Art to see the Score exhibition which is on the first floor and the ground floor. There are all sorts of notation experiences like "You" and "Me". "Me" is full of breve-rests and "You" has lots of music in it.

The other exhibition is about Angela Brennan and her experiences in Cyprus. It even inspired people to look up Aristophanes and his satirical plays. Brennan's fellowship was all about pots which bring the 21st century into the Etruscan world. Her votives and vessels are invigorating and imaginative, especially when I felt thirsty.

I wonder what you keep in your votives and vessels? What do you do when you note music?

There was a scroll from the Catholic Church showing music from the Middle Ages - I think Hildegarde von Bingen type music with plain chant and counterpoint.

And there were lots of 21st century musical experiences including multimedia.

Agatha Gothe-Snape had some wonderful mixed-media experiences.

And a lot of people find their music much more colourful when they put it to notes and shapes, like Roy de Maistre, who made an orchestra with a particular chord like D and E. And someone made instruments with different colours and strings.

Someone else had compositions with different shapes and colours like purple and green and orange and yellow and blue and red.

It was so cool seeing a dancer and choreographer do Nijinsky and read his journal which can be full of transcendent experiences.

About THE SOUND which is going on until 5 November 2017.

Forms of Life installation by Angela Brennan

And it was thrilling to see the Songlines of

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, thank you Wikipedia!

.

At the moment I am reading Coslovich's Whiteley on trial. There was an appeal about three paintings which were purported to be the late Brett Whiteley's. Orange, purple and blue/brown and all were meant to be Lavender Bay in Sydney.

Also picked up Autumn by Knausgaard and Harper's new book - Tante is reading the first book, The Dry.

Went to see a transcendent movie called Mountain. There was also a session of Blue with Sea Shepherd and I was able to ask about why they were re-focusing from the whales.

The person said they wanted to make more of a difference where they could. There were lots of enthusiastic Sea Shepherds people around the t-shirts and stickers.

I want to tell more about Mountain and the attitudes of the people: "They demand the most from those who have the least". And "Mountains are disinterested. They don't love us. They don't fear us". And "People who do mountains have half a lust for themselves and a lust for oblivion".

Plus the music by Nigel Westlake and Richard Tognetti and the Chamber Orchestra.

In Lygon Court there is now an organic store called Aunt Maggie's where I bought a kombucha drink of hibiscus. #itoldyouiwasthirsty. They also have shakes and smoothies and skin drops and Karma Cola.

And the new toilets are good. They have dryers which stop when you stop and buttons you can press to make water cold.

We are printers too was one good bit of THE SOUND. And there was one piece about a Deaf woman who has made sound her lifework.

I can identify with that! The printers because of graphic design and all the musical machines at work and I can understand about sound being someone's lifework.

Now I am listening to TokiMonsta and their body of work and Grimes' fairy music and how it's diverging is wonderful.

"When you're on the top of the world, everyone wants to be your friend"... #sotrue

Plays from the Dancing Wombat website

Songs are coming soon to Dancing Wombat

Lesson plans from the Dancing Wombat

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