Michelle Ryan - Restless Dance Theatre

Anthea:

This is Anthea Williams on 2RPH with Sideshow. And today, we have Michelle Ryan, Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre based in Adelaide with us. Restless Dance Theater make loud, strong and unique dance theatre that fosters an inclusive, equitable and diverse society which captures the hearts and minds of global audiences. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today.

Michelle:

Oh, thank you Anthea. It's a pleasure.

Anthea:

I'd love to hear you explain your work and explain Restless Dance Theatre. So tell us a little bit about the company.

Michelle:

Well, the company has actually been around for about 32 years and it started off by having a lady from the UK come to Adelaide, so on Kaurna land, and her name was Sally Chance. So it started off more as a workshop program for people with disability, but with high aims of having performances. So over the years, we have built the reputation of the company, but also the skill of the dancers.

So I've had the great pleasure of being the artistic director for 10 and a half years. And I feel very privileged that every day I get to work with amazing artists. So we like to try and make work that is beautiful, but also has something in there that makes people question their perceptions of who can make art and who can dance, and I think our artists really showcase the ability and strength of their creativity in our performances.

Anthea:

I think that is particularly true of dance, because dance is often historically been really limiting in terms of whose bodies are allowed to be on stage.

Michelle:

Absolutely, and I think what I find really fantastic is that, that it's in the difference that you see people's creativity and, and their beauty. Like I actually love watching different bodies on stage. I love seeing people move in, in ways that are idiosyncratic to themselves. And I feel like by bringing also the personality of the person to a performance is really strong.

Anthea:

Yeah, absolutely. Now, I know that Restless works in lots of different ways with lots of different groups of artists. Can you tell us a little bit about the structure of the company? Because I know you have an ensemble, but you also have other groups of artists working.

Michelle:

Absolutely. So we have a very extensive workshop program. So we actually start from eight years old. We have a... it's called LINKS, a program which works from eight to 14. Then we have central a.m. and p.m. classes. So we have some day classes and evening classes for people aged 15 to 26. And they are both open access classes.

We then have an emerging artist group because we feel like it's really important to foster the next generation of artists with disability. And then we have our performance group called The Company, because they are our main company. And that is, it was implemented quite a few years ago now, but it was about providing training for artists with disability, because most, a lot of dancers have either been dancing since they were five, or they go to university or TAFE colleges to, to hone their craft and that's not possible for many of our artists.

So we decided to create our own training program and their skill levels have just soared and as a result, so we also decided that it was really important to make it a paid professional. So we expect our dancers to rehearse and perform and act in... like any other professional. So I think that was a really important thing to, to showcase that people with disability can be artists and they can have a career pathway in the arts.

Anthea:

That's so fantastic. Now, how long have you been running the ensemble?

Michelle:

The ensemble... we have always had a performance group, but as a professional ensemble, it's been since 2018. And we performed in the Adelaide Festival and we realized that we got this amazing response from people because we didn't use the word disability in any of our collateral. So we got a very different audience. And at that point, that was the point where we said, "Oh, we're actually more than a community group. We are professional artists, so we need to start paying our artists." And so, we started that in 2018.

Anthea:

And that would be all under your artistic directorship - because you've been artistic director since 2013, haven't you?

Michelle:

Yes, yes. So, um, you know, I have this fabulous creative producer, Roz Hervey, and Roz Hervey and I work a lot very closely on all our shows. So we... it became a real passion of ours that we wanted to be a leader in that way to show, showcase our artists. And to do that in a way that it was professional both as a production side, but also, as I said, to pay the wages of our dancers which are professional rates. It's not a different rate because they have a disability which would be outrageous. But, it's, yeah, professional rates. So we're very proud of that.

Anthea:

That's fantastic. And in terms of the training, how long have most of the members of the ensemble been training?

Michelle:

Well, some of the dancers actually have been with the company for like 15 years. Gianna is one of our ones who have been here for a long time, but it used to just be, you know, once a week for two hours on a Thursday night. And then when we realised, we kind of thought, "Well, our dancers should be given the same training as any other dancer." And you know, if you're a dancer in a company, you get company class every day, you're constantly working.

So our company training program is usually for three days a week and they train from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and that's all physical work. So it usually starts with meditation, then yoga, Pilates, circuit training, contemporary dance on the floor and standing up, and even a little bit of ballet to articulate the feet. And then that's all in the morning and then in the afternoon, it's a creative practice where they'll give improvisations or to create their own movement or task-based work. So when the dancers are not performing or rehearsing, then they are in training three days a week.

Anthea:

That's fantastic. That's wonderful. And they're paid for all of their training as well as they're performing?

Michelle:

No, they're not paid for their training.

Anthea:

Right.

Michelle:

That's our dream. That's our dream. So that's the company - especially like last year was crazy before the backlog of COVID. You know, one of our dancers was employed for 40 weeks of the year. So there wasn't a lot of training in there possible. But when he wasn't doing the dancing, he actually traveled overseas and represented Australia in swimming. So, you know, he's a very, a very active boy.

Anthea:

And what percentage of your ensemble actually live with disability?

Michelle:

Well, not all disability is obvious, I suppose.

Anthea:

Of course. 80 to 90% are invisible.

Michelle:

Absolutely. So out of a group of seven, we have four people with... who identify as having intellectual disability, two people who are neurodivergent, and one person who doesn't have disability.

Anthea:

Fantastic. That's wonderful and that's really great numbers and, and absolutely, I think sometimes people get really confused about disability and what disability looks like and it's fantastic that you're showcasing that as well.

Michelle:

Yeah, and you know, I, I'm a woman with disability. I have a wheelchair. And, my creative producer also identifies as having a disability. So, you know, we're led, led artistically, by people with disability.

Anthea:

So can you tell me a little bit about your career leading up to working at Restless? And what made you fall in love with dance in the first place?

Michelle:

Oh, I danced since I was probably about six years old and I grew up in Townsville which is a tropical North Queensland and I had three older brothers and a mum and dad and I used to dance in front of the cricket on TV... you know, in Australia on a Boxing Day is always not a good time for a six year old to be dancing. So, my mum thought that it might be better and safer if I was dancing in the studio.

So I went to dance class and of course, I just loved it right up until I finished school and I was able to go to university and do a course. And then, I was actually about to. I was working doing school touring work and then I was thinking of retraining and at the same time, I went and did an audition for Meryl Tankard and I was lucky enough to be contracted in Canberra and then when Meryl took over Australian Dance Theatre I moved to Adelaide.

So I had the great privilege of working with Meryl for her whole tenure at Australian Dance Theatre. And then I went overseas to Europe and I helped be Meryl's assistant on an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and remounting works on different companies, but it was when I was in Europe that I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So it kind of really changed my whole life - within that one hour meeting with the neurologist, my life changed.

So I stopped dancing straight away because I did a lot of ballet training and when you can't feel your calf muscles touching, I thought that, you know, that's not very good, but more so, I couldn't feel my feet when I landed. So it wasn't very safe because I didn't have that sensation in my feet. So that's why I stopped dancing straight away and then I went very much behind the scenes and, and, worked with, set up a company here in Australia and then ended up going up to Dancenorth and was there for five years.

So I very much went behind the scenes. And then, um, but often with these things, you know, there was then a marriage breakup and, and I decided to leave the arts for two years and I worked in the disability sector. But, in that time off, I was asked to perform again, and, uh, it was from Alain Platel from the les ballets C de la B from Belgium, and he, he was coming to Australia, and in every place he went, there would be a solo performance.

And originally, they had asked Meryl Tankard, and Meryl wasn't available. And after not dancing for 10 years, I received an email asking if I wanted to do a solo. And I wrote back saying, "Well, I haven't danced in that long, and I have a walking stick." And you know, I just wanted to check with him if he knew that and then he wrote back saying, "Well, that's fine. It's fine with me if it's fine with you."

So after not dancing for 10 years, I sat in the audience of the Brisbane Powerhouse at the Brisbane festival - having not rehearsed because I didn't want to know if I couldn't do it. So, but at this point, the lights went dim and I stood up. I picked up a chair from the side of the stage and walked into the middle of the stage and performed a dance that was with my arms. And at the end, people clapped and I was a little bit shocked because I was so nervous about it and, but for that split second of three minutes, I just forgot that the audience were even in front of me.

And as soon as I started to move again, I just felt like I've refound myself because when I acquired the disability, I felt like I'd lost everything. I'd lost my identity because I danced since I was six. I'd lost my career. So there was a lot of loss involved. And it was at that moment where I thought, "Wow. I don't want any other dancer or performer to feel like I had for that, like for 10 years thinking that I was irrelevant."

So, and at the same time, the job at Restless Dance Theater became available as artistic director and I just thought, "I think I could do this. Like I've, you know, I've been in the arts for so long and I have lived experience in disability." So bringing the two together it felt like a, you know, match made in heaven. So I felt very lucky that I found my place and I found my creative soul again.

Anthea:

It's such a fantastic story.

Michelle:

Oh, I hope it is.

Anthea:

It's such...

Michelle:

I hope, yeah.

Anthea:

Fantastic story. I think it's so important for people to see themselves on stage and it's so heartbreaking to think that you had this amazing career and you thought it was over because of an illness. But I remember being in London and seeing a beautiful Peter Brook and it was lots of Beckett shorts, and one of the actresses had a limp. She was an older actress and she had a limp. And at first I thought it was a character choice, of course. And then I realized that every single character had the same limp. It wasn't a character choice, it was the actor.

Michelle:

Ah.

Anthea:

And I was so impressed that it just hadn't changed the nature of how she worked with this company. And of course it shouldn't, because she was a wonderful actor and some people have disabilities. So her character had a limp, and it was so wonderful. And of course, it meant more to me, not less, because of that.

Michelle:

Oh, I think, seeing vulnerability or difference on stage is very strong. Especially in dance, it's always... a lot of the time it's about absolute technical perfection or perfect bodies and whilst I absolutely acknowledge that there's a place for that, I think there's equally a place for difference and for different bodies and different expressions.

In 2015, I performed again after taking over the directorship of Restless, but it was an external performance and it was with a group called Talk Show from Melbourne and we performed at the Malthouse in Melbourne and then we took it to the UK to the Queen Elizabeth stage at South Bank and it was called Intimacy and I was surprised at how many people came up and thanked me for performing because, you know, by that stage, I had a wheelchair.

I didn't use the wheelchair but you would... it was hard work for me to try and stand up and I, we had a beautiful duet with the fellow I was dancing with and people thanked me and I was like, "Oh, you know, I was a little bit embarrassed at first." I'm going, "Why are you thanking me?" But it's because you rarely see, especially back then, you rarely saw someone with disability on stage and yeah, again, I know I keep saying it, but I do really believe that it's powerful to see yourself on stage and to see that there's so many parts of the human experience that we can all share that it doesn't have to just be about perfection and beauty.

Anthea:

Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like at this point, I should ask you a little bit about Exposed which is about to go on tour both nationally and internationally. Can you tell me a little bit about that show?

Michelle:

We're very excited about Exposed touring. I've always thought that I wanted to make a work that was really about vulnerability. It's featured throughout my whole, creative body of work I suppose. But it came from an idea of that when I was in a situation when I felt very unsafe and that things could have gone very differently. So I had to show my... I showed my vulnerability, but I very quickly realised I needed to show strength.

So that was a personal reaction to a COVID event. And then at the same time, I had my beautiful mum and dad were both not well. So... and you see how, you know, even as you age, you need to, at some point, start to ask for help - and it's showing that vulnerability, but also asking people for that help can be difficult for some people, and it's also that response of the person who you're asking.

So that was the whole concept of it, just about, yeah, when, when do you need to ask for help? Who do you ask for help? Who do you trust? Who don't you trust? And how do you help someone? So I talked back to the dancers and we talked,  through a process of, you know, if, when do you feel safe, when don't you feel safe? And, you know, the whole beginning section of the work is created through one of the responses from the dancers when they don't feel safe if someone's standing behind them.

So we created a whole scene around that. So it's very much the dancer's voices are seen in the work that we create because they're all, they all have a response that is then woven into the work. So yes, we're excited because we've performed the work in Melbourne at FRAME Festival, which was at the beginning of this year, and we're excited to be taking, exposed to the Sydney Opera House which everyone in Australia always wants to go to the Opera House, it's a career tick.

And it's the first time Restless has been to the Opera House, so we're excited by that. And then we tour to Hobart, to the Theatre Royal, and then over to SIDance which is a prestigious dance festival over in Seoul in South Korea. So the guys will be on the road for about six weeks.

Anthea:

That is so exciting. I can't wait to see it. I'll be seeing it at the Opera House.

Michelle:

Fantastic.

Anthea:

I'm really looking forward to it. Can you tell me a little bit about how you go about creating work? Is it a devised process or is it something different? As a kind of dance lay person, I'd love you to...

Michelle:

It is.

Anthea:

Tell me a little bit about how you create the work that you make.

Michelle:

Yeah. I mean, I use very much the same sort of style of creating as that I experienced with Meryl Tankard, who also was a work... who was a dancer with Pina Bausch. So it's... a lot of people use the technique where you set a question and you do like six responses to what you have asked. So for example, I said to the dancers... and Charlie, who's one of our dancers... once again, it was a whole scene that re- revolved around this. And it was as simple as saying, "If, if you had a light shone in your eye and you needed to get away from it or protect your eyes, how would you do that?"

So it's about how would you cover your eyes? How would you move away? And so you then use the physical offerings that the dancer has given. And then you, I, you know, you weave it in, you can take one from each person or you can use one person's movement, make it slower, make it faster, make it bigger, make it smaller. So there's lots of little devising techniques within that way of tasking.

I don't know if that makes sense, but it makes sense to me. (laughs).

Anthea:

It does make sense. And I also want to say to everyone listening, you are missing out on some absolutely beautiful handwork from Michelle Ryan right now.

Michelle:

Oh. (laughs). I very much talk with my hands. So yeah.

Anthea:

Yeah, absolutely. So it is a devised process and you do come up with a body of work from there that then you craft from.

Michelle:

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And then we have some beautiful musicians here in Adelaide and we had an original score made and a fantastic lighting and set design by Jeff Cobham, so it's about finding the best creatives that you know you can work with and trust, because I'm very much a choreographer director who really loves to work with people collaboratively. So it's not just me telling the designer what I want, but like, how they respond to these ideas and to create something together.

So our set is really very simple, but very beautiful, and it came about because they're all emergency blankets that have been placed together. So again, it's using the theme of how would you protect someone or how would you, you know, help someone. And that's even layered within the design.

Anthea:

Wonderful. And I know that Exposed is a traditional theatre space, but that's not how you always work. With Gutted, didn't you make the work in a bowling alley?

Michelle:

I love site specific work as well. (laughs). So, yes, Gutted was in a bowling alley with  Tarkett on the lanes, and the dancers slid and dived. And, the audience were the team members. So, and they were also encouraged to get up and to bowl at times too, so it's... I, I love that thing where to place people with disability in unexpected places so that, you know, sometimes, passersby who aren't, you know, deliberately going to a show, might somehow become in the backdrop... because we did another work called Intimate Space which was actually the first work in the Adelaide Festival that put us on the map.

And it was in an operating five star hotel in the Hilton in Adelaide. And there were 20 performers for only 10 audience members at a time, but you went throughout the whole hotel. And so you were led often back, back of house into places that you weren't expecting to go, but it was being led by someone with disability. So it's about, you know, asking the audience to trust that person, even though they might have their own perceptions about whether that person should be going through a kitchen with a knife and asking, you know, beckoning you to come, to follow them more, and that work was quite beautiful because it finished with the people.

It was sort of staged in 30 minutes apart. So the first audience would usually be in the bar by the time the second audience was peering from the balcony down into the bar. So the audience who were watching, who were the voyeurs then became watched. And at the same time, there would be headphones on the ten audience members and beautiful duet going on a balcony. But these people are listening to the music, but also whispers of their own judgments that they may have, like... should they be together? Surely they can't get a room. 

But to the audience who are in the bar, who are just general public, they're just wondering why this flash mob of beautiful dancing is happening around them. So it was then observing those people. So yeah, I'm sorry I'm going on too long, but I really do love site-specific work as well.

Anthea:

It all sounds so exciting. I absolutely love listening to you talk about it. I'm just going to ask you one more question. And that is: you talk a little bit about, on the website about how at Restless Dance Theatre, having a disability is seen as an advantage. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

Michelle:

Well, the thing I find with, especially we... the way that we do task work is that the responses from our dancers are very, very different to what you would get if you asked a group of really trained dancers. So, their responses really come from the heart because there's no facade. There's no trying to cover up or to try and be something else that they're not. So I just find there's an honesty that comes from that place which I think is such an asset.

Anthea:

That's fantastic. I'm so pleased to hear it. I can't wait to see Exposed - and thank you so much for having a chat to me about everything Restless Theatre.

Michelle:

No, thank you very much Anthea. I've enjoyed it very much.

Anthea:

You're listening to Sideshow on 2RPH. This month, I'm busy in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, Aotearoa, directing the Appleton Ladies Potato Race by Melanie Tait for The Court Theatre. So Hanna has gone ahead and recorded the What's On without me. She's going to tell you a little bit about Alistair Baldwin's The Triathlon Kid at the Malthouse Theatre which I really wish I could see.

Longtime listeners of the show will remember Alistair from our first season where he talked about his writing and his comedy. She's also going to talk a little bit about One + One Make Three. Over to Hanna.

Hanna:

This month, I'll be missing out on Alistair Baldwin's theatre comedy, Telethon Kid, which is debuting at Malthouse July 28 to August 13. Their show blurb reads: 

"Sam's adoring subscribers would describe him as an icon, and Instagram's honey of disability pride. Sam would describe himself as having one foot in the grave, the other in the bed of his latest hookup. Turns out a rare degenerative disease is just what you need to live a little. #itsgivingblessed.

After rising to fame as the poster child of Perth's Children's Hospital 2007 Telethon, Sam reunites alongside his pediatric doctor-come-lover when they're nominated for a coveted research grant from Big Pharma. In a sexy ethical nightmare, the Influencer's Platform probes the shortcomings of an industry that repeatedly fights those whom it's meant to help."

So, I would have loved to have seen how Alistair's great comedy translates to the theatrical stage, but I won't be there, though I hope some of you out there will get the chance in person. The venue at Malthouse is wheelchair accessible, and there are multiple access options scattered throughout the season with Auslan interpreted performances on the 4th and 8th of August. Audio described performance on August 9th and a relaxed performance on the matinee of Saturday, August 12th.

Seats near the Auslan interpreter can be held for those who require them, and you can book those seats online by entering the code Auslan or by contacting the box office. And an access guide will be available online at the Malthouse website in time for the preview date of July 28th. And for more detailed information, Malthouse allows access to contacting their access consultant through phone or email.

Tickets are at www.malthousetheatre.com.au/tickets/malthouse-theatre/telethon-kid. What I am watching this month is online at allarts.org where they're currently screening the past, present, future episode featuring Kinetic Light's docu-dance film, One + One Makes Three. The ALL ARTS "Past, Present, Future" initiative commissions films in which dance artists explore the past, present, and future of their work.

Originally aired in 2021, this particular episode takes audiences behind the scenes and into the studio as Kinetic Light creates their aerial dance production Wired. It's available for Disability Pride Month, July, and beyond. Access options include audio description, both open and closed captions, American Sign Language and transcripts.

And I'm really looking forward to diving into this exploration of a company that I admire so much like Kinetic Light. So I hope everyone else out there has some lovely things that they get to explore in the arts this month through whatever avenues are available to them.

Anthea:

Now to take us out, we have Machine on a Break with Honestly.