Text by Sally Richardson
Image credit: Deborah May/Sally Richardson
JULIA is a response to the wider cultural movement of #metoo, a growing frustration and powerlessness women feel as they continue to see, read and hear— the horrific, appalling and violent acts targeted and enacted towards women on a daily basis. JULIA is our way of challenging these feelings in the face of a sickening and unspeakable sexism, misogyny, discrimination and violence that is continually directed towards women at all levels of public and private life.
JULIA’s core concept is based on the political life of Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Built on primary research sources including parliamentary transcripts, media reporting and public commentary around the political life and leadership of Australia’s first female Prime Minster, Julia Gillard, directly referencing her infamous 2012 ‘Misogyny speech’.
“… And I say to the Leader of the Opposition I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever…and …if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror. That's what he needs…” (Julia Gillard, Parliamentary Question time, 2012).
“I’m putting her in a chaff bag and hoisting her into the sea…the woman’s off her tree…
…The old man recently died a few months ago of shame to think he had a daughter who told lies every time she stood in parliament… (Alan Jones, Radio presenter 2GB, July 2012)
“Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail: Small Breasts, Huge Thighs, and a Big Red Box.” (Young Liberals Party fund raiser dinner party menu, 2013)
“What we need is Stephen Conroy penis cam. The we could find out what really happens under the Cabinet table…see if she’s got any balls.” (2CC Radio Host, Jorian Gardner, June 2012)
“It’s designed for non-productive old cows. Julia Gillard’s got to watch out.” (David Farley, CEO Australian Agricultural Company)
“I mean anyone who chooses to remain deliberately barren…they’ve got no idea what life’s’ about. (Former Senator Bill Heffernan)
“…how dare any Australian Prime minster play the victim card… “(Tony Abbott, Nov 2012)
“She has chosen not to be a parent…she is very much a one-dimensional person… (Senator George Brandis, 2010, currently UK ambassador)
“…So, why is she so angry? Nothing a double mastectomy, penile implant, and a three-piece suit won’t fix.” (Larry Pickering - Media cartoonist)
“I sat alone on election night as the results came in. I wanted it that way. I wanted to let myself be swept up in it. Losing power is felt physically, emotionally, in waves of sensation, in moments of acute distress.” (Julia Gillard, the guardian.com, Sat 14th September 2013 12.04 AEST)
Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership from 2010-13 evoked a form of media “stalking” and trial by an Australian public whipped up into a frenzy of “poisonous hatred”. This interlude was regarded as a particular low-point in political coverage and commentary, as author Samantha Trenoweth notes; “the political conversation was a soap opera broadcast at deafening decibels…” (1)
Arguably for the first time in Australian public life a Prime Minster was subject to a campaign of aggressive scrutiny and vilification, some have suggested ‘pornification’, where her presence, personae and manner were deemed to speak of her character, and significantly, her leadership more loudly than her actual voice and actions. Many of those who have analysed Julia Gillard’s leadership and related reportage repeat similar observations, echoing Clementine Ford’s comments, that “there are depths of sexism to which political discourse in this country sunk while wrestling with the challenge of a woman in charge.” (2)
Gillard’s fifteen minutes of rebuttal delivered in parliamentary question time went viral, due to its international resonance from so many who identified with her experience of misogyny and sexism. Her words took on a life and agency of their own, and in researching and working with this source material years later, it has been fascinating to unpack the truth around this historic political event, recognising what has become regarded as a landmark moment for Feminism in Australia, with millions of views world-wide. Chloe Angyl writing for the British Guardian, describing it as “a masterful, righteous take-down”, that “tackled sexism head-on”(The Guardian, 9 October, 2012). Regarded by recent public vote as the most “unforgettable moment in Australian political TV history” (The Guardian Australia, Feb 7, 2020).
We are interested in the impact of this performative moment. To ask has anything changed since 2012, in terms of the entrenched sexism and misogyny that exists within the fabric of Australian culture? Never before in the history of this nation has its leader “been portrayed as someone who should be burned at the stake…”(3).
How then do we, as women artists, work with and adapt this material to speak with a potency, a currency, and with a voice that is our own? Our answer is JULIA.
There is copious commentary in print has been expended around the prime minster-ship of Julia Gillard, countless paintings, effigies and cartoons, various television and stand-up comedic parodies generated, but few creative offerings in terms of performance, and none that we know of in dance. We decided to make a dance theatre solo, offering a fresh perspective and alternative point of view about the experience of a single individual who was, and still is, familiar and widely recognised. To consider this event through the lens of a distinctive and perhaps atypical art form for this kind of political and biographical material. Dance and the physical can free the imagination in relation to the known. Through the body we view and grasp ideas in ways that we may not have considered or thought about before, providing fresh perspectives and arriving at a different level of emotional impact and appreciation. Where thought, idea and metaphor are transformed and embodied.
We decided early on that the work was to be a form of portrait, where the artist brings their own reflection upon the subject to the act of creation. Rather than being an ‘accurate’ representation, it would be a response individually textured and coloured by the knowledge of time, history and how these events exist and evolve in our consciousness. We can only imagine what Julia Gillard might have felt, at that time, or even subsequently. Like most biographies, her own version of events is highly structured and edited to present a version of herself to the world that she is satisfied with. We know and ‘feel’ our response to these events, and this is our starting point. As with any portrait we ‘create a sketch outline’ that we progressively colour in, making layers, adding textures, and various shadings through the ‘painting’ choreographic process, slowly building towards a realisation.
Text Excerpt 1 – from the SCORE for JULIA
“A Glass Labyrinth” (4)
In the dark we hear heels moving across the floor
She pauses, a silhouette, in the shadows
She steps into the spotlight
Are we in the past or the present?
She slowly rotates a full 360. A portrait of a leader. A portrait of a strong woman
She is reflecting, considering, preparing
‘I am ready. I can do this, I am the best person for the job’.
She brushes her hair back behind her ear, checks her cuffs, buttons her jacket
She smiles
Her focus and gaze shift ahead
She walks forwards into a series of ever tightening squares, intersecting the space travelling through ‘corridors of power’
She is business-like and confident, gesturing instructions, conversing with staff
With a ‘considered tension’, she is never casual
She walks the corridors
She pauses
She looks/listens
She tests the water
She sidesteps/forwards/backwards/subtle shifts/turns/
Suspended momentarily
She holds her breath – (adrenalin pulses, how tight can she pull the wire?)
She begins a careful and considered dance of strategy, always walking a fine line
She maintains her balance, with control and precision
She knows the movements to this dance of power…
She takes her time, always restrained, always dignified
She considers, shifts her point of balance, changes direction, moving forwards/backwards/pausing/testing the water
She crafts her movement into and then around a table (the seat of power)
She ‘feels’ her way, irresistibly drawn
She touches the surface of the table…is it hot? or cold? forbidden or infinitely precious?
She claims the ‘empty’ seat…or is the seat ‘actually’ empty?
She takes the leap, she jumps/pounces onto the table top - ‘now is her moment’
She breathes out
She turns enjoying the view
She dances a dance of victory and pleasure
She is here
She claims the four corners/sides – her performance is polished/assured/gracious and celebratory
She has arrived
She is the first
4. Julia Gillard quoted from Apolitical interview with Julia Gillard (Fergus Peace & Nitika Agarwal) June 29, 2018 (Global Institute for Women Leadership) https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/apolitical-interview-with-julia-gillard
Text Excerpt 2 – from score of JULIA
“Calling sexism out is not playing the victim. I’ve done it and I know how it made me feel: strong. I’m no-one’s victim. It’s the only strategy that will enable change” (Julia Gillard: My Story)
‘I will be heard’
SFX: Canberra protest grabs ‘shame, shame, shame…Move on…move on’…etc
She picks up a megaphone
She lifts and places a single heeled foot precisely on the table
She speaks into the megaphone
She rises up onto the table
JULIA: I am offended
“Ditch the witch.”
Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail: Small breasts, Huge thighs and a big red box.
She rotates on the table
I am offended
“A man's bitch”
I am offended
Misogyny, sexism, every day
Every day in every way
Apologise
To the women of Australia
Apologise to me
Apologise
To the woman of Australia
Apologise to me for the things that have come out of your mouth
This is not acceptable
Hypocrisy must not be tolerated.
She spirals down from table
She begins to engage more directly and provocatively with the audience
She operates the megaphone as if it has a ‘life of its own’, adopting a strident physicality with a powerfully mocking tone.
Responsibility
Not acceptable
Responsibility
‘Good fun’
Responsibility
Ducking for cover
I am offended
Day of shame
I am offended by sexism
Day of shame
I won’t stand for
I will never stand for
Sexism…….!!!!
Incapable of change
Incapable of change
Dick-head, Dick-head etc
SFX: Dynamic shift in score featuring sampled looping from Gillard’s Misogyny speech
She faces increasing opposition, public and media harassment, and her political enemies
She places the megaphone down as she slowly backs into the table
She is cast out to sea, the table a ‘life raft’ amongst the protestors and her detractors
She attempts to ‘watch her back, pushing ‘against the tide’ as she becomes a target for the ‘knives’ that are out to get her
She becomes trapped/confined to the table top
She is caged in, she lashes out as the attacks comes from all sides
She cannot see where the ‘knives’ are coming from, escape them or defend herself
She slips, slides off the table, losing one shoe then the other (a re-living of her infamous ‘Cinderella’ moments)
She attempts to circumnavigate the table
She is clinging to the wreckage of her prime Minster-ship…
She vomits up bile
Revolt: Revolution – “A Man’s Bitch”
She transforms into her alter-ego, as she undergoes a metamorphosis into the ‘witch bitch’
She grabs the straw broom, wielding it as a placard/beacon and strides to the table
She jumps up on the table, taking her stand/on a protest platform (feminist)
She is transformed
She replays a sequence of movements that allude to the bawdy and vicious cartoon caricatures of Julia (by Larry Pickering) re-playing their perverse twists on her persona
She aims and shoots down her opposition, while parodying references to female domesticity, suggesting a parody of Tony Abbotts ‘the women of Australia’
She is powerful, strong, feisty and compelling
She leaps from the table onto the broom and ‘flys’ around the space
She transforms again into the ‘red-rooter’ hen, but this time she subverts the image
She climbs back up onto the table, her coat now covering her mouth, gesturing a ‘fuck you’
She turns inwards, ‘pulling’ away at her face and features…there is a quality of abasement, a tearing away, a turning inwards in frustration, her emotions churning
She slides down the table, onto the floor, seemingly broken… appearing to have ‘died’ (a Wicked Witch of Oz melting moment)….but….then
SFX: Text grabs from end of Misogyny speech become more ‘clearer’ with music resolve
She revives
She soldier creep-crawls across the floor of this ‘no-man’s land’
She reaches for the table top, gripping its edge
She pulls herself up onto the table
She toe tips precariously, balancing unsteadily on a single corner
She slowly calms, becoming still, finding her balance
She walks into the table centre
She claims the space once again
She surveys the audience turning a full 360
She speaks to us in her ‘own voice’
It is a call to arms…
JULIA: We are entitled to a better standard than this.
We are entitled to a better standard than this.
These are the final words of Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech and also of our work, where the dancer turns to the audience and speaking in her own voice repeats this sentence twice. It is an offer, a call to arms, a determination to continue the work of naming and calling it, of refusing to be silenced and to speaking out. As Gillard noted in her final press conference:
What I am absolutely confident of is it will be easier for the next woman, and the woman after that, and the woman after that, and I am proud of that (Gillard, 2013)
JULIA is currently in development with digital and live performance outcomes planned for 2021
1. Bewitched and Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years Edit. Samantha Trenoweth (Hardie Grant Books, Aust 2013) (vers Apple e-book) p 8
2. ibid, p 229
3. ibid, Tracy Spicer, p 280
This text was produced by Sally Richardson as part of a new initiative of Delving into Dance publishing written content that explores different aspects of dance from a range of perspectives. JULIA is co-created with Dancer/choreographer Natalie Allen.
Sally Richardson is one of WA’s most experienced & respected independent theatre artists. A director, writer, dramaturg, producer & advocate she is committed to the creation of new Australian work & developing collaborations with other artists in this region, championing the voice, artistry & presence of women in the performing arts. Her company Steamworks Arts celebrates 20 years of operation in 2020. www.steamworks.net.au
THIS INITIATIVE IS SUPPORTED BY THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH CREATIVE VICTORIA AND THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, ITS ARTS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY. IF YOU ENJOY DELVING INTO DANCE PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A CONTRIBUTION. CONTRIBUTE HERE.
