This transcript is from an interview that was first published on 7th of August 2019. This transcript has been edited slightly to help with clarity, the audio of this episode and more information can be found here.
In this interview was conducted by Piroska Voljay who was an Australian Youth Dance Festival, Youth Ambassadors.
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Piroska Voljay: I started by asking: ‘where did dance begin for you?’
Cadi McCarthy: I started dancing, like most young people, when I was four. My parents put me into ballet school, and I trained in Canberra, at Kim Harvey School of Dance, up until I was eighteen, so I did all the ballet exams, and jazz. It was in the eighties and early-nineties, so a long time ago. Then, when I was seventeen, I was accepted into WAAPA, and I think that’s when I realised what dancing could be for me and learning about choreographic practice and contemporary dance and learning from a whole range of different people about the different ways dance can be used and, and how dance portrays messages and information. I think the journey obviously started when I was young with technique and dancing in that way, but then when I was at WAAPA I think the whole world opened for me. So that was back in ’94, my first year at WAAPA. So that’s what my journey was. Back when I was dancing, there wasn’t the dance practice that there is now. And so that’s why I’m just so excited about youth dance, and have been for a very long time, because I just wish that that had been available to me when I was younger. And I can see the importance and the need for that sort of training (ugh, “training”)... the need for that sort of choreographic approach and the need for a youth voice. It would have really suited me as a young dancer, and so that’s why I really pursue young people having a voice and choreographic ideas now.
Piroska Voljay: Amazing! I absolutely agree. And when you were at WAAPA, was there a particular… you just spoke about having a youth platform would have been a very beneficial kind of experience for you as a youth dancer. Were there any particular teachers that you had when you were at WAAPA that were formative in providing this kind of youth platform for young dancers and people?
Cadi McCarthy: I think everyone that I was exposed to. Nanette Hassall, Sue Peacock were really influential in that idea about what choreography was. I mean I knew about creating dances but I didn’t have that same knowledge of creating dance that has a specific voice, and creating based on tasking and improvisation. That was new to me, and is now so influential in my practice. And I think in my career after WAAPA that grew and grew and grew in my understanding of dance practice and how much bigger it is than I thought when I was younger. And what it means. Pretty much everyone that I was influenced by, who I worked with in that forum, allowed me… I have a better understanding of what dance or dance practice or choreographic practice could be and the power that it has. I went to a fairly traditional dance school just like a lot of young people will do. So that choreographic practice, or tasking, or improvisation wasn’t really part of my youth. And that’s why I see that that has such a role to play for young people now. And that’s why I really want as many young people to have that direction in dance, before they hit the age that I was when I finally discovered it. (05:52)
Piroska Voljay: And one of the things that I’m experiencing now, being in tertiary education, and having what people categorise as “recreational dance” and then you do the “proper dancing”, that’s the narrative that people have talked about as the progression for me as dance. And Alice one thing we talk about a lot in the class is… a common thing we’re taught is being a performer or knowing dance in a particular way. And so I think one thing I’m really enjoying at the moment is this unfolding of new ways to interact with dance and the new and the unknownness of things. What do you think dance has the potential to do in terms of a choreographic platform and a choreographic mode? Because I think dance is quite unique in its transcendence and its communication. How do you view that? Sorry, that was not a very clear question.
Cadi McCarthy: I think that dance is such an amazing medium. It crosses culture, it crosses language, verbal language. Everyone has a body, and everybody can move their body, and everyone communicates with their body. And so if you take away the dance technique, or take away that approach to dance, everyone dances, everyone moves, everyone communicates through their body. And regardless of your background, or where you’re from, or your traditions, or any of those, dance has that power. And that’s what I love about dance. And that’s a lifelong journey for me that I love working with—obviously, young dancers and professional dancers… but I love working in the community where you can use the body to communicate so many different things, and not only communicating ideas about society, or about an internal truth. And I think that, unlike any other mediums, is just so incredible. Everyone has a body… every human has a body and those bodies tell stories. Did that answer your question?
Piroska Voljay: Absolutely! I don’t really know what I asked!
Cadi McCarthy: I mean, the journey you were talking about at VCA, for you, of unfolding what dance is I’m still doing. You still do that. And that’s what the beauty of choreography is, or the beauty of what we do is that here I am, in my 40s now, and I’m still learning and I’m still meeting people who approach things in different ways. And so that opens up a whole new pathway of how to work or what I want to research or develop. It’s lifelong; it doesn’t stop. And that’s what’s so amazing and magical about it that, you know, you’ll go into a studio or into a community, and they’ll teach you a whole range of different ways of looking at the body and space, and show you a different way. And I think that’s what’s so beautiful about what we do. (10:03)
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, absolutely. What you’re saying is so exciting and inspiring, and as you said, I’m becoming very… When I first started doing a tertiary education, whatever that means, I entered an institution just for the sake of clarity. I had very strongly perceived ideas of how I thought dance was going to unfold for me and what I perceived a career in dance to be, and I think it was a very concrete thing for me. So then one thing that has been very challenging but also super empowering is that dance doesn’t exist in this vacuum, this place. It doesn’t exist in isolation. And the people that we exist with it is the people we exist with and the people that we work, and not just in an institutional context or just within a dance technique class, or whatever that classification is. It’s been really very empowering to have that experience, as you said, of learning about what we do and what it actually means to do dance. And Becky Hilton, who taught a couple of years ago, said ‘we are the dance. We are the art form.’ And so recontextualising dance for me has been a really… which has been really important… I think has been this shift from engaging with dance in the way I used to versus how I do now. So, as you said… I think that kind of scared me a bit, going ‘oh my God! Who is this…’ It never just lands on one thing. It keeps evolving and unfolding, and kind of unlearning, relearning. I think that’s very scary but very exciting at the same time.
Cadi McCarthy: Yeah. I followed a journey in my career, went through the dance schools, went to tertiary training, was lucky enough to be in company structures and be the professional dancer and then the choreographer. I think it’s really an ID. And I think what I know now that I wish I could have told my younger self is that you as a performer, as an artist, as a choreographer, as a human, change too with it. There was always this ‘oh, I have to reach this… this is the goal’ but the goal is always changing and that’s what’s so beautiful. And what I try and do is embrace everything, rather than pigeonholing what things are. And I think that that’s something that, as I’m getting older, I try and open that in my mind even more and go ‘well, I haven’t discovered that yet and I really want to see what direction that would take me’ and working with young people in the prison system or the juvenile system or working in different ways that when I was younger didn’t factor in, whereas now that really interests me.
Piroska Voljay: Absolutely. And, as you said, not pigeonholing. I think when I was a younger dancer we always used these certain terms of ‘oh, that person’s a “technical dancer”, that person’s a “performative” kind of dancer’. And I think I found those labels very restrictive, or very definitive, and, for me at least, very unhelpful, because I think like… what is technique? What makes that person that valid version of what I classify them as? And so I think, coming into a tertiary education system, questioning those definitive terms that I created for myself and were often used when I was a young dancer, and I think how dance is so much more expansive than just being limited to a certain label. (14:52)
Cadi McCarthy: And that’s why… I mean, Dance Australia and what we’re doing in Melbourne is just so incredible is because all the young people that will be there are thinking about dance in broader terms. There is the performance element, there is the technical element, but there is also the voice, and is also the creative process. And there’s the choreographic process, but starting to see dance in a much broader context, than, you know, often it’s about performing or, unfortunately, winning a competition, whereas what we’re trying to do is embrace the whole performer or embrace the whole concept of what dance can be. And to be able to do that at such a young age or to have younger dancers already thinking in this way, just makes the future of dance practice, whatever that is, just so incredible, because all of you are learning at such a younger age about the beauty of what dance can be.
Piroska Voljay: Absolutely. It’s very exciting. I just want to ask a quick question, just reading a bit about your lineage as someone in dance and looking at your trajectory and seeing that you went overseas for a period of your dancing career. What was the interest of going outside of Australia? Because we, at uni, are talking about dance in Australia in a global context and how dance in Australia is often seen as quite isolated and limited, which are not my words, but they’re the kinds of things that have come up, which has been quite interesting. So what was the interest of going overseas and then coming back?
Cadi McCarthy: I’ve been back and forth quite a lot and it depends on the different era of Cadi that I was going over with. So the very first time I was overseas, I went to New York, I think, and was working with the Cunningham Foundation and Movement Research which was improvisation-based. And I was interested in learning Cunningham technique, which is obviously very strict and strong, and then working with Movement Research, which was more improvisation-based. And this was in my 20s. It’s hard because I always went over as a Churchill Fellow; I received a Churchill Fellowship and that was a different reason for going. I went to different places all around the world looking at dance theatre, and how to make choreography or choreographic practice more accessible to general public audiences. So by that stage I was more into the making rather than the doing. I was looking at how different companies or different independents create work to bring in general public audiences or make work that is accessible to everyone. I hope that makes sense. So I was really looking at and working with different people and their choreographic process and looking at dance theatre, and the use of voice and a whole range of different things. And then I went overseas recently; I was the Create New South Wales Mid-Career Fellow. And then I was looking at dance in a different lens. In that way, I was looking at creating choreographic partnerships between Australia and different countries and exchange programmes and residences and things like that. So looking at providing opportunities now for other artists, not just myself. So I think every time I go over, it’s for a different reason. I was in Taiwan and making work. So depending on the era of when I was going. The reason why I do it is because it’s about humans… I love going outside and meeting new people outside of Australia and meeting new people, and they’ve got different approaches and different ideas. And I don’t think overseas is any better. I don't think ‘oh, you have to go to Europe because it’s better’. I don’t think that. It’s more about the human or the person. And I’m wanting to just meet new people and how they look at life and their ideas on life and finding people that are like-minded and then going ‘maybe we should work together and see how that pushes us in new directions’ or ‘you have a really interesting approach to something and I would like to learn more from that’. So I’m bringing people to Australia, artists to us from overseas to Australia, and then I’m going with artists overseas. So it’s more about exchange and learning from people, than the technique or anything like that. I think it’s just about making our world smaller, in a sense, and just making that community richer. Does that make sense? (20:38)
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, absolutely. It’s just interesting. And as you said, when we’re working with people, and we’re working with people who happen to dance, that’s the kind of thing that we do. We’re people first and foremost, and then we kind of connect in… we’re lucky to connect in the language of dance. One thing we talk about at uni a lot with my friends is we’re often given this narrative that the dance world needs to be competitive and small in order to exist, or that it’s very limited. I always just get a sense that there’s a limitedness in what we do, and I think and in terms of funding and positions and roles, we’re always told it’s highly competitive, and you’ve got to be all of this list of things in order to be appealing. And that can be very overwhelming. And when you’re still in an institution going ‘fuck it’ it just feels very competitive. And so it’s really nice to hear that it’s not that all, that it has the potential to not be this… built upon this negative urgency.
Cadi McCarthy: I think that every time that I’ve been overseas, but also here, that it’s not about competition at all, it’s about conversation. And maybe, in that way, I would like to dispel that. Dance as a career is tricky, it is hard, there’s not much money etc, etc. But there are so many people out there that see the world in the same way that we do. And often it’s just about having a conversation and from that other things spark. And that’s what I love is that I don’t feel competitive, I don’t want to feel that way. It’s not me as a human. I'm not a competitive human, I don’t think. I really love just being somewhere else and saying ‘hey, oh, wow, we’ve got a really similar approach to life’ and ‘let’s collaborate or find a way to work together’ rather than the you against them sort of mentality. And I think that’s what I mean about the world become… there’s so much going on in the world and things that I totally disagree with, with what’s happening. But we can make the human connections and that makes the world a positive place, I think.
Piroska Voljay: Cadi and I then spoke about the importance of diversity and integration within communities between dance and performance and seeing yourself represented within performance.
Cadi McCarthy: I love being able to work with a whole range of different people. And I guess there’s a lot of different projects and different things going on that do work with diverse communities, and has a lot of power. And there could always be a lot more. And I just think that what’s incredible is that we just did the World Dance Alliance last year in Adelaide and there were young people from all around the world who came together to dance and do workshops a bit, and what we’re doing this year for the dance festival. And it’s about bringing those communities together to say ‘actually, those things, body type or whatever, are not important. What is important is the power of communication. And how we all work together.’ (24:43)
Piroska Voljay: Diverse communities and, as you said, it’s not just about performing in a theatre, that kind of context of knowing dance. And I think, to me, it always comes back to what is dance? Maybe dance isn’t what I know, what it used to… in terms of what is a valid dance and what is valid dancing? And I think having diversity and representation is huge and acknowledging that we are diverse and that dance has the potential to… we’re diverse in our communities and our people but often I feel like the dancers we see in the festivals and what, I suppose, like here in Melbourne, and who we’re seeing at certain festivals, it’s often the same kinds of people. And so I think having diverse performances reflect… has the power to represent people. And that’s really important in terms of people feeling validated. And I think that’s what’s very important to me, acknowledging that we are diverse, and that needs to be a priority. I think rather than just perpetuating certain western, Eurocentric ways of dancing, in particular ballet, for me, I think I’m really renegotiating what that means as like a colonial art form. And, as you said, those very hyper-specialised contexts of the female form and going ‘oh, it’s actually kind of problematic, what I’m seeing’ and ‘who’s choreographing that?’ It’s just an interesting position, I think.
Cadi McCarthy: I love the fact that you can put on a piece of music, and you can be surrounded by a group of people, three year olds, or two year olds, or even younger, and they all dance. Regardless of anything else, they all bop and move even before they can walk or crawl. And I think maybe seeing that is what I like coming back to as well is that dance is that language and it has different arms and there is the classical arm. I love classical ballet, I used to love doing it… I do. It’s not the sort of dancer I am, but there’s so many different arms. And I think that if we can embrace, as a community, all of that and say ‘well, it’s really important and there’s tradition, but also breaking of tradition, which I think is important too, then as a community we’ll be much stronger’. And knowing that all of that is valid, that working in the community is valid, and just as valid as working within a company structure and working in a community with young people working with professional dancers, it’s all part of the same community of dance. And it all has a role to play in what we do. And I think that the arts, and dance included in that, is then the vehicle, the medium, and it has throughout history to be the thing that pushes society forward and makes society question and makes society think. And I think that if we incorporate all those different ways of what dance is across all of humanity, then we have great power in changing people’s ideas and what their mindsets are, which I think is what’s always my driving passion, I suppose, with dance is that it does have great communication power, regardless of if it’s a traditionalist, historical style, or if it’s in the dirt rolling around, you know, in an Indigenous community. It’s so beautiful. I love it.
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of, as you were just saying before about the role as an educator and role as someone who’s… the responsibility of being someone who engages with different kinds of communities, engages with young people, how do you manage that? I remember reflecting now upon my dance teachers, and going ‘you’re engaging with people’, particularly when they’re younger people, it’s such a formative time for people. And I suppose, given what we were just talking about in terms of gender and representation, and also knowing that people are really vulnerable at that age, how do you manage that, and engage with being an educator and someone who teaches dance? (30:33)
Cadi McCarthy: I think it comes down to, for me, is that everyone’s an individual, and everyone has a voice, and everyone has their own strength and power. And hopefully, as a teacher, that’s what I bring out in people. That’s what I try and do, that ‘you can be who you need to be for yourself. Not everyone's going to become a dancer, but everyone’s going to be working in society in some way.’ And so dance and working in with our bodies, and doing what we do has so many different skills that go along with it, as a collaborator, as a creative thinker, as needing to be able to voice your ideas and being able to work with other people. And there’s so many other skills that you learn along the way. And to be really proud of who you are as a person. Obviously, dance, you know, sometimes you have to work as a team, and it’s really hard, and you’ve got a goal to achieve. But at the end of the day, what I try and do is impart that every person has their own power and their own voice and,and the strength and ability to say what they need to say and to be who they need to be, and want to be, and hopefully that’s going to work for them their whole lives, that they’ve got that power within themselves. I guess that’s what I try and do and give people a choreographic voice. And that choreographic voice doesn’t necessarily always need to be used in dance, but it’s that idea that their ideas can be formulated in whole different ways to problem solve, and to think about the world in a larger perspective than just within themselves.
Piroska Voljay: And looking at Catapult and the Flipside Project, the support that you have done for the dance community and the way that the Catapult project supports professional dance and supports emerging artists is astounding. It’s amazing when I was looking at the website and the work that it does. It’s also quite specific, I’d say, that support is in terms of the residencies, and there’s a real sense of a culture within the Catapult project and a real sense of that intent. What is that for you? It’s a very bad way of asking the question. It’s amazing, that kind of support and rigour and urgency, almost, in those residencies and the season that you have coming up in 2020. And it’s hugely significant in terms of funding and the support to independent artists. How did that come about?
Cadi McCarthy: So I moved to Newcastle in 2012, and hadn’t really been here before, in that way. And I realised that there was a major lack of contemporary dance practice here in this town. Newcastle is fairly big. It’s the same size as Canberra. And I really wanted to try and create a hub—I suppose it’s kind of growing, I mean, we’ve only been there for five years… create a hub that provides artists with a chance to play. I had just come from being the AD of Buzz and I was making quite a lot of work. And then I realised that I had never, in that time, had the chance to just play and investigate. And so I created the Propel residency programme primarily for mid-career—at the beginning—artists to just provide a platform for them to collaborate with another artist from Newcastle, so it’s interdisciplinary, a filmmaker, or a musician, or composer, and just to spend three weeks playing and seeing what they could come up with that was new for their practice, because often, you get to a certain stage in your career, and you have a style, I suppose. And I wanted to see if they had three weeks to just play and experiment where the choreographic process would take them, and at the beginning the only thing I would say is ‘take a risk. Go somewhere you haven’t been before.’ And so that’s how Propel started in 2015, and since then we have had lots of residencies. And so now I provide emerging artists with seed residencies, which are more space residencies, and they receive a lot of support. And then there’s the Propel residencies, which provide artists with wages and presentation and marketing… whatever they need. And now I’ve started the international, regional collaborations, where international artists are coming to Newcastle to collaborate with the dancers that are living here. We’ve got quite a few professional artists that have now moved to Newcastle, which is great, from Sydney and people have come back from overseas. So there’s that and now artists from Newcastle are going overseas to work with artists and vice versa. So it’s growing really quickly. And then the Catapult Company structure which I started last year with one of my works, which was really successful. And so then I wanted to create a platform where mid-career artists could choreograph shorter works for proscenium arch because it’s not often you get a chance to do that unless you’re commissioned by a major company. So I'm getting different choreographic experiences there for emerging artists and commissions for mid-career artists to continue their practice. And the beauty is that the “Flipsiders” can then work with all these artists that come through, which is just great. (37:44)
Piroska Voljay: I was very inspired when I was looking at the programme. This is so exciting and, as you said, I kind of niche support system… we don’t have something like that down here. We Do in different ways, but just as you said, that hub-like existence and that coming together and that exchange and that risk-taking, which I think is really exciting and when shifts begin and how that kind of has a ricochet effect on a community. And also that self-perpetuating-ness of it and that generosity that feeds one another. I think that’s really exciting.
Cadi McCarthy: I think, too, as an artist that you’re constantly growing and changing and needing shifts and having other people show you different ways of working. I don’t know if you saw the videos on the website, but the works have all been extraordinary that have been made at Catapult and have seeded some ideas that have grown into much bigger works. And I’m always just so surprised and excited and invigorated by the incredible work that happens when the artists are given three weeks in the space. We’ve got Tara Samaya and Pippa Samaya and with fashion designers High Tea with Mrs Woo coming up and Gabrielle Nankivell coming to create a work with a photographer and Christina Chan is collaborating with an amazing female artist. We’re taking over the whole top floor of the Newcastle Art Gallery. And there’s going to be four different works and things like that just… amazes me that Newcastle now has got this incredible art practice happening with the most amazing artists that are coming. It's incredible. And I’m always thankful to the artists that are coming and working and just being as generous as they can, too. And hopefully, with the reciprocal relationship, where I’m providing them with this avenue or forum to create work, but they’re also providing me with incredible work as well, and it makes me grow as an artist as well. So I;m always extremely grateful to everyone that comes… and to the young artists, as well, the Flipside project, the “Flipsiders”, as I call them, they teach me so much and that, as someone who’s a mid-career artist, is constantly evolving from what other people feed me, I guess. And that’s really exciting. (40:51)
Piroska Voljay: And in terms of them inspiring you as a choreographer and as a director, when you become inspired to make a work or there’s this inkling of sorts, how do you approach that and how do you run with that as a choreographer?
Cadi McCarthy: That’s a good question. It’s changed for me a lot over my life. And I think it just depends on where I am at my stage. I remember when I was an independent artist, in my 20s or early 30s, I would have to get this idea out. And it would grow in. Now that I’m running Catapult and a mum, my attention is pulled in different directions. But I like making work that grows inside me. I always have an idea or seed that stems from something that I’m experiencing, for example, Grappling for the Edge, a recent work I made in New York, and it was just looking around and people were just holding on, you know? Everyone just looked like they were holding on and keeping it all together. Or Look the Other Way, which was a work that was about new arrivals in Australia in the refugee crisis. And I just couldn’t believe that, in Australia, we were doing what we were doing and are still doing. So I think it has to be an idea that’s really important to me, or resonates with me. And the work That Place in Between that I made last year was about being in that place in between and not knowing what to do to go forward. Like do you stay where you are? Do you push down a wall? How do you get to the next stage? How do you break through your own barriers? So they’re universal ideas, I suppose, but they are things that I can’t stop thinking about. And that’s usually where it starts. I’m going to make a work, but not for another couple of years, because I have an idea, but I just need it to grow more before I embark on it. And I guess for me now it’s a lot of a longer process to see the idea and get it to the final stage. But everyone’s choreographic process begins with, I’m sure, in any artist, is that something’s just starting to put you on edge or you just can’t stop thinking about it.
Piroska Voljay: Is there a sort of cathartic, therapeutic nature about being able to actualise this internal dialogue that you experience?
Cadi McCarthy: I guess so. I mean, not all of it is purely personal. It’s just something that I question. Obviously, it’s personal in the sense that it’s affecting me, but I think through the choreography like when you’ve dancers in the space and you’re in the studio, and you’re talking about all the different arms and legs, as in different directions that a topic can go on, and taking different pathways and thinking about ideas from different people’s perspectives, and through the improvisation and through the tasking, the idea almost takes over for a little while. It has its own trajectory, and then as a director, you pull it back into whatever it is that you’re trying to get across. So it’s cathartic in a sense but also it is much bigger than what you originally started. And I don’t think it ever has a full stop, and a lot of things I question I suppose are still going on, but it’s just something I need to talk about at that moment. For me, I never feel like I complete a work. I mean, work goes on stage or work is presented but you could always go back and grow it because that’s still happening. But there is a time when you have to say ‘OK, it’s time to move on’. I don’t know if that answers your question? I think it grows. I don’t think it stops. And I don’t know if it’s cathartic in the sense that I feel like I get it all out of my system, it’s just like gaining more research and learning more about it and becoming even more aware of the things that are within that question is what happens in the rehearsal studio. And often I’ll do—obviously, funding things allowing—a creative development on an idea and then let it rest, and then come back to it later when I’m in a different point of my life and see how it affects what the original was. I try and do that with most of my works if I’ve got the chance. (46:35)
Piroska Voljay: And as you said, it’s infinite. It’s just this expansiveness that… and I suppose that’s life itself. And then, as you say, you can pick something up and then you put it down and you re-pick it up, and you go, ‘actually, I don’t agree’ or ‘I agree’.
Cadi McCarthy: And I think I really like to do that with works when I have the chance. Obviously, that’s quite luxurious to have a creative development and then a second development, and then working in that way, but for me, I feel like that’s the best approach because that way I can sit back and go ‘actually, what is it I’m trying to say?’ or ‘how do I approach this from a different way?’ or maybe my life moves on and changes and then ‘how does that affect what’s going on?’ As well as the performers… sometimes even more important than where you started off. And I think having those voices in the studio, having those voices through performance is just where the piece actually gets life is from how lots of different voices… I like to think about it.
Piroska Voljay: Let things mull and prove and digest and reemerge…
Cadi McCarthy: I love collaborating. And I think that Catapult is about collaboration. And the work that I do is about collaborating with different people. It’s never about my ideas being the ideas. And I think most people work this way. It’s that the beauty of what we do is creating collages of lots of other people, lots of ideas, lots of points of view, and the shared voice about something.
Piroska Voljay: I recently read—I think it was in a Contact Quarterly essay—that dance is this intertwining of multiplicite authorships instead of this hierarchical...obviously, someone has to make some decisions and that in itself creates a slight hierarchy but yeah it’s just multiplicate authorships and people authorising and having agency. I just thought that was a really nice way of explaining what we do.
Cadi McCarthy: And that goes back to the initial question you asked about what going to WAAPA did for me, and that’s what it did. I come from an environment where it was ‘these are the steps’ to a certain point, you know, ‘this is how you do it this is the way’, and then to realise that the voices and the collaboration and that level of working is what inspires me and what makes what we do so great.
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, absolutely. A couple more questions but what, at the moment, is inspiring in dance? What’s getting you excited about dance at the moment or creative practice or a conversation even you’ve had in the studio? What’s exciting you and retaining you to dance at the moment? (50:40)
Cadi McCarthy: I’m so lucky, I think, in Catapult. Not lucky as in ‘I haven’t worked hard’ but what we’ve created is that I’m providing these amazing platforms for artists to create, and get paid for that creation, which is even better. Christina Chan was commissioned to do this incredible work at the Newcastle Art Gallery called Crawling Through Mud where I created a commission between the Newcastle Art Gallery, myself, and Christina, and things like that is what’s inspiring me. The amazing partnerships and collaborations that I have been able to set up recently, with artists creating work in the galleries and creating work in really different formats. The partnership I have with the Civic Theatre in Newcastle, where I can put on the mixed bill event where I’ve got four amazing choreographers creating work on dancers. And I was on a career fellowship last year where I met all these incredible artists from Israel and Sweden, and then we’ve set up all these exchanges, funding dependent. But that’s what’s inspiring me at the moment, is the fact that things can happen through conversations and people being passionate together about an idea and going ‘yes, let’s make this happen. Let’s do this! Let’s create work and provide a forum for dance to be presented’ is really exciting to me. It’s not so much a certain style or a certain idea. It’s about providing the platforms for artists to create what they want to create and be presented in a range of different settings and mediums. And the gallery show that I have coming up with Christina and Gabrielle, Tara and Pippa I’m so excited to see it. They start working in the studio in the next couple of weeks, they have their residencies. Or, you know, an exchange I’ve just set up with the Hong Kong Choreography Festival, where an artist is coming from Hong Kong and another one from Dance4 in the UK and a Catapult artist who are collaborating for three weeks and then they head off to Hong Kong for three weeks and things like that. It’s just really inspirational to me that these things are happening, and happening in Newcastle. It’s very exciting.
Piroska Voljay: And my final question is, in terms of encapsulating some advice for youth dance, what would that be for you? Obviously, there’s so many things you can say to youth dancers, but what is something that is recurrent at the moment in your youth practice? What’s something that comes up for you in terms of imparting advice for some youth dancers? (54:19)
Cadi McCarthy: I think it’s what we were discussing before is that dance is such a broad spectrum of different ways of doing things, and everybody comes and they’ve got their own way of moving and their own way of thinking and their own way of doing things. And there is a place for everybody. There’s a place for everyone’s creativity, and there’s a place for everyone’s ideas. And it’s not necessarily how high you can kick your leg. For youth dance it’s about so much more than that. And I think that that’s a really important message that if you are passionate about dance, and you’re passionate about this is what you want to do, then you will find your place even though the journey is sometimes very hard. There are so many avenues out there to express what you need to express or say what you need to say. And youth dance is an incredible opportunity to start that journey. And also, this incredible forum or festival that’s about to happen is how many young people are going to meet one another and you’re going to meet people from all around the globe. And through my experience, most of the opportunities that have come my way have not been through audition process or have not been through those channels, but have been through connection, they’ve been through meeting someone, through having a great conversation or having a dance with someone and then from there sparks the relationship to work together or to create together. You guys are starting this networking or these relationships already, and I think that that’s just so precious: that your global communities are already expanding through this event. It’s such an amazing opportunity, an opportunity for us too as leaders, that we get to meet other people who are working in a similar fashion to us. We’re about to collaborate with Rutherford Dance from Birmingham, and they’re coming to collaborate with the Flipsiders for a whole week. Those connections are just amazing. And I think that that’s the most important aspect of it is the communication and working with different people, and building your own skills in that way, regardless if you’re going to end up in dance or any other forum. These are skills that will stay with you for life.
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, absolutely. And, as I think we’ve been coming back to today, is that we’re people doing dance, who engage with other people, and it’s not this “other thing”. It’s a bit more real than that. It’s more… it’s human. It’s very human, the things that we do. It’s very, as you said, very precious and very poignant, what we do and how we do it, and the way we do it. And it’s exciting.
Cadi McCarthy: It’s really exciting. The body is an incredible vehicle for expression, more so than the voice, and I think that if we can communicate with another human using the body in space, it’s endless what you can achieve.
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, I agree. And just one one last question: obviously what we do is a lot, it’s really challenging, it can be a very whirlwind environment that we exist within. And often when we’re performing, there’s a certain level of needing to present in a certain way. And when you’re with young people, you have to present in a certain way. And that can be quite exhausting, that kind of performative thing that we do. How do you stay grounded and connected with yourself throughout this…?
Cadi McCarthy: Throughout the festival or just life in general?
Piroska Voljay: Not at the festival but as a dancer and and a teacher and being grounded? That’s something we’re really focusing on at the moment at uni: staying present. How do you do that?
Cadi McCarthy: I think you’ve just got to remember to breathe. I think the key… they say that all the time: ‘don’t forget to breathe’. You’ve got to breathe. I have to say it to myself all the time too, I mean, when you’re running organisations, or you’ve got lots going on is that you just have to actually remember to breathe and to roll down and to have a spinal roll. I mean, it is hard to stay grounded. I think that happens a lot is that it is hard to stay grounded. I think just remembering to breathe. For me, on a personal level, I like to think about life outside of what I'm currently doing and going ‘what do other people’s lives look like right now?’ This is a privileged position that I’m currently in. But I think just to remember to breathe and feel your feet on the ground and on the earth is a pretty important element.
Piroska Voljay: I agree. It’s very important. Because if you just get so overwhelmed, and particularly when you’re performing, it can be very working with a lot of different emotional cues. And adrenaline. So I think yes: breathing.
Cadi McCarthy: Just take a big deep breath. It’s gonna be alright. It’s about showing everybody what we do, like, ‘this is what we do’. It’s not something to be frightened over. Performing is just about sharing. I always say to the young people that I work with, it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake, because life is about making mistakes, and then working to be better. A mistake is a fleeting moment, and what is a “mistake”, anyway? Don’t get caught up on the small things like that. Mistakes happen, or things happen. But it’s about how you move on from that. Listen, I’m still trying to learn and I think that I’ll be learning for the rest of my life, which is great. It makes you better. I don't know if that answered your question at all?
Piroska Voljay: Yeah, exactly. This kind of energy we’re all going to it with, we’re all cultivating together and reminding ourselves the importance of that and why we do what we do. It’s very exciting. Cadi, thank you so much, those were all me questions and we’ve been talking for a while!
Cadi McCarthy: Yeah, we have! It’s nearly four. Wow! Well, I hope that I answered some of them!
