This transcript is from an interview that was first published on 14th of December 2020. This transcript has been edited slightly to help with clarity, the audio of this episode and more information can be found here. This interview was conducted by Liz Lea.
This is the second interview that Delving into Dance has presented with Elizabeth. The first being in September 2017. On this occasion, Liz Lea was interested to see how she's been coping during Covid with all of the touring that she was doing having been cancelled and her entire isolation at her stunning property Mirramu out on the edge of Lake George.
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Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: Wow, yes, well I guess. I go back a little bit to 2015, it's a bit further back, but that was kind of a big transition year for me. 2015 was the 50th anniversary of Australia Dance Theatre. With very exciting because Mirramu Dance Company, we had a project, we went to Adelaide we combined with Garry Stewart and the current dancers from ADT and we presented a program together in the Adelaide Festival Theatre Centre which was fantastic. But then I came back and went. Wow, you know that's been a huge 50-year cycle for me and I'm still performing, but it's time I think of something else. And I was very lucky I got a Critical Path. What we call it a residency, for it for me, as an 80 year old I was then, to explore, to explore. What does a dance I have to offer in her 80 years. Is she still relevant and what can she still do?
So that was kind of the. The reason for my residency and I had some money also to bring Kenneth Spiteri he was working in Berlin at the time and he came out and worked with me as a dramaturg. So we spend time, our weeks playing in the studio, with my dancing body and he prodded me for more vocal work and more acting aspects and that was fantastic and we started on a little project which eventually, last year, we showed some of the work but it became a film about Crone. All the different aspects of the older woman in our society, from a mythological point of view, but also from a reality point of view and that was filmed on VR and we thought we were very contemporary, here is VR, you know. And now in gallery's people could go and they have these special little goggles that you wear to see the VR film. So that was all filmed. Um and it would have been ready to go into art galleries this year and then Covid hit, so.
But anyway, I still have all that all of that wonderful material that eventually I want to put into a theater show as well. Anyway, going back to 2015, so I had that injection of starting out as an actor.
Um and then the following year, I was pushed into applying for an audition that Michael Keegan Dolan had put out online for a woman between her 60s and 70s, an actor and preferably with long white hair. [laughs]
So I went to Kenneth 'cause Ken had sent me the email. I said Kenneth it's ridiculous at my age. ‘Remember I'm in my 80s at my age to do an audition and I don't call myself an actor yet. I've only just begun’.
Anyway, he said ‘no, you must do it.’
So just to appease him and to keep him quiet. I sent off an email to Michael, you know saying I was 20 years older than the woman he was looking for. And that was a choreographer and dancer, and I need just beginning as an actor.
Liz Lea: But your got long white hair, you know, I don't.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: But I have got long white hair. But I live on the other side of the world, so I totally understand if you if you cannot accept me. So I thought OK. OK, I've done my duty and I've cleared all of that up. Let me get on with my life. Anyway, I didn't hear back from Michael for a very long time. And you know, I had I dared to say to him. I know you don't say this in an audition, but I do need to know. Because I have all of these other engagements and then of course Michael rang and said, ‘we want you.’ So so of course my heart was beating madly.
Liz Lea: And what an incredible journey that has been
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: It has been amazing. Even Michael thought, you know, we had a season in in the Ireland, and then we went to Denmark and we had two amazing performances in the Sadlers Wells Theatre in London. And then he thought that was the end of the show and that was November 2016.
But no, then all of these other invitations came. I mean he was. He got many awards for the best production and he was listed as the in the United Kingdom one of the 10 best and then I think recently it was in the world Best Dance Productions. The Swan Lake was number 2 so it was one of the is this one of those products still is so one of those productions that so many people can relate to and it wasn't just in England and Ireland, but everywhere around the world. You know, in Germany and Denmark in a Korea, in Hong Kong in NZ. You name it. We've been. We've been all over the world and just recently we were in America that was last October/November and we had a six-week tour, through America and six amazing performances in New York.
And although I think Michael was thinking that maybe then the touring was slowing down a little bit. However, we still had a performance coming up in Taiwan in February. And I had my flight booked and everybody was all about to go and then that was canceled at the last moment.
So and then from then on, any other invitations that may have come up, of course, have had to be. Canceled or postponed or whatever, but nevertheless the four-year touring of that production was an amazing experience for me to work with young people, to travel the world and to have that acting and dance experience. At my age has been an incredible gift.
Liz Lea [8:41]: Brilliant. I saw the show at Sydney Opera House. I was completely enthralled. The dancers are amazing. I really appreciated obviously your stunning self in it, but I also really appreciated the fact that he clearly works with the dancers that he works with regularly and some of them are a slightly older the pathos, the story, the simplicity, and yet the complexity of the set. And as you know, I do like birds and feathers and Elizabeth I am still in ecstasies of joy when I think about the last 10 minutes of the show. If you haven't seen the show when you're listening in, I'm sorry. This is this is a spoiler. But the last 10 minutes of the show and the stage just covered in feathers was just the best one of the best things, I can ever remember happening in a theater setting. I felt so sorry for the cleaners afterwards or the people, seriously, because like there's so many feathers and I'm going, sometimes to clean this up. I have hovered up a lot of feathers in my time, I did feel for those people who were having to do that afterwards, but my goodness it was kind of like if you're gonna have a few feathers. No, let's just fill a stage and auditorium and the audience are throwing them around. I just thought it was such a brilliant ending to such a very, very dark tale. It’s a very dark story and told so beautifully with so many different elements. So yeah, what what? What an incredible experience. An incredible experience.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: Well it was very exciting with Michael. Was that that whole interaction the different layers of all the different art forms, you know the musicians were a part of our whole creative process from day one because that score was created that the musicians were in with our rehearsals. The set and the lights. And you know, just everything was so balanced and we all interacted together, so that it wasn't just the dance or just the acting. You know, from my point of view, it was everything and everyone involved in all those different layers. And we didn't do as much talking about it as we did actually physically move on, in this on the studio floor. So I really appreciated Michael for that, that he carried us along in his own creative process as well. Um, you know and dared to do outrageous things like bringing the police from them from Longwood, where we were with the man in the police force, there, who trained the dogs an and he actually brought the dogs into the studio one day and took their muzzle, you know, and let the dog really go wild in the studio. And yet the trainer knew how to hold him back just at the right time. It was frightening for us all. You know the performers watching it, but Michael wanted us really to have the experience of what it's like.
You know to have wild dogs coming at you so and that was preparation just for about, probably not even a minute. Maybe it was a minute long of three of the male dancers, who had to act like dogs and things like that, you know it was. It was all very real. There was nothing kind of just imagined. So I love that that delving into the depth of everything, in order to make if you, if you like our acting and dancing to make that really real. So, um, I that was what enjoyed me and it was enjoy joyful for me. But I was kind of terrified with my own acting because I felt I didn't have enough experience. However, you know, Michael was ‘it was like but you're a dancer and you just have to be real so there's nothing there's nothing really you have to learn.’ Nevertheless, I felt very unconfident for a long time. But it was Michael Murphy, the male actor who is amazing and he guided me a lot also because we had a lot of scenes together on stage and I learned an enormous amount about acting from him as well. So I treasure that whole, there's that whole four years and I'm I'm missing them all terribly, and our touring, but we keep together on WhatsApp. We send messages around so we know where we're all up to.
Liz Lea [14:25]: It's interesting. This whole online digital connection isn't it. I was talking to someone in Edinburgh because I was due to be taking my show to Edinburgh Fringe at Dance Space, this year. In fact, I would have been there now halfway through the season and I've been talking to other friends of mine in England, but when I spoke to one of my colleagues in Edinburgh and I heard this broad Scottish accent.
I was like oh, we can’t fly, we can't go, it's it's quite fascinating. And speaking of which, we are actually doing this interview on Zoom, because you have spent your entire isolation out at your beautiful property on Lake George at Mirramu, haven't you?
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: Yes, I have so I.
Liz Lea: Could tell us a little bit about what you've been doing during your days.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: Well, of course I feel very blessed that I'm in such a beautiful place, it's you know, the huge wide views from wherever I am in the house or now up in the Yurt, which is my little workspace. And to actually watch the Seasons Day by day has been very special. You know, I've led such a busy life over this last four years, touring the world and doing different other projects and just to have time to be at home, was like another huge gift and in the beginning, I guess the first two, three months I was loving it. It was just, I never feel alone, even though I'm isolated. You know, I have the trees and the birds and the Kangaroos and the other animals around and my cats, of course and he's loving having me at home. Absolutely loving it. So I really felt like it was a very special time just to be on my own and to reflect on what happened for me over those last, particularly the last four-five years. So that was really good.
But then I thought. Elizabeth, you gotta be creative and be doing things and I'm not very good with technology. I have a big kind of resistance to it. I'm not quite sure what that is, I find it difficult even to do the Zoom in the beginning. However, I was reminded of my time when I left Australia in 19. When was it was at 76 and then I lived in Italy for 10-11 years. And I lived like an Italian peasant. I worked on an olive grove and, uh, another little farm land, and I loved it. I love getting my hands dirty, in the earth, and so here I was at Mirramu. With all these beautiful trees which we planted for the 30th anniversary. So I spent weeks, weeding around those trees and making sure they were all OK. They each now, have a little fence around them to keep the Kangaroos from eating the new shoots when they come in the spring.
And then I've had to collect wood for the winter time and then to get someone to help me split it. So yes, I've been. I've been a farmer. But I like that too. I mean, living close to this close to nature. Is why I chose to live at Mirramu. I wanted to live this close to nature and have my art as well. And then there's been lots of repairs that have needed to take place, so that the when we can open up again to have artists in residence that things will work appropriately and the well and tidied up and. Yes, I had to. I had to breakdown 1 little bathroom and have that rebuilt again. I've still got the builders here.
So they've been all those kinds of things happening. The maintenance of the place which I haven't had time to do, while I was so busy with everything else.
Liz Lea [19:27]: Well, this is what happens when you talk to someone who's just touring the world and being fabulous. It is such such such an incredibly beautiful space that you have out of Mirramu for those of you listening Mirramu is about a 45-minute drive away from the center of Canberra. It's right in the middle of the Bush and it's on the on the edges on the edge of the incredible Lake George and just recently Elizabeth I was watching again, the beautiful film Weerewa well made by made by the Incredible Sue Hearly. I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit about the film.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: Well, that came about after member was 2000, 17 or 18 I'm not sure, but I managed to get a grant from Arts ACT, for a project called Contours and this was to be, it was we had two parts of the project. One was to make a dance film and the other was to them to eventually take that material and produce it into a theater production. But the first part of the first grant was for making the film, and I had two film makers. One was Sue Healy and the other was Grace Peng from Dancecology in Taiwan. Because the idea was to have dancers from Dancecology, There were four of them and I had three or I had four dancers from Mirramu Dance Company. So in the two films we had the same dancers, but the two film directors, one in Australian and the other Taiwanese, and I thought in that way we could get like a different take on the landscape through different cultural eyes. And the footage that they got, and it was a very short time that we had to do all of that. The footage was absolutely stunning. And then what Sue and Grace did each in their own way, each film was utterly beautiful. Um and I was very excited because I was in Taiwan and both films were shown in a little Gallery in Taipei together and that was a very exciting moment for me and I know Sue has shown film in several places as well. One day, I hope we might be able to develop some of that material and it can go further as well.
Liz Lea [22:27]: We showed it is this is the film that we showed at the national film and Sound Archive. So stunning, just so stunning the film Crone that can be seen, can't it?
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: We have a little trailer of it, but as yet the VR film is not yet complete because we will yeah, we have to show it on a VR viewer. I'm and so I mean, it's 3/4 finished in the editing. But we've halted a little bit, the final editing until we can. We know we can get it out and be seen Yes, that's something I want. I am working on now in this lock down is to take some of that film material and to build a solo program. With that you know yourself Liz it's so different performing for film and performing for Theatre and as this was made first for film it has a different process now to take that material and to build it into a choreographed work that has transitions leading from one filmed segment to another so that there's a different kind of storyline. But I'm as soon as the weather is warmer, I'm back into my studio to start developing that into a theater production, which I hope somewhere next year, I'll be able to take out and maybe the film, the film and the performance can be available for more people to see.
Liz Lea: That is brilliant. And while we're here just before we close, could you just tell us a little bit about the new masks? The work you're making with all of your masks.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman: That's that's something I'm developing too and I'm very excited about that. Jacqui Carroll and John Knobs visited me at Mirramu, here a couple of years ago and so we reconnected John was in Australian Dance Theater in the 1970s, and I've known Jacqui for a very long time, so I was very excited when they were here. John did several interviews of me, on film. And then Jacqui said every afternoon, ‘Elizabeth will you come into the studio? I want to experiment with something’ and then she brought out her masks and asked me to play with them, anyway to cut a Long story short, it's developed that we hope to develop and present next year. It's of seven different women in a, in very evocative and emotive kind of ways. There's a there's quite a lot of humor, but there's a lot of drama as well. But the other interesting thing is that Jacqui has me sitting in a chair all the time, so now imagine the restriction you have. You have to find a whole lot of movements just from a sitting position and then to develop seven different characters. But I like, I've always loved challenges, so this is been a are very exciting a new work we've we've kind of got an outline for about four characters. We still have to start from scratch from three others, but I'm hoping to develop them more. But alongside, you asked me also what have I been doing in this time. It's also been time to clear up a lot of my archival material when, as independent artists, we never have time for that.
I'm trying to it's enough and like like every artist, it's enormous amount of work, but I'm slowly getting onto that. But I've started doing a lot of writing as well. I think. Well, if I can't physically dance, let me write about dance and let me develop my writing skills. And I really enjoyed that and I enjoyed that whole internal journey. When I'm sitting at the computer and writing about dance, writing about my life and my journeys, and in that process, I found one of the more recent chapters I call them, I wrote about my meeting with Kazuo Ohno.
And I've also done research around some of the Butoh dancers. And it's been fascinating to read about what how that the mask for them, how that takes that them into a much more internal space where they could be much more truthful. In the movements that they do. And I feel that also very much when I have the mask on it, it changes totally the way my body, react, to fear and searches for movements.
So I'm very much in in that internal improvisational area with my explorations for the mask work as well. And I hope I'll be able to share that next year.
Liz Lea [28:35]:
I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. So Elizabeth thank you so much for sharing these insights with us today and I'm sorry we haven't been able to meet in person as yet, but I really look forward to seeing you face to face when we can. I'm a little speechless. You are ever busy and ever inspirational. Love your work and I look forward to. I look forward to talking to you again.
Elizabeth Cameron Dalman:
Yes me too me too very much Liz and all the best and let me say to everybody out there somehow. Keep keep creative, it can be in the garden, it can be any kitchen, it can be wherever but we're dancers and we can dance anywhere.