Announcer

The following podcast is brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team from Curriculum Secondary Learners, Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. The creative arts curriculum team acknowledges the traditional custodians from here on Dharug country and from all the lands on which you are listening today. We respect the Elders past, present, and emerging as we share our creative arts education stories.

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Carolyn

Welcome to Creative Cast, the official podcast of the New South Wales Department of Education's creative arts curriculum team.

My name is Carolyn Mattick and I'm relieving Creative Arts Curriculum Implementation Officer. Today's podcast aims to explore the process of devising theatrical works, and I'm lucky enough to be joined by Emily Ayoub, theatre deviser extraordinaire. Emily is the artistic director of Clockfire Theatre, a company she co-founded in 2012 with the intention to create highly visual physical theatre, which, having been lucky enough to see myself, is exactly what they do. Emily and her company use a collaborative process to create evocative and highly engaging theatre experiences. She's been influenced in her practice by her study at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris. Emily is a creator, an educator and an all-round excellent human being.

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Thanks for chatting with me, Emily.

Emily

Thank you for having me.

Carolyn

Emily, obviously a big reason that we are chatting today is that drama teachers, a large part of what we do is to facilitate students in the process of play-building and devising theatrical works. But before we jump into that, tell me a little bit about your journey in becoming a theatre maker.

Emily

Yeah, so I guess straight after high school I auditioned for what used to be Theatre Nepean, which was part of University of Western Sydney. And I got in and I had three years at Nepean there where I think we did a lot of ensemble-based work so I sort of got a taste for devising theatre, but it wasn't until I was sort of really out in the industry and I thought, "This is kind of a difficult life, waiting for the phone to ring and waiting for opportunity to be creative." And I thought, "No, I've got to learn to make my own work," because that's the main reason why I wanted to work was to be creative. So, after working in the industry for a bit, I decided to go to Lecoq and I just haven't looked back really. There's so many tools that I've taken away from that place that are in my toolkit in terms of creating, in terms of working as an ensemble, being a collaborator, and then just also a pedagogical approach to theatre making, which is just worth so much to me.

Carolyn

So, let's unpack that process a little bit and we'll start at the beginning. What is your starting process? When you start out, do you have an idea of what you want the work to be when you start? And do you have an ideal in mind for what the piece should look like or should be?

Emily

It always comes back to that question of what moves us as humans. So, both psychologically but also physically. So, I guess our process is heavily influenced by the Lecoq pedagogy, which is based around the notion that "tout bouge", which means "everything moves". So we're inspired by movement first, I think, the most, and I think we are drawn to and tend to lean in the direction of themes that are slightly absurd and mysterious, but we always want to make it our goal to reveal poetically what is unseen, through movement. So, the movement of a space, the movement inside of a text, the movement of colour, movement of materials, the movement of elements. We're always inspired by what the ensemble can do with their bodies first.

And I guess in terms of how we decide on a concept, concepts usually find us, that's a difficult one to explain, but we sort of feel like it's quite instinctive, something sort of pulls at us and then we react. So I suppose we try as artists to keep ourselves in the state of what Lecoq calls disponibilité, which is openness, so that we're open to receive on the floor, but also just in life. So yeah, mostly concepts are a bit of a hunch, like a universal hunch for us.

Carolyn

Okay. So, I guess then, if you were giving advice, you mentioned a number of different kinds of things that you will explore. So, colour, material, element, and sort of unpack that and look at what that looks like as movement. If someone was sort of leading this or facilitating this process of devising, have you got some advice about how to generate ideas and how to start the process?

Emily

Yes, definitely. I mean, the first thing is to get on the floor and to start moving, but you really need to come from, I guess, a structural point of departure. Otherwise, it's very difficult. You can find yourself in an improvisation that lasts for a long time, that doesn't go anywhere. So you need to know what you're looking for, I guess. So, for example, if I... Let's take the example of a painting. If, for example, with our work with the Lost Company that was inspired by some of Brett Whiteley's artworks. So, what we would do in that process is really unpack his artworks, look at the colours, look at his colour rainbow, look at the dynamic inside of those colours, looking at the painting itself overall. Where is the push and pull, where are the diagonals, what's the fixed point? And then from there we might try and start to move those dynamics and search for the overall... What we would maybe say the overall gesture of the painting. So, if you could sum up the painting in one gesture, what would that gesture be?

So, it's really working with the chorus as well. And we need to be in a state of complicité, which means a shared understanding, a state of disponibilité which is openness to each other, and also le jeu, which is to play. So, there's a lot of listening that has to occur, but it's probably taking something that we're inspired by first and trying to move that on the floor, that's probably our initial point of departure. That comes though after some of the research that we might do in our own time as well, that we might bring to the floor. But certainly, once we're in the room together as an ensemble, what we need to do is get on the floor and start to move.

Carolyn

So, I guess when I'm working with students, I know personally I struggle with the type of students I teach. They want to sit and talk and they want to talk and talk and talk. And I guess you've just identified, there is obviously a need for initial discussion and decision-making around, what do we want to explore in the first instance? How soon do you think it is important, or how quickly are you up? Do you do that research outside the rehearsal room and leave the rehearsal room for practice and for movement?

Emily

I'd say it's a bit of both, but absolutely I think as you can tend to get kind of bogged down into talking about concepts and talking about ideas, but you've got to try those things to know if there's anything in them. Something that is on paper is very different too, once it's physically moved. You can have a really good idea in your head of how it could look and how it could work, and then once you actually try it, there might not be anything in it that is worth investigating further. And for us, because our writing is based on improvisation, we write by a process of improvisation that really can only be done once we're on the floor. So that's not to say that we don't bring writing to the floor, we absolutely do that, but most comes out of the improvisation itself. So we work in a way where we start with silence because the idea is that there is so much that is unsaid before anything is said. There's so much that is there to unpack before we start to talk. And I think with improvisation, the danger can be that everything is said and then there's no play.

So, we are looking for those moments before someone opens their mouth to speak, and then what text comes out of that as opposed to what text do we put on top of that? So, it's really working from the body out. And I think that if we get into those dangers too, where we sit around and we talk too long and then we sort of think, "Oh," we get on the floor and there's nothing in it. But those are always reminders to us to actually just get up and try and see what works.

And also in our work, because we work through a process of intensive collaboration, it means that every ensemble member is a writer of the piece. So of course we have someone who leads the process, usually, like a director, and that responsibility of like, "Oh, come on, let's get on the floor," sits with that person. But each ensemble member is researching in their own time. Everyone's making offers on the floor, everyone's responsible for the writing of the piece, including the designer, the sound designer, to the performers. It really is a big process of collaboration. If the designer brings a provocation in for us to try, then we need to try that on the floor. We can't assume that that's just going to work. And it's the same with the sound. Often the sound designer will observe what we are making and we'll send them clips of what we are doing and then they'll work specifically from that stuff in order to form their own interpretation of the work.

Carolyn

Okay, thanks. The one thing you mentioned there was the sending of the clips, because I guess the next stage then would be, you're in improvisation and something works. Something kind of jumps out, there's a little interaction, and obviously because that has been improvised, you then need to somehow do that again. So, what's the next step then, I guess? So, something's worked in improvisation. How do you lock that in and then continue to build on that?

Emily

If finally, we land on something where there's play, then we would continue unpacking it and we would work through repetition. We would keep searching in that moment to see where else it could take us. And then we would store it in our memory bank and in our toolkit and we would know, "Okay, we've got that." It's not like we create various moments and then try and cobble them together, if that makes sense. I guess it's like writing a play in the sense that we try and write, but just from the floor. So, we will do it in a linear way, otherwise it might become a bit kind of hodge-podge all over the place and we don't quite know what our through line is. So, it really is of always coming back to what are we trying to say, what's the through line, what's the fixed point of this piece, what story are we trying to tell?

So, once we've got a moment, we just continue to work from that moment and we always come back to that moment, if that makes sense. And then nothing is ever locked in place. It's not like we've found that and that has to stay now, it's that we might come back to it in a couple of days and it might have lost something, but something else has sort of elevated. So, then we might move more in the direction of that new thing that we've found. So, it's quite an instinctive thing. It's not something where we lock it in and then we move on. And then... It does get a little bit more like that towards the end once we feel like we've got enough material, but certainly in the early days, it's like it's evolving constantly. It's constantly moving.

Carolyn

When you're working, I mean obviously you've done this a number of times now and produced works from this process. What have you identified as the biggest hurdles to that creative process? And I guess then how do you overcome those?

Emily

I guess always it's clarity, coming back to being specific about what we are trying to say. That things need to be clear. There has to be finding a logic to how the space operates and how the story operates. That can mean it's abstract and it can be absurd, but it has to come from a place of truth. So, I think we often describe our processes a lot of trudging through the mud. There's a lot of mud, there's a lot of being lost, there's a lot of searching and searching and searching and then, "Oh, we found something," and then we... As soon as we found something, then we try and unpack that as far as we can. The main hurdle is just the process itself, is just being on the floor and being lost and being okay with being lost and being okay with the work not being strong. Being okay with the fact that it feels like we're not create... Nothing is coming. All those unknowns of making art and wrestling with yourself about whether the concept that you had was... There's even anything in it. You have to trust in that stuff.

So that's definitely the hardest part is just getting the ball rolling in terms of finding play. Finding play is not easy to do, but once you found it then you... And I think, yes, I've done this enough times now to trust the process and know that it will come but that it takes time and you can't force it. You just have to be persistent with it and patient. Yeah, and knowing if we are denouncing something, the denouncement needs to be clear to the audience. So, always coming back to, "Is this clear what we are saying here? What are we saying here?" That near enough isn't sort of good enough on that front. And yeah, I guess if we're... Say we're exploring the colour blue, is that what the audience is seeing? Are they universally seeing blue or are they seeing something else? So, we sort of come back to those... Searching for those truths a lot, but we always want to be clear with what we're saying. And that takes time and it takes a lot of work.

Carolyn

You kind of talked about the mud and being in the mud. How do you know when to let an idea go? That it's just not working?

Emily

Oh, pretty... I would say that's one of the easiest parts of the process. I would say we have no problem with throwing ideas in the bin. It's very much... I think that's in our training as well. It's like when you're on the floor in improvisation or you're searching in something more abstract, it's knowing when to let go and to move on to something else and to search into something else. And you get quicker at doing that. And it is instinctive. You know when there's something to be discovered. "Oh, there's play in that," or, "Oh, that's interesting. I do see that city in the way that you are moving your body." Or if we're working with text for example, how are we bringing the text to life as opposed to just describing what's on the page.

So, I think you get better over time at knowing just to move on to something else and to try something else so that you're generating a lot of material. Otherwise, yeah, you get bogged down in the improvisation. You're just searching the same thing, moving in circles. And that really goes to the pedagogy as well, even from the simple task of walking around the room. Having the awareness of, "Am I just walking in circles at the moment? What is my body doing? Where are the diagonals in the room? Where are the horizontals? Where are the verticals? How can I fill that space over there that's empty?" All those questions are all, you can apply them to theatre making because you're constantly questioning what you have found... What you are finding and what the process is. But certainly there are times in the ensemble where there is a disagreement over an idea. And some of us might feel like the idea is really strong and other others of us might feel like it's not so strong or it doesn't belong, it sits outside. And then that is a rigorous discussion and it's also just justifying our desires to each other for it to either exist or not exist in the piece. And then, yeah, it's a conversation.

Carolyn

That's led perfectly into one of the final questions I wanted to look at, which is about what it takes to be a good collaborator. Because obviously when you are talking about creativity, there's a real aspect of your person, what you believe in and what you like. And also I guess ego is kind of caught up in that as well in terms of that ability to be able to say "My idea's not working" seems to be pretty important. What else... What does a good collaborator look like?

Emily

To me, a good collaborator looks like someone that always steps forward. I mean that in the sense of if the work isn't working, do you take responsibility for that too? It's not like, "Well that was someone else's idea." Once you are in an ensemble, it's like you are all responsible for whatever is generated. You don't step backwards and say, "Well, I didn't like that idea in the first place," because that's how you form trust between ensemble members. And I think also it's someone that is a really good listener, that someone that's willing to try ideas, someone that's willing to not sit on the fence too much. And probably the most important thing is that they're willing to defend the work. Even, it might not feel right on the floor, but how do we defend it? How do we say, "This is what we've created, we defend this work." That's a really important part of being an ensemble member.

I mean, it's not that different to working as part of a team in a sports team. There has to be a real connection between team members. There has to be good listening. There has to be action, reaction. There has to be that, "I defend this team," a belief in the team and what they're making.

Also an ensemble member and a good collaborator is someone that is willing to do lots of different... Put lots of different hats on for whatever works at the time. It's not about really how big your role is, I guess, or it's more about how you can be of service to the work. It's always about the work for us, and it's less about you as an individual character, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that stuff is all important, but we are all working towards that. I want to make sure... If I'm playing one character, I want to make sure the other character is as strong if not stronger. You know what I mean? But it doesn't mean that I have to be playing them, it's just that because it's about the work, about creating a whole living, breathing organism rather than little facets within that.

Carolyn

Emily, thank you so much. It's been really inspiring talking to you, and there's just some great insights that I'm going to take away and definitely apply in my own teaching. I know you're very busy, so it's been great. Thank you so much for your time.

Emily

Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Carolyn

Thanks again to Emily Ayoub from Clockfire Theatre. I know this has completely changed the way I'm going to approach devising from now on in my classroom. My students are never going to be allowed to sit and talk ever again.

If you are looking for more inspiration around facilitating the play building process in your classrooms, keep an eye out for our upcoming professional learning opportunities.

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Announcer

This podcast was brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team of Curriculum Secondary Learners, Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining our statewide staff room through the link in the show notes or email our creative arts curriculum adviser Catherine Horvat at creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Jack Ryan from Molong Central School.

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Announcer

The following podcast is brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team from Curriculum Secondary Learners Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. The creative arts curriculum team acknowledges the traditional custodians from here on Dharug country and from all the lands on which you are listening today. We respect the Elders past, present, and emerging as we share our creative arts education stories.

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Eleisha Taylor

Welcome to Creative Cast, the official podcast of the New South Wales Department of Education's creative arts curriculum team. My name is Eleisha Taylor, and I'm a Creative Arts Curriculum Officer with the Department of Education. Today's topic of discussion is Unlocked – The dance interview, and I'm lucky today to be joined by Shea Atchison, relieving Head Teacher CAPA from Orange High School.

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Hi Shea, thanks for joining me today.

Shea Atchison

Thanks for having me.

Eleisha Taylor

Today we are here to discuss effective teaching and learning strategies for preparing students for the HSC interview or elaboration. As we all know, this is a discussion between the examiners and the students where students demonstrate their knowledge and understanding both orally and physically. So, Shea, as a dance teacher, how do you unpack the interview process with your students?

Shea Atchison

The interview process happens on either side of the practical demonstration that we see. So, when it comes down to core performance or major study performance, we see it after we see the practical demonstration. However, when it comes to major study composition dance and technology or core composition, we see it beforehand to give us just a bit of extra information as to what we're going to see in that practical demonstration. I think it's really important that students have an understanding of what this interview is and that they are just normalised with it. It becomes easy for them, it makes them comfortable to do it. I think that's really important, and I think that's probably one of the hardest things that students... They hear 'interview' and they start to panic and having that kind of informal conversation with them quite regularly helps ease how they feel about it, which is really important.

Eleisha Taylor

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. Practise definitely takes those nerves away for our students. Obviously, the interview for the core components differ to the major study components. How do you approach teaching these differently with your students?

Shea Atchison

Yeah, so your core components, for example, core performance focusses mainly on dance technique and safe dance practice and performance quality. When it comes to your major performance, then it incorporates all of those things, but in relation to the interpretation of the dance, so their major studies are about something. They're dancing about something, so they need to be able to incorporate the components of that dance technique, performance quality and safe dance practice, but be able to talk about that in relation to what they're talking about.

Eleisha Taylor

How do you approach the teaching of the interview or the elaboration across Years 9–12 dance?

Shea Atchison

I think my main thing that I do starting from Year 9 is just that role-modelling and talking about dance. So, from just the really basic building blocks of just them hearing simple buzzwords, whether it just be to talking about that safe dance practice or the use of alignment or things like that. So, every time that I'm teaching movement phrases or we're looking at specific body skills, even starting from Year 9, or even just beginning with warmup phrases, we're talking about how the body moves within those phrases and the importance of doing that safely.

I think when I start with Stage 5, so Year 9 and 10, are heavily focussed on things like the anatomy of the body and what the body actually needs in order to dance safely, and then we focus on those really kind of descriptive words about what we see in-depth. So, I think that really helps when it comes to things like explaining performance quality, you can throw words out there like dynamics and kids don't really understand what that means unless you're really explaining it to them. Well, what can you see?

Is the movement sharp? Is it strong, is it soft? Let's look at the shape that they're creating. So, you're kind of bringing in those elements of dance as well while you talk through it. And I think the more that you talk through it, the more they get comfortable with doing that as well. And it's important to start that from Stage 5 so that when they come into Stage 6, they're not instantly having a fear of having to talk about what their bodies are doing. So yeah, it's this constant role modelling and talking through and then I think I start to really question the students. That's in all the way through from 9–12 and make them really stop and focus about, well what is your body doing in that movement or how does it feel? Or let's repeat it again and let's focus on that specific part of your body that we want to talk about and really think about, well what's engaging there and how are we moving through that movement?

And then as a class, once we start to head into more of that Stage 6, we will really start to break down and scaffold what we want to know about these syllabus dot points. So, for example, core performance we will scaffold and really focus on the what, how and why. So, we want to know what it is, but we really want to more focus on and gain that depth of knowledge on the how and why the body moves and how it moves like that and why it moves like that and why it's important. In order for us to use things like alignment or have an understanding of our kinaesthetic awareness. And we use lots of questioning again. So, whether that's me questioning those students or the students are starting to question each other. And I think just as simple as adding a body skill to, or some movement phrase to a dance that you're creating the core performance or even their compositions, it's this constant questioning making them really think about those choices and those purposeful choices that they're making now.

Why are you doing that? Why did you start in that shape? What's the importance of you starting on that level or in that part of the space? Or how are we using your motif for elements of dance to really build those phrases? And I think the more that you make them talk about it and really think about what they're doing it actually without them even realising they're answering interview questions. They're already really practicing that process of standing in front of you and actually having to explain what their bodies are doing and why they're choosing to do that. And I think that's really the most important thing to really normalise that and make it feel okay and make them feel that they can do it. Often, they hear this like, oh, you have to do a 6 minute or a 9-minute interview and a lot of them just shut down and think, well I can't do that. And then you have to say, well you can do that. You already have been doing that in every lesson that we are. Every time I ask you about what your body's doing, you've already answered that. So, it's about kind of normalising it, I think for those students. And it gets a little bit more fearful when they're just have a marker in front of them and they're having to stand there one on one, but the more that you can make them feel safe and relaxed in that environment, the more information you can actually get out of them. So, it's all about that practise, practise, practise. I think. I also do a syllabus puzzle kind of thing. So, I've cut up the syllabus and when they really get into being able to talk about it, we kind of need to focus on how we're going to start linking those dot points.

So how can we link between dance technique and performance quality or how can we link between your use of elements of dance and then organisation of your dance? Well, how have you used all of those things to manipulate movement phrases and what we see at the end of your composition. So, once they start to piece this puzzle of the syllabus together, they can start to draw those links a little bit better I think, because they have an understanding of what comes under, say for example, performance quality or what comes under organising the dance. And they start to really see those links and I think once they start making those links, it makes it a whole lot easier for them to get to that 6 minutes or 9 minutes. I love it at the end when they go, oh, that didn't take very long, that was amazing. And I'm like, yeah. So, it's really nice to then build their confidence when they realise that they can actually do it.

Eleisha Taylor

Yeah. I think that leads really nicely into my next question for you, which was what are some standout strategies that assist your students in understanding the interview process or preparing for the interview?

Shea Atchison

I think definitely the standout one for, well, that I know works most with my students is that really kind of scaffolded answer to things. So, we will really scaffold the actual each syllabus dot point individually and then what we do is we start to apply it into the other components of dance. And I think once they can see how they link across all of the components, they find it easier to talk about. They really work on being able to link between those two components and then those dot points. The importance of not just what it is, you can give me a definition, but that's not what I want to know. I really want to know the depth of that knowledge and the more that they start to really talk about it and think past the definition or what it is, really think about that how and why. It just makes them more comfortable with it.

Eleisha Taylor

Yeah, I think you've mentioned that a few times that how and the why is very important in getting that depth of knowledge from the students. Thank you for that. I've got one last question for you today. How do you incorporate the interview or elaboration in your school-based assessments?

Shea Atchison

I actually follow the same process as the HSC examination. Obviously, the Year 11 is heavily scaffolded. I will start with, and most of the time start with a safe dance practice question. I give the students the question, we talk through it, we break down each of those syllabus dot points that we would need to talk about. But I just think the more practice they get at standing in front of you one on one, the easier it becomes when they actually get to the HSC.

I did used to start with other kind of Year 11 assessments to gauge or to assess the things like core performance specifically, but then it just got to the point where I thought these kids just need more practise. They need to normalise that actual interview process, and they need to realise that it's okay. So, I found that when I was starting it in Year 12, those marks were probably a little bit skewed where they could have been because of the genuine fear that they had of standing there having to speak about it. So, I actually incorporate it from the very start, and we do a lot of practice leading up to that. We do a lot of interview process in the classroom, whether that be like me asking questions or them going off and breaking into partners and practicing with each other.

Eleisha Taylor

And with that in mind, how do you help your students to understand the two components of the practical demonstration and the discussion being marked in that one criteria?

Shea Atchison

Yeah, I think that's probably the trickiest part. I think what I do try to focus on mostly is trying to keep what you see physically matching what you hear. And I think all I can do as a teacher is just prepare them the best that I can so that they are most comfortable doing that, because the more comfortable they feel, the more information you'll get out of them. And I do say that these marks will affect, they will affect what you see. I think it's important that they understand that. I'll show them and other ones that we've seen, if I've marked assessments from last year or whenever.

I've got a good couple of examples of like, this is what you see physically, this is what you hear orally, and this is how the mark came out. So, we will actually look at some prior feedback that I've given students or look at demonstrations that I've already taken video of. And then as they kind of see and hear, they will do a bit of a feedback sheet themselves. So where do you think that student would sit if we were looking at your marking criteria? And so that allows that peer kind of feedback, but also greater understanding because that it's not just me standing up there talking about the importance, but they can actually gain the importance by seeing it physically, hearing it orally, and then where they think that that student would sit within that marking criteria.

Eleisha Taylor

Thanks so much Shea for sharing some of your experiences and strategies for preparing students for the dance interview today. I am now joined by Zara Dimmock, a recently graduated dance student. Zara attended Tuggerah Lakes Secondary College on the Central Coast and is here to provide a student perspective of preparing for the interview aspect of the HSC dance examinations. Hi Zara, thank you for joining me today. Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about your post school pathway in dance so far?

Zara Dimmock

For sure. Thank you so much for having me. So, since I've graduated school, which was 2 years ago now, I went into study full time dance at Brent Street, which is a nationally renowned company and studio in Sydney. And I had just such an amazing time. It was basically 9 to 5 training 5 days a week. It was one of the best experiences of my entire life and it's really set me up well in my professional career and I'm now a professional dancer.

Eleisha Taylor

Thank you. So first of all, I'd like to know how did you prepare for the interview aspect of the course throughout your HSC year?

Zara Dimmock

I would say having a really deep understanding of the syllabus and what the requirements are and what they are looking to tick off. What specifically do you need to cover in order to make sure you are expressing that you have a deep understanding of the syllabus and of whatever creation you are being examined on. The best way of achieving that for me was, like I said, starting off with a really, really strong foundation and understanding, which just took time and study. I studied the syllabus; I highlighted all the important points. I read that band descriptor consistently. I did a lot of practise interviews with my friends in my cohort and my teacher. And it really, really aided me when it came to the actual HSC interview because I felt like I had already done it before. Which I think try and gain as much experience as you can, because the more experienced you are, the less chance that you are going to get thrown a curve ball that you are unable to answer.

And I think that's the thing. 9 times out of 10, if you know what you're talking about and you've studied the syllabus and you have a thorough understanding, the only real way that you are going to fail as per se is the nerves. And you do get really anxious. I went into the HSC exam, the most prepared I think anybody could have. I had a body skill picked out for each of my pieces and I made sure I had an axial movement, I had a balance, I had an elevation, I ticked off all of those points that I knew that they could possibly ask me so that when I went into the room, it was more just refreshing an idea as opposed to cultivating a completely new one. And I think that was really effective for me and I was able to then explain myself more eloquently in the interview.

Eleisha Taylor

And I'm sure all that preparation that you did for the interview helped you to combat some of those nerves that you felt on the day.

Zara Dimmock

Yeah, definitely. I think it really enabled me to make clear and concise judgements and explain myself the best I possibly could. And it showed that really thorough knowledge that I did have. And I don't think that my nerves hindered my ability to communicate that on the day, which, like you said, I'm not sure would've been the case if I hadn't put myself in that position prior to the interview.

Eleisha Taylor

Definitely. So, what do you think students should have as their key focus for each interview or elaboration?

Zara Dimmock

I think understanding what each of the pieces, so the intent, means is a really, really vital place to start because you can study the syllabus and you can have a really deep understanding of all the dot points that you need to cross over from a really technical and logistic point of view. But if you don't have that almost emotional connection to each of the pieces that you've either created or your teachers created and you are performing, I feel like you're not able to really deeply connect on that level that you are needed to. Dance is an art form at the end of the day. So, you need to be able to connect with the piece. I think if you are certain you're diminishing any chance for the panel to be uncertain about your knowledge. I think refreshing your knowledge of the elements of dance was really, really helpful for me.

They're looking for those buzzwords. They're looking for a student that's able to make connections between the criteria and your work. So, I think if you have that understanding, call upon it, use it, make it known that it's in you. And then in terms of looking at the elaborations more specifically, I would say, like I said before, having a really strong idea of your body skills and safe dance practice and your performance quality for core performance. And similarly for your major work, if you chose to do performance, that was the route that I took. And then for core composition, how did you generate movement? How did you organise movement, and how did you organise the dance, ultimately. It really is... You look into the syllabus; those things are written in black and white for you. And I would just say don't underestimate the power of using what is there, simple. It's exactly what they're looking for. I think I approached the HSC looking at the dot points as if it was a to-do list and I needed to check off every point and try to mention as many of those points.

Eleisha Taylor

Yeah, I think that's great advice, really linking to the syllabus and using that dance terminology from the syllabus and from your classes. And I'm making it a personal thing, that personal response to your dance and your body. Thank you. So, our last question today is how has your holistic knowledge of the dance syllabus supported you as you have moved into your tertiary training and career in dance?

Zara Dimmock

Honestly, in so many ways. It pops up in those moments when you probably don't expect it to. I also dance teach now to recreational studios and also quite a few professional companies as well, sort of climbing up the ranks as a choreographer. It's that understanding of safe dance practice. I apply that to make sure my kids are performing and executing movement properly. I apply it to myself because I want a really long, prosperous, abundant career in dance. And I think the principles I've taken from my understanding and the HSC have really, really supported that. I think it's really, really solidified all that knowledge for me and there hasn't really been a day since where I haven't used it. It's really, really important to me now. And also, beyond that, I really appreciate what I do now. I think you can just really tell the difference. Someone that just understands the knowledge and someone that actually cares about it. It has to be a perfect assembly of both of those ideas. And I really think I achieved that in my studies, and I love what I do, and I have a really deep-rooted connection to what I do, and I think that is also another reason why I have a good chance of a long career. Because I apply the science and the mechanics of ensuring that my body is able to live out the life of a dancer, but my heart and my mind and my soul also in it, because I see dance as an art form and a sport. It's equally athletic and emotional and yeah, I love all of those things about it now. And I think my HSC study implemented that feeling in me.

Eleisha Taylor

Well, thank you. It has been amazing to hear a student voice on our Creative Cast for this episode of Unlocked – The dance interview. Thank you for joining me today, Zara.

Zara Dimmock

Thank you for having me.

Eleisha Taylor

Thanks for tuning into the Creative Cast today. To see some student assessment examples and to learn more about unlocking the dance interview, be sure to look out for our new Assessment in the HSC resource that will be released early next term.

[Light music plays.]

Announcer

This podcast was brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team of Curriculum Secondary Learners, Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining our statewide staffroom through the link in the show notes or email our Creative Arts Curriculum Advisor, Catherine Horvat, at creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Jack Ryan from Molong Central School.

[End of transcript]

Announcer

The following podcast is brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team from Curriculum Secondary Learners, Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. The creative arts curriculum team acknowledges the traditional custodians from here on Dharug country and from all the lands on which you are listening today. We respect the Elders past, present, and emerging as we share our creative arts education stories.

[Light music plays.]

Helen Yip

Welcome to Creative Cast, the official podcast of the New South Wales Department of Education's creative arts curriculum team. My name is Helen Yip, and I'm a creative arts curriculum officer with the Department of Education. Today's topic of discussion is Unlocked, with a focus on unlocking students' practice in visual arts. Today, we are joined by Louise Halpin from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, who is the Senior Program Producer for Learning and the curator of the ARTEXPRESS 2022 exhibition, which is currently showing at the gallery. Louise will be sharing some of her expertise regarding how visual arts teachers can use the exhibition as a learning tool to unlock students' own artmaking practice.

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Hi Louise thank you for joining us today.

Louise Halpin

Hi Helen. Thank you so much for having me.

Helen Yip

Firstly, can you tell us about yourself and your background in art education?

Louise Halpin

Sure. I think I was in about Year 10 when I decided that I was going to be an art teacher. I had a great relationship with my own art teachers and I loved art, but I also wanted to teach as well. So, I went through Newcastle University and did drawing and sculpture, so they were my majors. But I loved art history and went through all of those great experiences. I was a visual arts classroom teacher for about 15 years in the Department of Education and really diverse settings across New South Wales, regional New South Wales, and loved it.

I decided to do a Master of Arts in Museum Education, in around 2005, at the University of Sydney, and that's when I began my role at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. And at the same time, I was working at Sculpture by the Sea, as the education manager there. So again, my sculpture experience and love came through again. And I've been at the gallery coming up to about 12 or 13 years now. So, looking at different programs, open gallery, art pathways, working with schools across New South Wales, a lovely focus on Western Sydney schools and supporting them through specific programming, and then ARTEXPRESS as well.

2022 is my fourth opportunity to curate ARTEXPRESS and it's such a joy. I'm very, very thankful and really, really enjoy it.

Helen Yip

Great. Thank you for sharing your background and experiences with us, Louise. In the virtual teacher salon that you recently hosted, you spoke to teachers about the importance of highlighting student voice and resilience through the ARTEXPRESS 2022 exhibition. Would you please outline your aims as a curator of this exhibition?

Louise Halpin

Sure. Well, the overall mission for the art gallery is to engage the widest possible audience as a forum for scholarship, art education and the exchange of ideas. And that's across the gallery, not just in our learning department. And we think ARTEXPRESS sits so beautifully within that mission. The aim of the exhibition is to showcase New South Wales visual arts education, which includes quality teaching and the rigorous visual arts syllabus, really highlighting and celebrating that. But I think what's also really important, particularly to our general audience, is that authentic student voice in the gallery, alongside contemporary artists, alongside our collection.

So, really making sure that that diverse voice is front and centre in the space. Our students are in tune with social and personal matters and have an ability to understand their world in a unique way, and I think people are really interested in finding out more about that. As I said, it's an opportunity for our general audience to see the world through their eyes. And the exhibition, I think, highlights their confidence, their experimentation, the resolving ideas and that depth of thinking, and again, the diversity of voices representing schools across New South Wales.

There's something about tapping into that teenage mind and trying to reconnect with your own youth and your own experiences. So, I think it is a joy. It's one of our most popular exhibitions, not just with school groups, but with the general public. And people are really interested to see what happens each year. So, it's fantastic for us.

Helen Yip

Thank you for giving us that insight into how you've highlighted the authentic and powerful voices of students through this exhibition. Having taught Year 12 visual arts last year myself, it's fantastic to recognise and see the accomplishments and the resilience of both students and teachers across New South Wales. So, that brings me to my next question. How did the curatorial themes for this year's exhibition come about? And can you provide an example of how teachers could use one of these themes to activate an area of syllabus content for students?

Louise Halpin

Fantastic. Great question. It's interesting because the exhibition, we always say there's no preconceived theme when we go in. It's more important for us to exhibit the creativity, complexity. And as I said, that diversity of artworks, art making, creative for the making component of the HSC examination. So it's really important to see what's out there before we come up with an idea or a theme. But in saying that, there are themes and connections that do seem to come through each year. I think environmental concerns, particularly for this generation, it's so important and it's fantastic to see students exploring those themes in really different ways.

Bush fires, I think, the last two years were a huge source of inspiration and that students really exploring those ideas and interests there. The exploration of identity in place, I think, is something that many artists use in their own practice, but I think for this age, you are really trying to find out who you are, where you fit in the world, and that's a theme that comes up again and again. Personal challenges, that's always, I think, really brave for students to look into their own experience with their family, with themselves, medical conditions, things that they're really exploring that are very personal and very challenging.

And to use that in a creative way or to work through some of those ideas and share that with an audience is a privilege for us to be able to see that. And again, political things, it's great to see students getting out there and being a bit bolshy and really looking at what's happening in their world and how they can hopefully have an impact in some way. As I said, even though we've probably seen a lot of these themes, what's always interesting is these students' individual and unique approach to that idea. So, I guess a great piece of advice is you don't have to come up with something completely brand new that has never been done before because that's really hard.

It's always interesting to have your own take on that idea or your own feeling about what that means to you. And again, that authentic kind of connection with those ideas is really important. As you said, both 2021 and '22 was such challenging years, interruptions. I think that was really interesting about how this year particularly had the two years of disruption. So I was really interested to see students directly reflecting their experience of COVID. Kaitlyn Mateta has stopped the spread, so she's crocheted COVID for us, which is use of humour as well, which is lovely to see. But also students really affected by isolation and that lack of human connection and having to work in that way, I think is really challenging and that's come through.

But in terms of a particular theme that I think would be really interesting to explore is the mundane. I really loved seeing students really dive in deeply to those things that we all related to, catching the bus with some random person that you don't really know, but unpacking that whole idea of using sound, using sculpture, found objects. Edward Parson's work, 'The Commute', is such a fantastic example of that. Gerard Barrios from Mosman High takeaway, he's done a beautiful series of work. He's capturing everyday moments from his family cafe, so he was working as a barista. So, his work has actually got coffee in the drawing materials, he's got coffee cups, found objects. It's a collection of work.

And I think, for me, that was really wonderful that every day, getting that coffee, having that small human connection was a wonderful way to get through. So, he's really thinking about his audience. And I loved Amelia Medbury's, from Blayney High School, perspective of a negative space with the washing machine. She's really exploring some challenging ideas. There's quite a number of kitchen sinks, I must say, in this year's exhibition. And we've seen interiors before. We've seen lots of students exploring their bedroom and going crazy with the pressures of the HSC.

But I think this year in particular, I've loved seeing that humour, but also really quite deep exploration of that mundane. So I think that would be a great topic to explore. Pick the most boring day that you can possibly imagine and do a time-based work on that. But really dig down and actually looking at other artists who explore some of those themes I think would be a great kick start into different ideas and different art making for your students.

Helen Yip

Thanks Louise. Thanks for providing us with such exciting and relevant and accessible strategies for engaging our students with all areas of the syllabus content. That relationship between the artist and the world, within the conceptual framework, has really come through in this exhibition. And of course, students have definitely shown that consideration of their audience and how they can communicate their intentions through their artwork. There's certainly perspectives from the cultural frame, the subjective frame, and even the postmodern frame coming through with that use of humour, on the found object, everyday life, and that really personal significance of these objects, and events, and interiors, and experiences for the students that, of course, we as the audience can all connect with, having all gone through COVID.

So, thank you for highlighting those. There's so many ideas, issues and art making approaches that students can connect with through this exhibition And I'm sure that teachers will find the themes of this exhibition a really useful starting point for meaningful conversations with their students. Whether that's during the exhibition visit or within their own classrooms. So in relation to this, as a principal venue for ARTEXPRESS, your gallery offers valuable opportunities for teachers and students to engage and connect with the diversity of approaches and expressive forms in art making.

How can teachers use the exhibition as a learning tool to unlock and activate students' own practice, particularly in preparing students for the HSC body of work? And I'm really interested in how you showcase the diversity and innovation within the practices of different expressive forms, and importantly, the process of how works come into being through exhibiting samples from students' visual arts process diaries.

Louise Halpin

Fantastic. It's a great question. Thank you for asking it. As I said it, the exhibition is a key part of our exhibition program over the years. We do think about our general audience, but we all know it is a fantastic teaching resource as well. We do work very closely with Vanessa and the Department of Education and the Arts unit to pull the exhibition together and that's a great relationship and partnership. So, we do understand that one of our key audiences is teachers in New South Wales and students in particular. So, as you said, we do make sure we have all 12 expressive forms. That's really important, again. I think it reflects contemporary practice, but it's also giving students an opportunity to be able to tap into an area that they're really passionate about or something that they feel very confident in.

And seeing examples within each form I think is really important. But also diversity of practice within each form is really important for us as well. So whether that's innovative practice, but also traditional, or more established, approaches to drawing, painting, whatever that expressive form is. Drawing in particular is a great example because we do, as I said, we've got Gerard using coffee grinds. So really experimental ways of drawing, but also there's realistic drawings that I think students will always do, there's getting around that. But then showing that breadth of approaches and diversity, I think. Just so there's something in that exhibition that students can understand and feel that they could achieve, that there's something that's accessible for them as well.

Tips, I guess too with looking at the exhibition. So, you're looking at the bodies of work, but we always say if there's a work in the exhibition that you really connect with, that you really love, a great idea is to go to the influencing artists, if they're there. We're really trying to show that these students have got their ideas and their inspiration from other artists. So, maybe go back to those artists, and that's where you start your journey. So, rather than just using the student work, really think about where they got their ideas, or if there's other artists that you can see for yourself, that you think that this student's referencing.

Go back to that original source and really see, because that will give you your own voice and your own journey through there. Find your own direction. We do have a huge database that goes back to 2005 on our website, so you can look up. Again, if you find an artwork that you really love and connect with, there should be some influencing artists that you can go to. And as I said, really make those connections because chances are your ideas or your approach will be similar, but then you'll take it to your own direction.

And look at art too. So when you're coming into ARTEXPRESS, fantastic to come and see ARTEXPRESS, but also if you can see Matisse or if you go to the old courts and see the collection, really looking at art. ARTEXPRESS will be inspiring and it will give you some great ideas, but don't miss the opportunity to look at other arts. So it's almost like you're a sponge, have a look around at what else is happening and what else is around on that day. But as I said, be open minded because you never know when you're going to be inspired.

The other thing that we did say to students is Pinterest and Instagram are great, we all use it. I do use it a lot, but make sure it's balanced with exhibitions, local artists, regional art centres. Looking at art, I think there's nothing more enriching because art comes alive when you are in front of it or when you are looking at it. It's not filtered through someone else's ideas, it's your own eyes that you are looking at that I think is really important. And as you said, process and practice is really key for us. And we've had the visual arts diaries on as part of the exhibition for a long time.

And I think that really, as you're saying, it's unlocking and it's demystifying ARTEXPRESS a little bit. Everyone has a bit of a perception of what ARTEXPRESS is, and these beautiful works arrive in this pristine white cube and that's it. No blood, sweat and tears have gone into it. So by showing the diaries, it demonstrates that development of ideas, it demonstrates practice. And I think there are a window into how each work in the exhibition came into being and you can see connections and see images of the final work. If you're looking at the material, there's an artist experiments within the process of making it, it helps to understand their work. And it also gives us a deeper insight into the artist themselves.

And it's great to see these students making mistakes and changing their mind. It's lovely getting a diary. Then they've got a Post-it note and they say, "Don't look at this bit. This is when my body of work actually started." But I'd like to look at the whole thing because there's always connections and you can see how the works change and the journey the student's gone on. I think that's fantastic. And again, it makes it accessible. So it's not this thing that I'm not part of. So coming into ARTEXPRESS, you can see that this is achievable. There's a work here that I really connect with, that I can understand and I can see how the student's gotten to this point, what they've gone through.

And, for me, that's something I'm very confident in. I can go away feeling confident and feeling empowered, that I can start my own journey that way.

Helen Yip

Thanks, Louise. As visual arts teachers, we have such an important role in supporting our students to develop their awareness, understanding, and processes that are going to equip them to see themselves as artists in their own right and be confident in developing and owning their choices and actions as artists, in both their conceptual material practice, contextualising the works in ARTEXPRESS, as you've explained, as well as previous bodies of work and the works of other artists across art history and contemporary practice. By emphasising the importance of the process that led to the successful resolution of these artworks is really significant. So thank you for pointing that out.

In your virtual teacher salon, you also highlighted how works sing when there is cohesion between a student's conceptual and material practice, including the way in which they curate and present their work to audiences. Do you have any advice for teachers and students who wish to develop and apply aspects of good curatorial practice?

Louise Halpin

That's another fantastic question, and this is probably the hardest thing I think for the students to get their head around. In terms of good curatorial practice, curator is the Latin 'cura', or care. 'Cura', or care for, a collection. So I guess ARTEXPRESS isn't necessarily a collection, but it's bodies of work that we care for, that we treat with the same professionalism and respect for. The same people that installed ARTEXPRESS installed Matisse Alive and Conservation are very much a part of that team. So we do care for these works. But I think the idea of curiosity that cura is also linked to curiosity when you're talking about being a curator.

So I think, for me, it's the responsibility to a curious audience is what really drives my curatorial practice and the approach that we take here at the gallery. Curators make decisions about which works of art should be displayed and how they should be seen and experienced by an audience. So, I think that's where we are coming from in terms of selections. And that's the really interesting part. So again, as I said, we go in with an open mind, we're not going in there thinking, "Okay, I'm going to get 10 works, I'm going to do this." It's completely what this year's going to bring.

And I think that keeps it fresh and exciting for our audience. When I'm selecting or when we're selecting the bodies of work, you're actually interpreting those works. So I guess that's the same with marking or when you're looking at those works as well, you're looking at the conceptual practice. So, the ideas and the intentions that the students have created, but as also the material practice. So the skills, the techniques and the methodology that they're using, and really thinking about how those two things combine. And whichever you start with, whichever you go to, you're always going backwards and forwards with that.

And I think that, as I said, when they sing, that you're hitting that really sweet spot where your material practice and your conceptual practice, they're all coming together. And that's for all artists, I think, it's not just your body of work. I think that's when you make those connections because there's something that's happening with that visual language that's really connecting with you. In selections, when we're deciding which works are we going to include, we're analysing the qualities of the works and then making a judgment from that. So we're really looking at what's in front of us and thinking about those works.

I only see the body of work itself and the title. I know there's been a few different approaches over the last two years with COVID, in terms of submission and selection, but really important that I really focus on the body of work itself. And that clear, strong visual message I think is what we're always looking for. And again, that's that material practice and conceptual practice connection. I think it's really important to capture an audience, but then the idea is to really engage and hold that attention. And that's a tricky thing to do. What you're wanting to do is really allow the audience to unpack those layers of meaning and if there's a relationship with other artists that you're looking at, the signs and the symbols that you're using.

So really, trying to get to that next... It's not just a quick impact, it's trying to keep that engagement, I think is really important. And that's all about editing as well. So when you're curating your own body of work, again, you're thinking about that audience, that conceptual framework and what you are saying to that audience. Again, the material and conceptual properties that you're using. Another thing, artists don't do anything without a reason. Every decision that they make is for a purpose. So again, every material that you're choosing, you are thinking about your idea and you're thinking about your concept.

Every choice and every decision you make has to relate back to what you are doing and why you're doing it. Why are you using this particular expressive form? Could my idea be conveyed as a time-based work? Or is it a drawing? Or is it a sculpture? Really thinking about, well, questioning yourself and trying to understand, well, why am I doing it this way? Is there a better way? Can I get my ideas across in... Is there a stronger way of doing it? Again, why this size of scale, too? Within the boundaries, but could my work sing if it's larger? Or, is what I'm saying more aligned to a smaller scale, more intimate and a quieter work?

All of those decisions, you are going backwards and forwards with those ideas. Am I adding more? Do I need a time-based element? Do I need a book? Go back and be really critical and thinking about what you're trying to say. What is your concept? And am I saying that clearly? And that's really hard. That's probably the hardest thing to decide because you're wanting to show all of this work that I've done over the time that I've been doing this in Year 12, I want to show the markers everything I've done. But it is important because it takes away from the idea. If there's too much, then your audience is clouded and they're not seeing that clear visual message.

But it's hard. I do know how tricky that is. Some of the ideas is that critical dialogue. So having that critical dialogue with yourself, but again, that's really challenging. But even setting up the art room with your classmates and talking together and showing people your work. And I know it's hard hearing criticism, but it's really useful because it does help you push your work into a different idea and a different place. Connect with nearby schools and again, looking at the work, looking at it, can you actually read and understand what I'm trying to say?

And I'd really love the idea to show friends and family who aren't necessarily art people and are they understanding? Is that audience understanding your concept and thinking about the materials that you've used and seeing what you've achieved with that and really engaging with what you are saying? The other thing, in terms of curatorial, that we consider is the space itself. I really love to make sure, again, which might be different to other exhibitions, but each body of work, we try and make sure that each student has their own space. There's always connections, you see lovely sight lines and I see that on purpose certainly, but then it just happens serendipitously as well.

But it's really important that each student has their own moment in the gallery space. And I think that's a really important thing to do. And as I said, we work very closely with the designers. Lighting is really important. So, thinking about if it's a small, quiet work, how are we going to light that and make it, as I said, make it sing and make it really, hopefully capture the student's intention. The installation crew, as I mentioned, and conservation as well. So selecting works that we know are best practice in terms of how these works have been made and created and how they're going to work in the space overall. So there's quite a lot of considerations, but it's all about that material and conceptual practice. That's the key.

Helen Yip

Thank you, Louise, for sharing so much insight into your role as curator and all of your considerations. It's something that is so important for students to consider throughout the process of developing their body of work, and that's even from Stage 4, Year 7, up until Stage 6, knowing your audience and connecting your intention with your material choices is so important. And asking that question, does my work speak for itself? Is a really important question that sometimes my students have struggled with because it's hard to step out of that world that they've created between themselves and the artwork. So, it is really hard to see their work in an objective sense.

So, as you said, it's so important for them to get peer feedback, teacher feedback, creating a community and space for other audiences to interpret the work. And have those conversations and that dialogue, that critical dialogue. So, students can make some informed decisions and judgements about how they want to present their work and why. So, thank you so much for highlighting and illuminating those considerations because you do get caught up in the process of making the work, and especially the past two years with COVID, even just getting the work resolved to a certain level was a challenge, I think, for a lot of people.

So, thinking about that curatorial process and that curiosity and taking care of your work and that collection and how it reads as a collection is a really important consideration from the very beginning to keep part of that dialogue. So thank you, Louise. Thank you so much for your time today, for sharing your curatorial insights and expertise and supporting teachers and students throughout the ARTEXPRESS 2022 Exhibition. It's fantastic to see and acknowledge the accomplishments and resilience of students and teachers across New South Wales, given the challenges that we've all faced over the past two years.

Louise Halpin

Pleasure. Oh, it's been fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. And just the thing about this exhibition, we want students to come in and be inspired and not discouraged, and that quality is achievable with their own determination, experimentation, and getting inspiration. But getting through the challenges of the last few years is huge, for the teachers as well, I think. It's wonderful to get to this point, but we want to really celebrate what's been achieved over the last few years. So, thank you so much for having me. It's been great.

Helen Yip

Thank you, Louise. ARTEXPRESS will be on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until the 25 of April, and the Bank Art Museum, Moree from the 14 of April until the 25 of June. ARTEXPRESS Virtual is a fantastic online resource hosted by the Arts Unit and available for students and teachers to view at any time. Thank you for tuning in to Creative Cast, and we'll see you next time.

Announcer

[Light music plays.]

This podcast was brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team of Curriculum Secondary Learners, Curriculum and Reform Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining our statewide staff room through the link in the show notes, or email our Creative Arts curriculum advisor Cathryn Horvat at creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Jack Ryan from Molong Central School.

[End of transcript]

Announcer

The following podcast is brought to you by the creative arts curriculum team from Curriculum Secondary Learners, Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played, for they have performed age-old ceremonies of storytelling, music, dance, and renewal. And along with all Aboriginal people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture, and the hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us also acknowledge this living culture and its unique role in the life of Australia today. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our Elders past, present, and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

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Alex Manton

Welcome to Creative Cast, the official podcast of the New South Wales Department of Education's creative arts curriculum team. My name is Alex Manton and I'm a Music 1 Curriculum Adviser with the Department of Education. Today's topic of discussion is ‘Unlocked – Australian music of the last 25 years’, an interview with Australian composers, Holly Harrison and Jessica Wells, and artistic director and percussionist of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes. Hi, and welcome Holly, Jess and Claire.

[All guests say hi]

Alex Manton

The focus of today's discussion is going to be on two works written for Ensemble Offspring, Bend/Boogie/Break by Holly Harrison, and Diminishing Species by Jessica Wells. Claire, how did the collaboration with Ensemble Offspring and Jess and Holly come about?

Claire Edwardes

Well, both these pieces, Alex, were written for different projects. Holly's piece was slightly earlier, and that was a commission which we used private donors to fund, and that's something Ensemble Offspring does a lot. We approach composers to write new pieces to go with other pieces in a program that we're thinking of. Bend/Boogie/Break was created for a program that was called Spectral Tech. Spectral music, funky music, kind of combined, unusual sound worlds. Then Jess's music was created for a more recent project called The Surge, which was around, was sort of looking back to the '90s, but it was also looking to the future and environmental impacts, I guess, of the last 25 years.

Alex Manton

That sounds so fascinating, Claire. Firstly Holly, where did you get the idea for the piece Bend/Boogie/Break and how did you get started on the composition?

Holly Harrison

First of all, the inspiration actually came from Offspring. To be able to work with instrumentalists like Claire and the Offspring gang, that was my main source. I knew that I wanted to write something that was about 10 minutes is I think what we discussed, Claire. And this was a third in a series of works that I'd written for them over maybe 3 years or so. I think at first we discussed the idea of maybe having it multi-movement, but then after a workshop, and I guess as any composer kind of knows, whatever you bring to a workshop initially isn't necessarily what you then go home with to work on. I do remember that first workshop being a little bit hairy and we sorted out some things, and I also remember Claire making a suggestion of, "Hey Holly, why don't you have a slow section in the middle, something that could, pay homage to spectralism in the middle?"

That was kind of where this idea of a bit more of a bendy sort of sound world came from, at least in my memory. Then in terms of the Bend/Boogie/Break of it, that wasn't actually the title, something that sort came to me until after I'd written it and I had these three threads and I thought, "How do I get these ratios to work? How do I sort of tie them together in a way that I guess acknowledges the funkiness and the groove that's quite apparent throughout the work?" This sort of honky tonk, keyboard, rhodes distorted sort of sound that's in there as well, as this kind of nod to spectralism with the bendiness and those quarter tones and things that you get throughout that middle session there. Yeah, that's basically how it came about and how I began thinking about it initially.

Alex Manton

That's great. Holly, you mentioned spectralism. Could you unpack that a little bit?

Holly Harrison

Gosh, I'm not sure I'm even that familiar with it, which is why that was my nod to it. But it's, from what I understand, a French school of thought where it's sort of looking more at the overtones and the way that different pitches sound against each other. You're not necessarily getting what we would describe as traditional or tonal harmony, but there's an element of all those extra sounds that exist within the spectrum. And also using technological means to bring out what that part of the spectrum is, and then replicating that with acoustic instruments.

Claire Edwardes

I was just going to say Holly, it's sort of like the harmonic spectrum, isn't it? The way the harmonics of instruments stack and then what the composers, Gérard Grisey, Phillippe Hurel, these French composers started to investigate about 40 years ago or so, was how they could use that harmonic spectrum as their harmonic basis for their writing rather than the typical sort of 1, 4, 5, or that's just an example obviously from pop, but harmonic progression. They use that sort of as their harmonic basis of their writing.

Alex Manton

Thanks Claire and Holly. We might take a moment to have a listen, just an excerpt from Bend/Boogie/Break by Holly Harrison.

[Excerpt plays.]

Holly, how did you develop the musical material in Bend/Boogie/Break, and do you use a similar process for all of your works?

Holly Harrison

For me, what happens initially is there's a fair bit of improv. that has to take place, working from that instinctual sort of intuitive, I don't know, thought pipeline that occurs. Because I have a background playing trumpet and drums, they're always my go-to instruments, and specifically for this piece, percussion or drums, was a very important sort of way to get started with that. But that doesn't necessarily happen in a literal sense. It's not like, "Oh, I'm writing a part for Claire on percussion, so I'm going to play drums to work that out." It's more abstract in the sense that, "Oh, I'm writing a part for clarinet," or it could be winds versus strings, for example. In having two different hands and also two feet as well, it's how I find rhythms that interlock there.

It's more like a blocking affect that I'm thinking about texturally to begin with, how those rhythms, I guess, interlock or even pocket together as is the case in a couple of these sections. Yeah, I basically start off by making a whole bunch of recordings and listen back to them, work out, "Oh, that one's no good. Oh, maybe that one had a little bit of something," and sort of start to splice it together from that point of view. That's absolutely the way that I begin the process before taking that material and notating that into something like Sibelius, and then having that process of editing that takes place after the brain dump or the creative dump.

Alex Manton

That's great, Holly. It sounds like a similar process that our HSC students go through to compose their core compositions for Music 2. I guess does a lot of what you initially come up with that end up in the bottom of the desk drawer never to be seen again, or?

Holly Harrison

Oh yeah. I would be very embarrassed if anybody ever heard some of those early noodlings or whatever you want to call them. I mean, I really think that composing is about being able to select what's better than the thing you just did before. If you have some kind of ability to think, "Oh, maybe that has something with it," and being able to imagine where could that go? I think as composers, that's one of the most difficult parts that we have.

Alex Manton

Holly, I understand that Bend/Boogie/Break draws inspiration from, you mentioned honky tonk, piano, post-rock riffs and timbres and funk rhythms. How did you use those ideas explicitly in this piece? Are there any other styles that influence your writing for Bend/Boogie/Break?

Holly Harrison

Well, in terms of the honky tonkness, I describe that as because it's a keyboard sound, it's drawing on this Rhodes sound, which has or traditionally has a little bit of distortion in the sound. And because of the tonal language in that keyboard part, there's a lot of semitones and minor seconds that happen in the right hand. And to me, that's sort of a metaphor for that honky tonk, out of tune piano that you might get in a saloon or something like that. But of course in this context, it's something that's done super deliberately. When I say that I'm drawing inspiration from honky tonk, it's not necessarily this particular song or this particular artist, it's more like this idea of, I don't know, reaching into my brain about what do I associate with being honky tonk and then using that grab as a basis for a section.

In terms of post rock, I think of bands like the Scottish band Mogwai as a big influence, but I mean that doesn't necessarily mean that Bend/Boogie/Break on any level actually sounds like that. It's thinking about, I mean, if you're familiar with post rock, that heavy sort of fuzz sound that you can get, this repeated ostinati and it's mostly like a timbre or textual change that sort of stack up over time and this idea of a big finish. In terms of how post rock has influenced this piece, I would say that it's mostly in that last quarter of the piece where we get to, I think the direction in the score is heavy funk or something like that. For me, that's very much pulling in that post-rock feel and when there's that rhythm at the end, that ba, ba-ba, ba, ba-ba, ba, ba-ba, that sort of – I know when I was coming up with that I was like, "Yeah, it's like you're strumming a guitar there." I don't know if that sounds a bit corny, but that was sort of like, I don't know, I tend to think about composing as quite a physical thing.

Yeah, if I'm listening back to a recording I've made or something like that, I like to get up and move around or think about, I don't know, air flute or something like that, that might work. Yeah, so that's very much where that sort of post-rock influence comes from. And in terms of funk, I mean, I think that's quite obvious and inherent in the rhythms that exist throughout, particularly in the keyboard and the bass clarinet part and in that opening section, they're very much in unison.

And I think about the way that that keyboard with a little bit of distortion on it and the bass clarinet sound together to create that composite sound to me also sort of sounds a bit like a funk-based sound, even though stylistically it doesn't necessarily match up in an obvious way. It's using that thought of, "What could funk be as an element to drive where I might go next?" It's more conceptual, more airy fairy than literal I would say.

Alex Manton

That's fantastic, Holly. Thank you so much. And I think that those popular music influences make it so accessible for our students. It's such a likable piece and really engaging to listen to and it could be an excellent option for study for HSC Music 2 students. Thank you. Jess, your piece, Diminishing Species, offers the audience quite a unique experience and perspective in many different ways. How did you conceive the idea for Diminishing Species and what was the process that you undertook to create the work?

Jessica Wells

The piece was commissioned as part of this particular concept of looking back through the '90s decade of which I spent at uni and in my 20s. I'm a little bit older than Holly, and I've got that experience of living through the '90s and having played in clubs and bands and things like that. I'm a keyboard player, and so sort of drawing from my knowledge of music from the '90s, but the pieces I wrote, I wrote three pieces for this concert, which were interludes. They're short pieces about 3 to 4 minutes each. And two of the pieces I wrote were more nostalgic looking at '90s music and incorporating them in for a bit of fun, that were inserted between other larger works in the concert. But this particular piece was my serious piece, the Diminishing Species, because I really wanted to look at how animals had died out through the '90s.

I went and did some research and went into lots of websites looking at what animals went extinct during the '90s and I found a list of them and what animals were dying out. They're only tiny, they're little newts, little butterflies, little mice, things like that. They're not big, but they're gone forever. That was quite poignant as a sort of starting point for the piece. This piece is also accompanied by video and that was also very important to me in conceiving how it would look on screen with the music and the very unusual method of me writing the piece first and then getting the video artists to respond to that afterwards. That's very unusual.

Usually in film, I work a lot in film, we get the film first and we write to the specific timing of the film. But what Claire had ingeniously thought up for this concert was that the video artists would ‘VJ’ live during the performance so that the players are free to feel and to play in tempo as they want to on the night and the video artists would go along with them and create the imagery in time with them live. It's quite a unique type of concept for a concert. Really exciting. I was able to then take my concept of these animals disappearing to the video artists who then put this into the video, which you can see.

Now, Holly was talking about writing instinctively, and I do do that a lot. But this one needed a structure, it needed to actually have a lot of symbolism in the piece. There are 10 sections, one for each year of the decade, and at the end of each little section you will see that animal sort of frizzling away on the screen. It was very repetitive, which you'll hear, each section almost sounds the same, but there's slight differences to it. And each time I mess around a little bit with it. It's like deconstructing this set up structure. The pitch material is 10 notes, so 10 decades, 10 notes. I mean, we only have 12 notes. It was just more about how those notes formed a scale. If you look at the score, you'll see lots of white notes and then a couple accidentals, right?

You'll get this sort of hybrid of almost like a major scale and then with some thrown in some other notes on there, accidentals, black notes on the keyboard. And what happens is throughout each section we lose one note. We start with a 10-note scale, move to a 9-note scale, 8-note scale, et cetera. There's quite a flurry of rhythms going on. It's this interesting combination of instruments too, and that's something that when you're writing, you take on board, "Okay, what are my instruments? How am I going to combine all these things?" We had 2 guitars, it's quite unusual. And bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin. The poor old violin only got to play pretty much a pizzicato crotchet equals 60 on the same note all the way through the piece, acting as a metronome ticking away and also a bit of a nod to time passing, that we are losing time.

But it also keeps everyone together. It's got a dual purpose, it's a symbolic purpose and also a need to keep everyone together in the ensemble because there's a lot of notes flying around. The interesting thing was Holly talked about throwing things out and knowing when things don't work. As a composer, that's really important when you know it doesn't work and you got to get rid of it and try something else. It's really important not to get too attached to things if you know, "Oh, that's not quite" ... You can't be precious about it. You've got to edit and edit until you're happy.

Some composers in the past edited constantly and revisited old works and redid them in later times. It's not an unusual thing to be editing. But the one thing I worried about with this piece was it was too repetitive and it sounded too much the same all the way through, but I mulled over it and I actually played it to one of my students, a university student who was studying with me and I said, "Can you just listen to this MIDI, this horrible MIDI? It's not the real thing yet, but can you just listen to it?"

Then I didn't say anything, I just said, "I want you to just listen to it and then I'm going to ask you a question at the end." He did, he listened to the MIDI with no preconceived ideas about the piece, and I said, "Okay, when did you notice that there were notes starting to disappear from the scale?" And he went, "Oh yeah, not until around close to the end, about number 8 in there," which was 3 notes. By the time we get down to 3 notes, it's actually a minor triad. Then you get 2 notes, and then the 1 note, everybody just repeats one note at the end. And I thought that was really interesting because yes, I was right in that the piece is repetitive and you don't notice much change except in small moments when things are at the end of each refrain.

But that was symbolic to me of the human condition, of that as humans, we don't notice things going missing until it's a bit late. Those animals disappearing, we didn't save them, they're gone. This was actually important to me as a concept in the piece and it worked so brilliantly with the video, it just really honed in, it brought it home, the message of the piece with the video. I knew it would work even though maybe it was played live without video, maybe it would be better to kind of thin it out slightly. But with video it worked. It had an impact and I was really pleased with how that came about.

Alex Manton

That's so interesting, Jess. We might take a moment to have a listen to an excerpt of your work.

[Excerpt plays.]

Jess, what were some of the musical challenges you faced in composing Diminishing Species for such a unique ensemble and how did you overcome them?

Jessica Wells

Yes, it is a unique ensemble, which was an ensemble that existed in the '90s, hence why Claire wanted to, and Andrew Blanch wanted to put this together. Andrew was one of the guitarists who conceived this idea with Claire. The 2 guitarists was fascinating to me. I'd never really written much for guitar. I usually hand it over to one of my guitary friends and say, "Can you guitarify this music for me? Because I'm not a guitar player, I'm a piano player, so can you help me make it work?" But in this concept, I just wanted the 2 guitars and the marimba played by Claire, and I know Claire can play a lot of fast notes, so it was fine. I knew that could be handled. But the guitars, could they also join and make this little trio of flurry of notes? Which to me represented all the animals on the planet.

That's what I was thinking of, all scurrying around and doing their thing. And it worked really well because I sort of layered the 3 instruments together with a kind of a canon type of idea where the one starts, the next one starts, and they're playing all these notes and scales across each other. And it worked really well. I thought the marimba paired with the two guitars was a nice little unit. The piano then, and look, honestly, this piece is so symbolic, it's kind of unusual for me, but they symbolize things. The violin is plucking this metronomic pizz. On one note through the whole thing. They've got their role and then the piano only comes in kind of a little bit with the bass. The bass sort of drops a few pizzicatos here and there in this texture. Then we get to a refrain at the end where they all kind of slow down and pause on a big note at the end of each little section.

And this happens every time. The piano sort of plonks down these chords going up and up and up and up the keyboard, and then a big rolled chord to bring everyone together in the sound. I sort of wanted to bring everyone together at the end of each little section and then start again with the guitars and the marimba, you're driving this texture. Everybody kind of had their bit of a role. The bass clarinet also does a little bit of improvising with some aleatoric effects and blowing breath sounds up and down and squeaking and doing some things that Jason Noble just does brilliantly, and I don't even have to write it out for him. I just go, "Just go and do your thing" and improvising in there to add to this texture towards the end of each section. It's sort of like, yeah, it just kept going.

Then I literally copied and pasted the first section onto the second section and then messed around with it. I'd pull out, "Okay, I'm going to pull out a G now." All the Gs I just deleted. Then I looked at that and went, "Is that going to work rhythmically? Is it going to be too weird? Can I change a few rhythms to make it more playable?" Then I would mess around with the dynamics. That's an important one. Sometimes we had loud crashes at the end of the section being really aggressive, and then sometimes we had a very soft floaty chord at the end of each section. I just kind of wanted to get a shape in the piece through that dynamics where it got more aggressive through the middle of the piece and then started to get softer and more gentle and fading away towards the end of the piece so that the piece is repetitive in its notes and ideas, but it has a dynamic shape through it. And by the time where we end, we have a very soft quiet one note, everyone playing one note and it's very effective and dramatic.

Alex Manton

Lastly, Jess, how would you like performers to approach and prepare your piece for performance?

Jessica Wells

Rehearsal. I mean, it would be, honestly, yeah. I work with orchestras a lot and sometimes if there's not enough rehearsal scheduled, you're flying by the seat of your pants really. And also the input from the ensemble. The lucky thing about working with Ensemble Offspring is that you know you can go in their rehearsal like Holly said, and try stuff out and go, "What do you think of this? Or what do you think of that?" They'll say, "Hey, what if I did that?" And you go, "Yeah, I'll have that, I'll take that as an option." And having that input makes everyone own it together. And I think that that makes a better piece, that makes a better performance. It's not in the old days, if a composer just sort of stood there with their arms crossed and expected everyone to play perfectly, it's a group effort and everyone's invested in it. That's the kind of thing you want to get out of this. That's what makes being a composer fun is working with performers because it's a group effort and they all contribute.

Alex Manton

Claire, do you have anything to add in terms of how did Offspring prepare to perform Jess's piece?

Claire Edwardes

Well, I mean, as Jess and Holly have both alluded to, I guess our process with composers is very collaborative. It's very much a two-way street. When I work, for example, in my role as a mentor at the conservatorium in a class called Composer Performer Workshop, I always say to the performers, "You are not just pawns of the composers, you don't just have to do everything that they say. It's much more interesting if you feed back to them." And likewise, the composers have to really respect the performers' views and experience on their instrument. I think it's really important in those relationships that the ego is put aside, but there is also a lot of respect, of course, two ways.

And I think that's where Ensemble Offspring hopefully, or maybe, differs from some other maybe more classically trained chamber groups or orchestras. Because we're very open minded. We have a lot of experience of working with a whole range of different composers. And as Jess said, we have experience with improvising as well. If you put all of those things together, you kind of come up with hopefully a product from the performer's perspective that is really open to anything. And that's I think, quite a perfect scenario for a composer.

Alex Manton

Some wonderful advice there Jess and Claire, thank you so much. Lastly, I do have some questions for all three of you, which may assist our wonderful music teachers in supporting their students in the classroom when navigating new Australian music. What advice can you give to our elective music students who lack confidence when composing their own music and/or performing art music? I might throw to Holly first.

Holly Harrison

Well, I mean, I sort of feel like I was once that person that even throughout the end of high school, I was only just discovering then that, "Oh, I might be able to compose." I mean, I ended up doing the IB, not the HSC, so we had to do the three compositions. It was then that I was like, "Hey, actually I really enjoy this sort of thing." I think from a teacher's perspective, having seen a lot of people go through and complete HSC, I think that from a teacher's perspective, it's really important to be supportive, obviously. But I think it's a matter of how do you offer that support? And I think the number one way that we can do that is to have performer workshops. There's absolutely no substitute for having real life performers in the room to actually test out your composition ideas.

I think all too often we see students with a laptop and that's what they think composing is, or that's what you think, you'll just randomly put in some notes in. I've had students ask me if I've heard of the point and click method, which apparently it's just using the cursor and dragging and things around in Sibelius. I mean, we have to think of it that it's not this randomized process. It is something that needs to be done like a real world instrument to begin with. Then yes, software's a really important tool, but it can come in a little bit later in the process. It doesn't have to be something that's there from the beginning, is what I would say. And I think that boosts the student's confidence because then if you're at your instrument and you feel comfortable and you think, "Hey, I know that sounds pretty good," rather than starting with, "Oh, I have these four instruments, I need to come up with something immediately that sounds good."

And I find that a lot of students are often you're your harshest critic and you're so judgemental of ... I have students come to me and they've written three bars and then they say, "Oh, but it's hopeless. I mean, A, that might be true. But how long did you spend on those bars? Three minutes? And you're expecting it to be amazing already? I think it's about from both the teachers' and students' perspective, being able to adjust expectations, you have to have the right sort of environment to be able to compose in a comfortable way in order to produce something that you feel that you believe in or that you are confident with, I would say.

Alex Manton

Absolutely, Holly. That's great advice. Jess, do you have anything to add?

Jessica Wells

Yes, I think bringing in the idea of if most of the students doing composition will play instrument, and you understand about having to practice your instrument in order to get somewhere. Well, the same as with composition. You need to learn craft and there are so many different things you can throw at the composition to try and create something. And I've gone in and done a little bit of assessing of student HSC works and just to give them a bit of a outsider's perspective on their work and then how to improve it. And you see things, you see a bit of random stuff, which obviously they haven't worked on enough, and you need to say, "Okay, this is a germ of an idea. How do I take that little germ of an idea and expand on it?" There's things like canon, there's things like inversion or retrograde or all these techniques you can take with these notes.

You can stack them and make a harmony and transpose them, modulation, there's all these different, and just try these things out on that little germ of an idea. Dynamics. A storyline is something that often helps some students too. They often tell me this very elaborate, "Oh, this is a person and then they've got this happened to them," or some kind of storyline can also help you kind of envisage why your piece is doing certain things. And I think for getting a good result from your composition, from what people are looking for is variety of things. Not overdoing it, not putting too many ideas and cramming them in, but it's more about techniques and variety of what you're doing. And yeah, good notation. Really look at your notation, make sure it's nicely formatted. Don't have one bar per page, no one can do that. It's got to be readable. And that's why when Holly says getting someone to play it, they're going to point those things out to you straight away.

If you just whacked it in Sibelius on whatever, or Finale, or Dorico now, I'm working on all three these days. If it's on just the default setting of the software, it's not going to look good. You've got to put a bit of effort in and get onto YouTube where you can learn everything on YouTube now about formatting and how your music should look. Look at other sheet music. See how it looks, look at your instrumental parts, see how it looks. Phrasing, articulations, dynamics, all those little elements, those details. Then you'll have yourself a lovely little piece.

Alex Manton

Thanks Jess, and Claire, what advice can you give to our students when performing art music?

Claire Edwardes

Well, I just want to say something quickly about the compositional aspect that Jess and Holly both touched on. Just in relation to Sibelius or any software that you're notating your music on, what we find, and this has been the case for years, but somehow if students especially don't get to work with real life instrumentalists very often, they can forget that the software can play a lot faster than human beings, and it's quite frustrating actually, if you are working, especially with maybe a younger composer, and then they play you the MIDI and you're kind of like, "Yeah, but we're humans." It's never going to sound like that. And I think it's really important maybe to get used to putting the metronome marking back a little bit in Sibelius to be more realistic for what a human being can play on their instrument. But more so don't get really set on that sound world that you hear in your MIDI playback.

Because inevitably, all it's really is helpful for, I think, is giving you an indication of sort of what your piece might sound like, but it's not generally speaking what it really is going to sound like when it's played by real people. I guess just remember that we're not robots at the end of the day. But in terms of performing art music, goodness me, I mean, where do I start? It totally depends what you're performing, but for me who has 25 plus years of experience of doing it, I would say practice is the key. Just like with composers, they need to spend time. I mean, the other thing to remember as well as a composer is that everything you write isn't going to be amazing, and that's fine. You don't have to be striving for a masterpiece every time. And I think our society actually has this expectation of masterpieces, especially maybe when you're doing your HSC, you want that piece to be a masterpiece, but there's no way it's going to be even close to a masterpiece if you haven't written lots of music before that point in time.

And I think that's the key. It's just repetition, it's trying, it's failing. And as a performer, we fail too all the time. And I think practice and consistency really is the key. Then you can eventually, by the time you're my age and experience, you can play most things that you practice to play over that period of time. And that's a great point to get to, I guess, because you can worry so much more about just the music and not about playing your instrument. And for me, being a percussionist is not about being a percussionist, it's about being a musician. And I'm interested in making my instrument sound more like every other instrument than a percussion instrument.

And that for me is why I love playing chamber music, because I get to make these really interesting sound worlds in combination with other instruments, which let's be honest, much more adept at doing that than my instrument. My instrument's a bit of a dumb instrument sometimes, and it's very one dimensional. I love playing with say, violin. And piano, like awesome instruments with so much depth to what they can do, depth to all their tone colour variations. And I love really trying as hard as I can to bring as much variation into what I do as possible. And that's, for me, the really exciting thing about chamber music and new music.

Alex Manton

Fantastic, Claire. Thank you for such an invaluable insight into performing art music. Lastly, we'll keep this one brief. Who are some of your favourite up and coming composers, Australian composers? Holly?

Holly Harrison

Anne Cawrse from Adelaide, absolutely somebody to be listening to. And also Harry Sdraulig from Sydney.

Alex Manton

Great. Jess?

Jessica Wells

I would say Felicity Wilcox, who's like hybrid composer, film. And she also had a piece in The Surge Concert, which you can watch on YouTube, which is great. You could look at Mary Finsterer, an amazing composer who's done film and crossover. And Caitlin Yeo, also another film/crossover classical composer.

Alex Manton

And Claire?

Claire Edwardes

Well, I've always got way too many composers going through my brain, as you can imagine. What comes out of my mouth is what I've been thinking about today, which is Alex Turley, who's a Melbourne composer, who is a young emerging composer who's just had a great opportunity with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And also Ella Macens, who's a Sydney composer who I've worked with a lot and I think, yeah, they're very exciting up and coming young composers.

Alex Manton

Thank you so much Holly, Jess, and Claire for your time today. You've provided such incredible information and a unique perspective of Australian music of the last 25 years through the composer and performer lens. Thanks very much.

Holly Harrison's Bend/Boogie/Break and Jessica Wells' Diminishing Species are soon to be available as a Music 2 HSC resource on the New South Wales Department of Education website. Please see the link in the show notes for details. The music copyright permissions for this podcast have been granted by Ensemble Offspring, Holly Harrison and Jessica Wells.

[Light music plays]

Announcer

This podcast was brought to you by the Creative arts curriculum team of Curriculum Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining our statewide staff room through the link in the show notes or email our creative arts curriculum adviser, Cathryn Horvat, @creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Jack Ryan from Molong Central School.

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