ARTIST STATEMENT: ANYA ANASTASIA

Week Two

Theme: Beneath/Roots

My song-writing has always been about what lies beneath the surface, underneath the skin, or into the psyche, over the wall, past the imagination on the right, tip the hat to the centre of the self, and beyond to the extremes and to the alter-egos. I explore extremes of character, feelings, or ideas that lie way out on a tendril, dangling on the edge of madness. I usually make it back safely, and share my discoveries. Every time I bare expressions of these, or share amplified characters – no matter how far I fear I have ventured into the obscure regions of self-knowledge or experimentation. I come back with something that is somehow relevant to other people. It baffles me; whether I find it deep within myself, or whether I venture far away in the outside world lead by curiosity, empathy or a more unsightly emotion, people respond. Humans in the world can always connect, and perhaps the most universal level is in the subconscious. Some times I think it is as if we are are all part of a tribe, a flock, a hive. Subconsciously we understand each other.

Please read my short story “The other upside down girl” here. I think it is a strong example of this human commonality. I wrote it when I was performing in Prague, Czech Republic:

ARTIST STATEMENT: ANYA ANASTASIA

Exhibition: The Tunnels

Themes: Oxygen & Humility

8.7 million species on this earth.

8.7 million different types of organisms sharing a planet.

This curious blue creature in front of you likes counting.

She knows how many pairs of eyes are in this room.

She knows how many seconds have passed since sunrise.

She wonders how many seconds it might be until she dies and returns to dust.

She knows how many times she has blinked since you started looking at her.

She has counted how many breaths she has taken since she was born.

All this time, she has been collecting air.

She is always happy to share.

Plants recycle air.

Life is something we share.

Please take an air pocket from the bucket and put it in your pocket, take it with you.

-costume materials-

recycled plastic water-bottles/recycled packaging bubble wrap/found fabrics/

non-recycled adhesives and small parts keeping her together.

**********

Thanks for reading and for keeping up with my blog!  If you wish to come to the show, bookings are essential as numbers are extremely limited. www.trybooking.com/crca

For more information on the exhibition visit http://splashadelaide.com.au/project/the-tunnels/

“I cry, when everyone else begins to laugh

When they say their cup is half full, I say

I’ll take the empty half-

I prefer the half that contains all the air,

What would I want with all of that other stuff anyway

Because eventually it won’t be there.

So I’m collecting air-

As it’s one of the only precious things that already

Isn’t there.”

I’d been staying in Gracia, Barcelona and witnessing a festival coming together, wherein all members in the community got together and made decorations every night. Everyone was involved! Young and old, outgoing and shy, grunge-clothes wearing, fancy frock-wearing, the whole community. This made me want to do a series of workshops in the community leading up to the event, encouraging people to gather, meet, explore their creativity, and bring together the ideas of community and creativity, with celebrations of this culminating in the festival . I did costume making workshops with a local gypsy group, and ukulele workshops with the Adelaide Hills Ukulele Group, and I had regular get-togethers open to whoever wanted to join in, where we made decorations for the festival using recycled materials.

It was a very ambitious project and there was a lot more involved in making it happen than I could ever have dreamed! But, with lofty dreams, limited experience, and loads of enthusiasm, I, along with the help of many many many others, made it happen.

Within a matter of mere months, the festival was in full flight, gathering momentum towards the end point! With a great designer on the team (Tamara Oaten, Genki Design), help from local businesses, (special thanks to The Organic Market), crafty creative local producers and artists jumping on board, hard working behind-the-scenes helpers and creative minds, who gave up all their other projects and not to mention sleep, for a good few months, a dazzling selection of hand-picked interstate artists with their flights booked and ready to jump on board… We had been worried about how we were going to find our audience. I made a bet with Scott that if we could get more than 80 people to the festival, I’d buy him a holiday to Darwin- UH OH! To our astonishment, 350 tickets had been sold, 2 weeks in advance of the date and there wasn’t room for any more!… How on earth was this all possible?…

There is something beautiful about humans, humans and community, humans and their creativity, generosity, empathy, excitability!

Sometimes, just sometimes, there is an idea with enough of the right ingredients, one that is inherently a bit different or inspired, an idea that has been waiting to manifest, that draws people into it, each one giving their ideas, their time, their work, their positive energy, and something happens that one person could never do by themselves. All those people who discovered word of it and spread the word, all those who heard about it and jumped on board to bring a new concept to the growing entity, and also, well, there’s those who… errr… how can I put this?  Those who are close to me who got dragged perhaps involuntarily into a whirlpool of frantic things going on, who got sucked into this crazy ride. I’ll sheepishly admit perhaps there is also an element of me being a crazed juggernaut, locked onto an idea, sending casualties flying, and sucking in unsuspecting ‘helpers’  through a vortex of sheer will and determination.

But the overwhelming result was not so much to do with anything I thought it was going to be. It was a celebration of people. The helpers, the punters, the exhibitors. Astonishingly talented wine-makers from Ngeringa, incredible unique performers all doing something truly outstanding, a selection of the worlds most beautiful open-minded and relaxed festival-goers…

What ever the original idea was, it became so much more. It was so many minds at play, so many  creative styles in the mix, and so many more beautiful inspiring and lovely people and moments, everywhere I looked. Children running around dancing, artists with gorgeously installed artworks throughout the garden, (Ellen Maire O’Carrol, Sam Goodburn, Suzi Windram), swing-dancers rocking up and kicking up the dust, (Swing City Dance) the Various Nefarious roving around serenading people, Wendy Fantasia’s gorgeous body-painted creations greeting each and every soul who came to experience the Hills Secret Garden, and a level of professionalism and quality right across the board, (the artists, the performers, the stall-holders)

I could go on and on and on, but I’ll spare you and I’ll just leave you with some photos. (Taken by the very talented Leanne King)

]]> http://anyaanastasia.com/thehillssecretgarden/feed/ 0 http://anyaanastasia.com/an-unusual-creature/ http://anyaanastasia.com/an-unusual-creature/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:23:22 +0000 Anya http://anyaanastasia.com/?p=530 There is an animal that lives in a barn

The barn is empty except in the middle

There is a creature, curled up and snoring

It is so loud his snoring!

Like the whole barn is snoring!

He looks like a huge dog, with a very long nose

And extremely long legs, and furry brown toes.

His eyelids are droopy and he has floppy ears

His moustache grows so long that his mouth disappears.

His eyes shine like polished spoons

Or planets,

Or under his droopy eyelids, like glistening half moons

His sighs were so long that his beard blew away.

He’d be the colour of tea, if earl grey was grey.

He is a BARNosaurus that the gardener does adore

The most humble, exquisite, rare ole herbivore.

Whoever he meets, he always amazes

Barnosaurus is a creature who carefully grazes

His barn is at the centre of the most stunning estate

The garden is a masterpiece that he helps create.

Best friend to the gardener, a most humble familiar

When you see him at work you’ve never seen something sillier

But genius! Brilliant! What an incredible feat!

Whatever the gardener points to, Barnosaurus does eat!

Gardener points to a weed, it gets instantly chomped

Barnosaurus is obedilant* and so very prompt.

Gardiner points to an overgrown hedge

Barnosaurus trims it, he nibbles each edge.

Gardener one day pointed to a thick leafy tree

And said “Barnosaurus” make that beautiful for me…

So Barnosaurus did patiently nibble away

Night after night and day after day.

What Barnosaurus decided to do to the tree

Was make it look like the most beautiful thing he ever did see

He was determined, and he was calm

And didn’t stop nibbling until the tree looked just like….

His BARN!

The gardener chuckled and said “Barney, while that’s terrific

Next time I say “beautiful” I think I’ll be more specific.

Barnosaurus is a beautiful ole soul, diligent, meticulous

He’s so good at gardening it’s plain ridiculous.

He loves the gardener, he loves being on the farm

But most of all, Barnosaurus loves his barn.

*Obedilant: new word meaning a cuter and happier version of obedient.

Follow the parting sea of human heads as they subconsciously and respectfully let Lonely Fiction meander through a vivid dreamscape which is filled to the brim with jellyfishes galore. Fascinated, inspired, curious and intrigued, she follows her explorative nose with eyes made of wonderment. Perhaps this place is somebody’s beautiful mind. Perhaps it is in hers.  Wherever it is, she (the forgotten imaginary friend), feels quite at home.

In designing this film-clip with Austrian cinematographer Thomas Hofer, my concept was to start with absolute simplicity, plain white and grey-  from which I could illustrate the intense power of using your imagination to reshape the world around you. Litres of running paint, straight out of an idea in her head onto an umbrella, running down off the edges of the umbrella like bright torrential rain, and transforming her brolly into a dripping wobbling delicate yellow jellyfish. Our visions for the clip were then influenced and accelerated by the magnificent metropolis that surrounded us during our stay in Barcelona.

Here is a little taste of what is to come. The film clip is expected to be released some time in October.

]]> http://anyaanastasia.com/behind-the-scenes-jellyfish-song-film-clip/feed/ 0 http://anyaanastasia.com/the-other-upside-down-girl/ http://anyaanastasia.com/the-other-upside-down-girl/#comments Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:44:11 +0000 Anya http://anyaanastasia.com/?p=430 When I heard that cry, suddenly I couldn’t place myself in time or space. My foot skipped a beat and my heart tripped over.

My heart tumbled twice and came back with avengence: thrashing like a dinosaur in a cot but with the sound on mute.

My whole body had the mute button on. I was holding my breath, all of this without even knowing why.

Something primal about that cry. I’ve never heard anything like it before, but to hear it is to understand it. I felt a wave of sobering sadness and quiet hope. Perhaps even a prayer.

This cry made my body start praying, bypassing my thought processes.

The fear and the horror in this cry, this was not an act.

I dreaded turning the corner that would reveal its source. My whole legs were made of lead but my curiosity flicked them forward.

The sight I saw turned my world on its head. All of the things I’d been holding in my mind just slid, gone. There was nothing in the world except for the anticipation of the result of the picture in front of me.

In the restaurant, there was an upside-down girl. In the restaurant there was life and death. In the restaurant everything was silent except for a whimpering mother trying to resuscitate her child. Someone was holding onto the child’s feet. The child was hanging upside down, completely still.

The universe was upside down. The universe was spinning, everywhere except for here was spinning. Here it was completely still; time stopped still. The child was still. Everything was wrong. The mothers cry felt like she had lost her. But she was trying. The silent nameless witnesses were nothing, not even air. Just sheer prayer.

My eyes were getting bigger, wetter and my heart was getting sicker. The child had not uttered a sound or moved for far too long. Death was in the room. Mother still trying. I couldn’t watch this. This is so private. I can’t be here. I walked around the corner and listened, feet to the ground, head to the sky. Hands to each other, ears to the restaurant. Some how your heart tries to help. It tries so hard it hurts.

Too long passed. Nothing changed. And then… at last a flood of applause, cheering, relief, joy in life, a child crying. Crying means breathing. Everyone starts breathing again. The sky cracked open and this sad paused upside down reality split, fell, and let the child back into the world. Into her mothers arms.

Life, not in the sense that I’ve ever known it before.

Life in the sense of – not death.

-Prague June 2012

You buy a bike, it gets stolen, someone else buys a bike, it was stolen from you and you probably bought it from someone who stole it from someone else who got it from a flea market from someone who stole it and that whole cycle (excuse the pun) is just another wheel (excuse the pun) that turns in this big city. These little peddle push-ees travel around and around (excuse the slightly obscure reference to an earlier pun) an endless chain (excuse the pun) of new owners, getting freshly oiled by grinning toothless salesmen. “It served me well”.

I went to buy a bike. I’d looked at hundreds of bikes on the internet and emailed countless people about the bikes they were selling. I got replies all at once and got so confused and overwhelmed that I was rendered incapable of acting on anything. Then I spontaneously read an email from one of them when I was out walking with Scott, and we decided to go look at it. We walked in the rain for about half an hour, jumped on the metro, jumped off 2 stops later, walked another 10 minutes and rang a buzzer to a giant building. Neetu, a chirpy Canadian girl opened the door and welcomed us into her cute little apartment. She dragged the bike out of the courtyard and told me to go off and test-ride it. She offered Scott a cup of tea and they disappeared into the kitchen.

It was love at first sight! This bike was beautiful! A deep green colour with big curling handlebars, a cushiony old fashioned seat, very smooth to ride, perfect for my height and incredibly good looking.

I was always the goober kid with the clapped out boy’s mountain bike and the hand-me-down Tweety-pie helmet with stickytape holding the ornate (with many Tweeties) plastic shell on it. I had always secretly dreamed of being one of those pretty girls that wear tight high waisted jeans and blouses and cycle around on a pretty vintage bike with a basket in it. Off they go to the markets to buy flowers and oranges and macaroons to put in their basket. And then home they go with flowers bouncing around everywhere and their blouse flapping in the breeze and their perfect unhelmeted helmet hair looking pretty. (Pretty illegal. Pretty sure helmets save lives. Anyway)

This was my chance! Here in Berlin! I would be the pretty blouse-wearing vintage bike girl I’d always dreamed of! It was such a joyous test ride. I can only assume that people were checking me out on my green bike (even though I didn’t have a blouse yet) but I wouldn’t have noticed the longing gazes as I was so busy enjoying the bike-ride of a lifetime! Wind whooshing through my not-helmeted hair (not illegal here); dodging and weaving through obstacles with ease and grace; dinging my bell at the less obliging obstacles, and grinning into the chilly breeze. Finally my lap of honour around the block was over, and after a small moment of panicking that I forgot what number the building was, I was back inside beaming away and telling Neetu how much I loved the bike. She was like “You like the bike?” and I was like, “I love the bike” and she was like “so you think you’ll take it?” and I was like “yeah man, I really like the bike” she was like “Cool. Do you want some tea?”

So she made us some tea and we had a long chat about her experiences in Berlin, and how she hadn’t intended to be here longer than three months, but that was five years ago and she just loves the place. We met her dogs and her husband and we drank her tea.

Then, just as we were getting up, I asked her “Hey, I’m so sorry, I have looked at so many bikes recently, and sent so many emails about it that I forgot how much you advertised the bike for.”

“Oh!” she said “I think I had it up for 175 Euros, I could probably go down to 160 but no lower.”

I nearly choked on my tea. Somehow, in the midst of all my bike research around the 50-60 Euro mark (apparently it is impossible to get one here for much less than 40) this little beautiful green vintage bike must have won me with its charming picture and I must have applied by accident in a hypnotized loving state of mind, or it was in my copy and pasting rampage where I basically emailed everyone with an add up on one site. I just don’t knooowww! How???

My eyes were bulging and I peered nervously over the top of my cup at Scott, who looked kind of amused (probably by my facial expression and near expulsion of tea).

“Er, ok. Cool. Yeah well, er, we still have a few bikes to look at today, so er. I really like this one, er, actually we are going to go have some lunch and discuss it. Yep OK thanks for your time, we’ll call you, BYE! Oh and thanks for the tea. Yep. Cool. OK yep seeya..”

I was about to explode with embarrassment and my cheeks were so red it looked like I had just slapped myself with both hands. (Which come to think of it, might have been the case). Scott would not stop giggling. Shut up Scott.

Scott: “So… so… Anya, you test drive a Ferrari… and the salesman says: ‘So you like the Ferrari?’ and you say “Yeah! I like the Ferrari!” and the salesman cracks a bottle of champagne to seal the deal, and you are drinking champagne and chatting to the salesman and then you say, oh yeah, er how much for the Ferrari?!”

Shut up Scott! Don’t talk about it. Let’s get lunch.

I bought a bike. My bike is a clapped out old mountain bike. It cost me 60 Euros. It gets me from A to B, and I still feel happy pedalling around my neighbourhood with the wind whooshing in my hair, on my dodgy stolen dud-tyred recently greased men’s mountain bike.

The End.

It is difficult to say much about the Prague Fringe at the moment because I secretly know how good I feel about how it all went. I am scared to untie the ribbon on this and delve into the giddy indulgence of such a proud and positive reflection.

We met so many beautiful people, we had 9 nights of brilliant show. We had absolutely wonderful, full audiences every  single night, which to me was crazy because it was nine consecutive shows in a city where as an artist I am completely unknown. Clearly it is a festival with a dedicated following and very good strategies in place. Also, so many people were buzzing and talking about the show. We sold out of CDs. Representatives from the Amsterdam and Stockholm Fringe both saw and loved “The Upside-Down Girl”. Stockholm would like me to tour it to their festival. I am already planning a European circuit for next year.

Lonely Fiction (my character for this show) had such a gorgeous world to occupy because Emma and I kept challenging each other to get more and more out of the space each night. Emma worked constantly to get the most out of the simple light set-up.

We hired a smoke machine, refocused lights, and Emma thought of squillions of creative solutions to get the colours and atmosphere I was dreaming of. We went in and worked on it by day and we tuned it and took notes every night. By the end of the season we had magical mists of colour as lights filtered through a smokey haze. We had pinks and greens bouncing of the grand piano during the Jellyfish song, and we had purple beams of light stabbing through the spokes of my upside down unicycle as I casually pedaled away on my platform.

At the sound-check on the last night, the technical director of the festival came and took photos to show other companies in the future how good the venue can look if you put a bit of effort in. Martin (head of lights for the festival) said to Emma that it was the best he’s ever seen this venue looking. Of course, Emma was glowing to hear this but I already know how good she is.

We had lots of other artists come to see the show, which made for a great sense of community. I am so grateful for those acts of curiosity and kindness shown by everyone involved, to get out and see other shows. In fact all the festival participants got a lot out of seeing each other’s shows and talking to each other about their processes. We grew so inspired by each other. There was absolutely a culture of exchange and supportiveness.

What an incredible experience. I will sign off for now, but before I do I have to mention the commitment and support that the crew offered me. I am absolutely grateful to Scott, Nat, Emma, Bones, Elena, Chris, (The Upside-Down Girl crew), the incredible Fringe volunteer team and of course the directors of the festival for making it all possible, and making it so goddamn good!

Now I am Berlin, writing new songs and meeting people and seeing other shows. There will be other little stories emerging as I reflect on this incredible two weeks that we spent in Prague, I hope you enjoy them if you choose to follow this blog.

Yours truly,

Tired Anya

x

2012 Mission: Sing in Europe

Lonely Fiction escapes from the theatre to spend a day in the sun and enjoy a delicious blue snack. After 6 shows in a row I thought she deserved a treat. Some fiction food. I wish she chose something a bit more nourishing, but what else can you expect from an imaginary friend?

Roses are red, Lonely is blue

(Ma-nitch-ka)

“When I was young, I used to have an imaginary friend. I’d forgotten about her until just now. Her name was Mánicka. In Czech this means something like “Little Mary”.

Everywhere I went, Mánicka came with me. My Dad just reminded me that when we would cross a busy street, he would hold my hand, and he would put his other hand out for Mánicka.

She was my best friend. I never thought about her side of the story. Now I wonder, what became of my friend Mánicka?

Thank you for reminding me of her.”

This tale was told to me by a Czech girl and her father after they saw “The Upside Down Girl” together at the Fringe Festival Praha. This is one of my favourite little pieces of story. Now I also think about Mánicka from time to time.