OPPOSITE MY HOUSE IS A FUNERAL PARLOUR

A full-length solo dance work exploring the theme of cyclical flow of life and death

Opposite My House Is a Funeral Parlour​​​​ was presented in Melbourne, Fremantle, Lismore and Sydney between June 2005 and September 2006 with the support of City of Melbourne, Multicultural Arts Victoria, the Australia Council and Victorian MultiCultural Commision and toured nationally as part of Kultour 2006 supported by the Australia Council. The work incorporates diary accounts from one cycle of the moon, poetry from English poet Jenny Joseph projected image from Yeap Heng Shen, Matt Crosby and Naree and soundscape from Edward Kelly.

CHOREOGRAPHER'S NOTE

The incident that inspired Opposite My House is a Funeral Parlour is one of the most significant turning points in modern history, September 11, 2001. Eddie Perfect named one of his songs Don’t Be So Damned September 10. Back then I lived at 67 Moor Street, Fitzroy – the funeral parlour street.  Indeed I was shaken to the core by that incident. My sister, who works in downtown NY, just got out of the subway when she saw people flocking around in the street. When she got up to her office with windows facing south, she saw the twin towers collapsed right in front of her eyes. When I spoke to her on the phone, she joked, “It’s just like you looking at the funeral parlour.” 

I started a diary observing the funeral parlour while I was working on A Miniature Replica of a Much Larger Reality(2002) which is a short dance piece. It was perhaps a formalistic study of Opposite My House is a Funeral Parlour. The result of the diary was not so much of an emotional journey but a visual diary written in words. At this period I came across a marvellous book called Persephone by Jenny Joseph (Bloodaxe, 1986). The book is now out of print and I had to go to the State Library of Victoria to read it. After a few visits to the Library, very much inspired by Joseph’s text, I decided to work on a new dance piece about mortality.

For those who are not already familiar with Persephone, here is her story:

Persephone, who was a daughter of Zeus and Demeter – the Goddess of fertility and abundance, was enjoying sunshine in a sunflower field one day when she was abducted by Hades – the God of the Underworld. He took her to his underground kingdom, raped her and made her his wife. After some protest, Persephone came to accept Hades and her new home, away from her mother. Demeter, meanwhile, consumed with anger and sorrow, demonstrated her rage by punishing the Earth’s inhabitants with cold, blistering wind.

Zeus sent Hermes to negotiate with Hades. Hades agreed to let Persephone to return to Earth, however, he gave her a pomegranate seed to eat which would bind her to himself and his kingdom. Demeter found out, yet was resigned to the fact that there was nothing she could do: her daughter was bound forever to the Lord of the Dead. With no other choice, she agreed to let Persephone stay with her half of the year and the other half with Hades. The result gave us the sweetness of spring and summer when Persephone was with the delight of her mother, and barren autumn and winter when Persephone returned to the Underworld to stay with Hades.

Persephone is an archetypal figure who bridges the living world and the world of the dead, fertile seasons and barren seasons, warm sunshine of the Earth and cold darkness of the Underworld. Hades represents death, the inevitable truth of living beings. Persephone takes the dead with her on her return to the Underworld.  Her existence is of a cyclical nature.

The idea of mortality is not only philosophical but also cultural. As a Buddhist trying to collect my thoughts about mortality, I looked at various streams of Buddhism to find out. I once researched on the internet about Buddhist ideas of death. As I kept clicking on the links in the site, to my surprise, one link led me to quantum physics. Later, I found the Buddhist idea of cyclic flow of life and death was parallel to the myth of Persephone. I chose the two ideas as the structural theme of the work. Jenny Joseph gave kind permission to use excerpts from Persephone in this work.

I have been collaborating with sound composer Edward Kelly to develop the three-part initial studies of the work in 2003 – 04. The first two parts were kindly supported by wheatgrassactive. In March 2004, we developed the third part through Dancehouse’s Space Grant program. I invited Yeap Heng Shen to work on the visual (multimedia) component of the work. Matt Crosby has helped me among many other things, to create an installation in the performance space. We hope all the components: sound, text, visual, installation and movement, will take you through the visual and audio diary we created about the funeral parlour and about a journey of a sentient being through the never-ending flow of existence.

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