Before attending his Dark Mofo performance art piece in Tasmania, we were given the following suggestions byMike Parr.
Try and sleep for 4–5 hours before leaving
Keep a very quiet and traditional Sunday and withdraw from family and friends a little
Abstain from alcohol on Sunday
Please isolate yourself for the duration of the journey to the location, avoiding eye contact and refraining from conversation
Dress very warmly and for the possibility of wet weather and extreme conditions
Wear closed toe shoes, and bring a torch.
We were to get on a ferry from Hobart at 1am and the performance (the details of which we would not find out until we got there) was to commence on Bruny Island at 2am. We would be returning to Hobart at 5am.
Some people told me they were worried that the performance would be gruesome in some way – like the ritual slaughter of an animal carcass that was on the Dark Mofo program later that week. Others feared they would be frightened – that on Bruny Island in the dark, there would be actors who would loom up, say boo! and seize them. I was worried that I would be uncomfortable – that is, I would be tired, cold and hungry. 2am is a cherished time for me, when dreams get interesting and I’m snug and warm in bed.
Pre-show
Before going on the boat, I try to keep myself busy, nourished and hydrated so I won’t get tired and am as physically prepared for the event as possible. On Sunday afternoon I take half a sleeping tablet and then sleep. Then I meet a Guardian colleague at the Dark Mofo Winter Feast and carb-load on a big bowl of what appears to be Indonesian paella. It’s spicy and has kale in it and we gather, like members of a Norse clan, by a huge fire pit outside while a man nearby plays on a fiddle and everyone sits around in thick jackets drinking mulled wine and hot ginger beer. I could stay here all night – but don’t for fear of getting sleepy and not feeling like staying up until 6am.
I head to North Hobart to meet a local novelist, who tries to dissuade me from moving to Hobart, over some excellent Tasmanian cheese and pinot (which offsets his point a bit, it is SO delicious). Apparently there’s a housing shortage because everyone is making so much cash from Airbnb.
“Also don’t be fooled by the cheap house prices,” he says gloomily. “People pay thousands of dollars each winter on electricity.”
Yet, how romantic it sounds to be a writer here – gothic sandstone houses, long nights, open fires and all these weird festivals to keep life interesting.
An Uber back into Hobart for some progressive grime from south London. Gaika is playing at the Odeon. It’s going off. The energy from Gaika is going to carry me through the night, I can just tell. It’s kinda R&B, kinda hip-hop. Even though I’m here by myself I feel an immediate kinship with all the Gaika fans in Hobart, in fact all Gaika fans everywhere. These are my people. Gaika has taken his shirt off and is standing on a speaker. He’s saying, “I cannot believe I am here in Australia!” And you believe him. He is wide-eyed. His chest looks as though he’s swallowed a xylophone.
I am now Gaika’s No 1 fan. Gaika forever!!!! I feel the energy of the concert will power me through the long night.
Hmm. I head back to the hotel for more warm clothes. Maybe I’ll just lie down for a bit. Under the blankets. And I’ll just close my eyes.
Art
It’s 1am. I’m on the boat. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I shouldn’t have had all that wine with the novelist. I shouldn’t have had such a good time at Gaika. I should have followed the suggestions given by the artist and had a “traditional Sunday”. I feel gross. Then I’m on Bruny Island, hoping the “refreshing” climate will revive me.
On the island I stand in a row for a while, facing the performance. The performers are dozens of elderly people in striped pyjamas and dressing gowns who are herded into the space by a one-armed man who is counting 1-2-3-4 over and over again into a megaphone. The performers, seated in chairs facing us, are alternately illuminated and then hidden as the clouds cover the moon then part again. Initially most of the audience stand. It isn’t raining and the ground is dry but a bitter wind comes off the water. Time passes. The elderly people are clicking something in a steady rhythm. I am worried that they will get cold in their pyjamas and that some of them will get sick.
Time passes. One or two people sit with their backs to the performance and stare blankly out at the dark sea. We are only metres from the water, on what looks like farmland. No one talks.
Some peoplesit. Some lie down. I find a small indent in the ground with long tufts of grass growing off the side and lie down too. It is colder on the ground and I can’t get comfortable. I am on my side, with a view of the stage, hoping the long grass and the shallow burrow will protect me from the wind.
Lying on the ground, shivering but surrounded by people in the middle of the night watching the elderly people in pyjamas clicking (are they using stones to make the sounds?) feels both deeply strange and strangely deep and familiar. Before we had houses and central heating and parcels of individual land, before we stopped living outside, we might have roamed like this, collectively, milling around and lying down on cold, unfamiliar shores as elders performed some wordless pagan ritual with stones.
Someone I recognise from Sydney is also lying down, but at a weird, uncomfortable angle, as though she’s been shot.
“You lay down before I did,” she says later. “You were in the foetal position.”
The performance finishes at 4.20am and we queue for lattes on board the Mona ferry, no one really talking about what we’ve just seen and experienced. One woman in the coffee queue tells us that earlier that day she’d been to see an artwork in an old church that comprised many buckets of piss “of different colours”, she says – a startling piece of detail. She was hungover, she told us, and the stench from the buckets made her feel as though she was going to throw up.
Back at the hotel I try to go back to sleep but cannot get warm. Under the skin I am a solid block of ice.
I sleep from 7am until 9am. There is dirt and grass on my coat but otherwise it is all – as they say – like a dream.
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