Copyright © 2014 Annette Carmichael,
Nicola-Jane le Breton & Linda Bradbury (editors)

ISBN 978-1-925171-93-8 (ebook edition)

Photography: Michael Hemmings, Anna Boaden, Jennifer Barter & Nic Duncan

Version 2.0, 2019. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior, explicit, written permission of the individual authors who have identified themselves as the authors as covered by all relevant State, National and International copyright laws.

Photo by Jennifer Barter

Published by Vivid Publishing
P.O. Box 948, Fremantle Western Australia 6959
www.vividpublishing.com.au
eBook conversion and distribution by
Fontaine Publishing Group, Australia
www.fontaine.com.au

Adapted from the collaborative script for Solace+Yearning,
First performed Kwoorabup Trail, Denmark, Western Australia,
3-5 March 2012, for Brave New Works #19.
Performed again for Arts & Edges, Regional Arts Australia Summit 2014.

Annette Carmichael: Choreographer, Creative Producer
www.annettecarmichael.com.au

Nicola-Jane le Breton: Story Weaver & Editor
www.facebook.com/write2unravel

Linda Bradbury: Wordwright
inwordindeed@gmail.com

In Memoriam

Andy Ducker

“….the trail is us”

In Memoriam

Paul Doquile

“a healthy community is like good compost - it takes a mix of ingredients to make it work”

Our Gratitude

To Joey Williams, Wayne and Toni Webb, and Harley Coyne, Noongar elders, who walked the trail with us and generously shared their culture and stories.

Acknowledgement to Country

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this project was created and performed, the Minang and Pibbulman peoples. We pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledge their continuing culture and the important contribution they make to the life of this region.

Contents

Introduction – Annette Carmichael

Connecting Community Through Collaborative Writing – Nicola-Jane le Breton

Inside Solace+Yearning: A Community Performer’s Perspective – Janine McCrum

I – The Margin

II – On the Bridge

III – Farmer’s Solo

IV – Secrets

V – Yearning

VI – Knots of History

VII – Solace

VIII – Paddock

IX – Words of Solace

X – Re-dress Me

XI – An Ending – Solace+Yearning

The Community’s Response

Acknowledgements & Credits

We Welcome Your Feedback

Introduction

Annette Carmichael

What is this longing?

I live in a small regional community on the Great Southern coast of Western Australia by a river that has two names, Denmark (European) and Kwoorabup (Noongar). Many people come to this haven of natural beauty with a longing for peace, spirituality, community and a chance to be in nature.

As an artist, I am an observer of my home and a sensate responder to the conversations around me. I am also inspired by my personal history, growing up in the red dirt of the Pilbara in the 1980s, acutely aware of my luck to be born ‘white’ Australian.

It was all this that first sent me on my journey into the creation of a series of performances about the complex issues surrounding ‘settler guilt’ and ‘solastalgia’ – a form of homesickness caused by environmental change in our home community.

The first in these works was Our Secret River created in 2010 with many collaborators, including Silvia Lehmann and Nicola-Jane le Breton. This was to be my ‘Sorry’ work. In the wake of the Australian Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation,[1] I was interested to see if it was possible, in Denmark/Kwoorabup, to make a performance that could embrace what was contradictory and complicated in our feelings about Australia’s story, the social advantage of non-indigenous Australians and the deep longing for the knowledge and connection inherent in Aboriginal cultures.

Our Secret River grew and grew and became enormous, with over 60 people, Indigenous and non-indigenous writing, dancing and performing. The project didn’t hold back and the despair, violence and grief of the past flooded onto the ground where we performed. It was an intense experience, and so, in 2012, I needed to offer a gentler second chapter — quieter, smaller, more spacious and meditative. This became Solace+Yearning: Between Kwoorabup and Denmark.

Solace+Yearning was first performed by ten people from Denmark (including a young boy) for Brave New Works #19, Denmark Arts community festival. Together we wrote, choreographed and talked, guided by the site we were performing in, the Kwoorabup Trail. The creation of eco-dyed costumes, facilitated by textile artist Jennifer Barter, was a key way of wrapping ourselves in the environment. One of these ten performers, Janine McCrum, describes the process beautifully in the following pages.

The chance to create a second version of Solace+Yearning came about in 2014 with the Regional Arts Australia Summit: Arts & Edges. This second version is mostly a solo that I perform with the original cast with me in film and in voice.

How to take this longing and carry it into a performance for other Australians to see, to debate, to reflect upon? How to give audiences the feel for the Kwoorabup Trail, the peeling karri bark, the nearby paddocks? Janine McCrum again joined me and has created a set that helps the audience feel the Trail. The textures of Michael Hemming’s evocative film wrap around the spoken words, written by many, many people in our community and distilled through an empowering scripting process.

Since 2010, I have been supported by Joey Williams, a Noongar artist and community leader. His generous sharing of spirit has guided me on a journey that has been stressful, emotional, challenging and rewarding. In 2013 I had a chance to support Joey in the creation of his own Songlines performance with the Denmark community. This was another sharing of story, language and culture with the people of our home and a landmark in our travels together.

Solace+Yearning is a performance that uses poetry and contemporary dance. It doesn’t contain one single story but is a layering of different people’s words and voices about this longing to connect to country, the grief contained within our shared history and the hope for our shared future. The audience is invited to interpret the words and images in their own individual way.

Annette (www.annettecarmichael.com.au) lives in the creative enclave that is Denmark (Kwoorabup), Western Australia. From this vibrant home she works as a dance artist and creative producer specialising in community engagement. She has created many performances with artists and communities for major festivals and events including, Perth International Arts Festival (Great Southern), Brave New Works, Ausdance WA Future Landings and the centenary commemorations of Anzac Day and Armistice Day.

________________________

1 The Stolen Generation were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families as children by past Australian Federal, State and Territory government agencies and church missions, from the late 1800s to the 1970s.

Connecting Community Through Collaborative Writing

Nicola-Jane le Breton

I was deeply honoured to participate in the creation of both Our Secret River (2010) and Solace+Yearning (2012), originally conceived by creative director and choreographer, Annette Carmichael. Both projects emerged in response to an expressed yearning within the Denmark/Kwoorabup community for the healing of and connection to local landscape, along with its indigenous history and people.

Our solace came through exploring and communicating our deepest questions and longings, and through connecting to each other and the land via heartfelt enquiry. For most participants these thoughts and feelings had long been unspoken, and many were amazed at how the creative development process elicited such unexpected outpourings. It was a difficult topic to approach, and a controversial one within our town.

As community writing facilitator for these projects, I remember during Our Secret River, in 2010, our local women’s writing group was initially resistant to participating at all. We surprised ourselves once we began the journey together. Other ‘non-writers’ and ‘non-dancers’ also leapt on board to write, script and perform. The only qualifications for involvement were a sincere interest in the project and a willingness to reflect diverse views and feelings.

Local Theatre Director Silvia Lehmann and I first designed a process for ‘collaborative writing’ in 2008. We wanted to create a safe container in which community participants could share their stories—and even secrets. We reassured them that for the final performance their writings would be woven together and presented anonymously. At the time, we had no idea what a rich and powerful process this would become for building community, dissolving differences and developing empathy—both between the participants and with the wider audience.

The method, created in that first community arts project, has remained much the same, with some refinement, in four major projects I’ve co-facilitated since then. In each of these, I worked closely with Annette Carmichael, and in most of them the natural landscape was a primary focus.

We begin by inviting writers and non-writers from the community to participate in workshops exploring a chosen theme. This encounter takes place in the spirit of creative enquiry: that is, without any fixed agenda or direction for the development of the script. The participants are given ownership and involvement at each step of the process and a safe space is offered where writers have the choice to share their musings aloud—or not.

Project leaders gather and read all the writings (over 1000 handwritten pages in Our Secret River and hundreds again for Solace+Yearning). We then highlight those sections of the text that “have the most energy” for us. Usually this step is very inclusive and anything potentially performable is included.

Selected writings are typed up anonymously and printed. Writers and performers might be invited to attend collaborative scripting workshops for preliminary sorting of text fragments into piles, helping distill common or important themes. Alternatively, if this work has already been done by the project leaders, workshop participants can split up into groups of two or three and spend time organising the related fragments into the beginnings of a scene, conversation, poem or song.

The next step requires a little more writing expertise: arranging text fragments into polished poetry, prose, or a script with multiple voices. These must flow and have the capacity to be transposed into performance.

This, for me, is perhaps the most exciting stage of the process: receiving patchwork pieces of words and voices that have been selected and sorted according to similarity of tone or topic; then seeking to find the right threads and combinations that will weave together a fluent whole, a wordy-quilt of many colours.

The poetry that emerges is often more powerful than I believe could be produced by one poet alone, no matter how experienced or eloquent. She or he is only one voice, whereas in collaborative scriptwriting and poetry, the resulting work is a little like a symphony: containing multiple voices or instruments, each with their individual expression, harmonising and contrasting together. It is a complex tapestry of ideas, feelings and sensate experience.

Finally, the ‘finished’ script is taken into the field where the performers are guided but not limited by the script and very often it develops organically still further, in sympathy with the choreography and the individual dancer. Voice and movement merge together into a holistic and eloquent response to the landscape, expressing the heartfelt intentions, questions and longings of the local community.

For me, the process awakened an awareness of much that had been unconscious: hidden in the secret waterways of a landscape we often fail to notice or connect with. By writing on site, dancing our words into the site and then distilling our inchoate longings into choreographed poetry, we found a solace and a connectedness far beyond anything word or gesture could convey alone.

The final performance of Solace+Yearning, punctuated by stillness and silence, was a powerful journey for all who witnessed this sacred transaction between people and place. Walking along the trail on that day, I saw the bush, the river and its history as if for the first time. Even though I was familiar with the script and had attended rehearsals, there was a magical convergence of meaning and mystery that whispered through the spaces between.

Nicola-Jane le Breton (www.facebook.com/write2unravel) is a writing facilitator who helps build creative and resilient communities through shared stories and understanding.

Inside Solace+Yearning: A Community Performer’s Perspective

Janine McCrum

Little did I realise when responding to a call for participants in a community textile, writing and performance project what an enriching process it would be.

This project was an ideal opportunity for combining my desire to be involved in the local arts scene and fulfil the requirements of an Arts Practicum unit for my university studies.

At the start of the project, I was one of a group dyeing silks with local natural materials in a workshop facilitated by Jennifer Barter. Lengths of silk were layered with local plant materials then wrapped, tied, steamed and simmered. As each dyed silk was unwrapped at the end of the day, we all felt the buzz of excitement wondering what magical marks and colours would be revealed. Each length of cloth was unique and beautiful and destined to be transformed into costumes for the performers.

Another group had the challenge of designing and creating the garments for the ten performers. The performers were measured, silks allocated and several weeks later an amazing range of garments were delivered for the first test ‘showings’ on the Kwoorabup Trail. As part of the process text was selected by the performer and stitched onto the silk so the costumes embodied a personal connection for the performer. It was intended through this process of creation that the textiles and costumes would belong in the performance site and the marks on the cloth would reflect the marks left upon the landscape by human intervention.

The creative writing workshops facilitated by Nicola-Jane le Breton addressed issues pertinent to the project, encompassing personal observations on site, pre and post settlement history, utility of land, solace and yearning. All of this fed into the process of creating spoken and sung script and text for installation on site. It was surprising how the collaborative process using the words from many participants produced such a unified, coherent and emotionally intense script.

The most challenging part of this project for me was being involved in the rehearsal and performance process. All our rehearsals were intensely focused on transforming novices into creative performers that had the fitness and flexibility for the schedule of five performances over three days. We worked out under cool towering karri trees beside the river and in the warmer bull paddock. The bulls didn’t bother us but we were visited by a fox and many bull ants. A wonderful aspect of working on site over an extended period was noticing the changes in the environment; karri bark falling in strips with the summer heat; frogs calling after light rain; the appearance of black cockatoos when the marri blossomed and the grass in the paddock dried to a prickly gold.

Annette was remarkably calm, generous and inspiring in facilitating and directing our choreographic adventures. Each week we worked on creating and fine-tuning different scenes for the performance and it all came together in the last week. One creative process that stands out for me was the experience of choreographing from words. From our writing workshops we chose a few words that embodied our feelings for the site. When we then translated those words into movement we each had our own personal choreographed piece. These were then used individually or choreographed together to create a linked theme throughout the performance. A simple evocation of less is more.

A heartening aspect of the project was a cultural sharing with a local Noongar advisor Joey Williams. As the project unfolded he gave us words, song and made the scene invoking the Margit, which Joey described as the spirit snake that touches us all. The Margit meandered up the river and disappeared while we symbolically crossed the river and returned singing wunya (love for earth). During this scene the haunting sounds of flute music wafted in and out of the trees and wove around the two dancers in the solace and yearning finale.

The performances were truly an intimate experience as we wove stories, ideas and feelings in and out of the audience along the trail. While we whispered fragments of stories from Our Secret River the audience members were forced to get up close and personal to us and our secrets; a very intimate space. After each performance audience members sent us SMS messages, writing of being deeply moved and provoked through an emotional and healing experience:

I found the show deeply moving, healing thought provoking.…. I was made aware of my separation and the delicate longing to be a part of. Touched exactly my confusion and guilt but so beautifully drew out compassion for the first people and the new who toiled so hard. Anon.

Certainly as performers we found it to be an amazing experience and nearly loved every minute of it. Being bitten by march flies was a definite downside!

I think I can speak on behalf of the participants and audience to extend a big thank you to Annette Carmichael for her courage and vision in producing and directing this community performance. Through language, emotion, story and ritual the work confronted issues of connection to country and shared histories that are often avoided because it is a difficult topic. It was a privilege to be part of this inspiring and emotionally intense experience: another small step towards reconciliation within our community here in Denmark.

This article was first published in DanceWest magazine, June 2012. Janine McCrum was an Anthropology student at the University of Western Australia, in Albany WA, at the time.

I

The Margit

… we got the
Margit here

Margit
not like a snake that you see
but like a spirit snake
you don’t see him
you only see where he’s been

you feel him like movement
sending ripples through us all

Margit touches us all
connecting every river
where it runs
it connects us all
as one

Margit
protector of these waterways

you can’t see it
but you can feel it
like a ripple
bringing back life.

Catherine Mercer & Phillip G. Light, photo by Michael Hemmings

II

On the Bridge

Where are the people who know the language of this land?

Where are the people who know the language of this land?

Janine McCrum & Christine Ritter, photo by Michael Hemmings

Along the edges,
voices call softly….. the past speaking to the present.

It is beneath the bark where stories are whispered and life rises to stitch together this river with this sky.

L-R Toby Boaden, Nigel Levinson, Sonia Dezius, Janine McCrum, Christine Ritter, Adrian Baer, Linda Bradbury (foreground) crossing the Kwoorabup Beelia, photo by Michael Hemmings

Water

Cleanser of memories

Death

Keeper at the gate.

III

Farmer’s Solo

Sweated in shadeless
baked paddocks
for the children’s sake.

Nigel Levinson, photo by Michael Hemmings

IV

Secrets

It’s a long winding pathway that I walk along, the edge of life.

She said she remembered her mother’s scream “Run, run, run.”

Sometimes I feel like a weed. A foreigner.

So where am I from really – what is my earth song?

Writing workshop with Solace+Yearning cast, photo by Anna Boaden

I walk here and I’m blind.

I feel like a fresh graft on an old, old tree.

Lost in the vacuum of small rooms.

I’m sorry…I’m not sure where to go…

He didn’t even know I was there.

In rehearsal for the paddock dance, photo by Anna Boaden

V

Yearning

Bark, leaves, river, earth
Soak into my soul
Wrap me in your coloured silks
Relieve me of control.

Adrian Baer & Sonia Dezius, photo by Michael Hemmings

VI

Knots of History

Our history is mangled and messy
How can I untie these knots?

Quietly: I wish someone would help me.

Toby Boaden in rehearsal, photo by Anna Boaden

Some knots can’t be untied.

VII

Solace

Don’t carry the weight of white guilt
Heavy upon your youth.
This history is mine too
Let me share this burden.

Catherine Mercer & Toby Boaden, photo by Michael Hemmings

Shed that outer shell
Peel off the past

Reunite human soul with earth soul.

Toby Boaden & Christine Ritter, photo by Michael Hemmings

The hole in my heart is filled with quiet
I want to hear the stories again.

Janine McCrum, photo by Michael Hemmings

Our life is a glimmer………
A sparkling moment in time.

It is beneath the bark where stories are whispered and life rises to stitch together this river with this sky.

VIII

Paddock
Beyond the fence

we see not what lies beyond, but within...

There was a time here
a long, gentle, quiet time

then
stamping boots
hard hooves
rutting wheels
dozer blades and chains
scraped these spaces familiar
to hold plants and creatures
we can name, taste and contain
as ours.

The paddock dance, L-R Nigel Levinson, Janine McCrum, Adrian Baer, Nikki Green, Sonia Dezius, Linda Bradbury, Phillip G. Light, Catherine Mercer, Toby Boaden, Christine Ritter, photo by Michael Hemmings

Bordered, bounded and barbed
pasture sits tamed in perpendicular paddocks
while beyond the fence
surviving karri giants shed skin
and shimmer their splendour
as they have for centuries.

Wind carries whispers from treetops to
drown out clucking caged chooks
yearning for what lies just beyond their confines
as we yearn to unbound our souls
and belong to this place
yearn to be of this place.

Barking dogs stab staccato
between older sentences
heard and remembered here still
even after such a long
long time…

Black cockatoos still stitch together
these old pathways with their cries
and cicadas blanket the racket from the highway.

L-R Janine McCrum, Nikki Green, Adrian Baer, Sonia Dezius, Linda Bradbury, photo by Michael Hemmings

Water and time heal scars
carry our misdeeds into
an ocean big enough to hold
our shared grief
for what
has become absent
between us.

Our shared forgetting
of lands
of language.

Water and time undo our intent
hide our footprints
unbury our dead.

Transported or exiled
we find ourselves
here together

where
our children
are born

and our shared song
now journeys on.

Catherine Mercer & Toby Boaden, photo by Michael Hemmings

IX

Words of Solace

We ride the morning
between edges stretched
silver like hope:
dew-laden karri wattle
and soft bristling sheoak.

We celebrate the tangled fall
of unkempt peppermints,
the unsteady earth beat
of crickets’ whirr,
the disorder of clouds
dissembling amidst the blue.

Re-dress Me, L-R Adrian Baer, Christine Ritter, Sonia Dezius, Nikki Green, Janine McCrum, photo by Michael Hemmings

We feel the ebb and flow
Of the song line pulse

Breathe the season’s shift

Together, we sing the long journey.

Adrian Baer & Sonia Dezius, photo by Michael Hemmings

X

Re-dress Me

Re-dress me

I am a tannin-stained river of spent tears,
a tangled edge of torn paperbarks

Re-dress me

Shedding skins, shredding parchments,

Re-dress me

Take this tangled history…and unravel its hem
Cover my bared soul, my bleeding heart, my contradictions

Re-dress me

Annette Carmichael, photo by Nic Duncan

Fill me with quiet
So I can hear the wind

Re-dress me

Annette Carmichael, photo by Nic Duncan

Colour me deeply with river silk and ochre

Re-dress me

Annette Carmichael, photo by Nic Duncan

Let me be a needlepoint of change,
as life rises to stitch together this river with this sky

Re-dress me

Annette Carmichael, photo by Nic Duncan

Re-dress me! Let me wear earth’s song and whisper its stories,
Re-dress me in Kwoorabup’s mirror.

Annette Carmichael, photo by Nic Duncan

XI

An Ending – Solace + Yearning

Listen...
in the stillness
you can hear
quiet whispers
of history.

The river, photo by Michael Hemmings

Somewhere, somewhere between Kwoorabup and Denmark
we forgot the bones of countless generations
who have drunk from these riverbanks.

The river, photo by Michael Hemmings

As I search for my place in this country, on this land
I feel my soul yearning to hear stories
of those who walked here before.

Sometimes, sometimes
I make the mistake of thinking that
what has not been written down
has been forgotten.

Adrian Baer & Sonia Dezius, photo by Michael Hemmings

As we stand here in this moment, afresh and alive
layers of time bind us together with this place
with Kwoorabup Beelia.

Adrian Baer & Sonia Dezius, photo by Michael Hemmings

Wunya….wunya is love…..

we can walk together
even if the path ahead
is difficult
and the past painful
we can walk together

L-R Toby Boaden, Nigel Levinson, Sonia Dezius, Janine McCrum, Christine Ritter, Adrian Baer, Linda Bradbury (foreground) crossing the Kwoorabup Beelia, photo by Michael Hemmings

Wunya
Palya.

The Community’s Response

In 2012, performances of Solace+Yearning sold out within hours of people leaving the first show. A whisper spread through town, people returned multiple times and wrote some amazing words about the project. These are some of the comments we received by text and email:

“Thank you, thank you and congratulations to all who committed body, soul and time to give us the magnificent experience of “Solace and Yearning”. How does one begin to describe such an experience? Was it theatre, art, or indeed worship? A historical theme or a Holy Story? Deeply moving, poignant, beautifully conceived and exquisitely presented. A triumph! A Passion Play of today. Thank you all”

“Moved to tears”

“Powerful, beautiful, intriguing, emotional, captivating, awesome, thank-you so much for the opportunity to share in this deep performance and healing of history and presence, blessings to you all.”

“A healing experience for all, every-thing.”

“So deeply moved to be part of such ceremony and ritual within the solace and yearning process, Thank you and congratulations.”

“Emotive, beautiful, heartache, wild, touching, deep, cool.”

“Fantastic, clap, clap, clap.”

“That was very gently poetic and beautiful. I felt moved and hopeful. Thank you.”

“S+Y was a powerful and moving performance. I felt integrated into the experience, not just a viewer of it. It spoke to me of sorrow, acceptance & connection. I felt moved through a range of emotions. Sadness through to deep connection. I was impressed with the simplicity and intimacy of the messages. S+Y carried and delivered some of the healing power of this place the river, the general Denmark area and its people. Past and present.”

“Emotional, raw. What a talented cast. Costumes at one with the landscape. Thank-you all.”

“Powerful, deeply moving and healing. Being held in the gentle embrace of the forest by the river was entering another realm. Thank you!”.

“I was moved to tears from the start.”

“Solace and Yearning. Made me feel guilt and shame. But pride and joy at the same time. And the bush was magnificent. Thanks”

“Honoured to walk with you today. Deeply moved and inspired thanks!”

“Yet another beautiful piece. One with multi-layered gifts to all involved. I love being able to feel the grief openly with others and begin healing wounds I only know are there because of the intense emotions which swell in me when these issues are raised. Thank you – I hope these chapters are just the beginning of our community’s healing and empowerment to face the hard stuff together.”

“I found the show deeply moving, healing, thought provoking. I wanted to break down and howl…… I wanted to put on silk and curl into a tree, slip on cool mud and slide into the river……. I was made aware of my separation and the delicate longing to be a part of. Touched exactly my confusion and guilt but so beautifully drew out compassion. …… for the first people and the new who toiled so hard. I hope many more get to see it. I feel it is a piece that stands equal to any world class contemporary performance. Thank you to all involved.”

“I’m still feeling speechless after the indescribably wonderful Solace and Yearning. Thank you so much Annette Carmichael and friends. You have sure woven your magic on me. Wunya”

“THANK YOU.
For your creative genius.
Your bravery.
Your works.
For allowing us to follow the bus today, and thereby experience a crucial piece of this country’s history unfolding.
Perhaps now we have come full cycle, and are somewhere between Denmark and Kwoorabup...”

“Visually challenging bodies and bush
blending
telling a silent story
then words
single arrows hitting home
phrases tripping up our thoughts
sentences forcing their way into consciousness
the crowd moving together as a river
ever more silently
taking care to place their feet
softly softly afraid to disturb
more sorrows.
But the beauty of the bush and the beauty of the words were healing
raising spirits lifting hearts
as people left they smiled
renewed connected
reminded of the threads
which keep us tied to our history our earth our future.”

Acknowledgments

Credits
First season of Solace+Yearning, Kwoorabup Trail, Denmark
Brave New Works #19 festival, 3- 5 March 2012

Performers/Writers
Adrian Baer
Toby Boaden
Linda Bradbury
Sonia Dezius
Nikki Green
Nigel Levinson
Phillip G. Light
Janine McCrum
Catherine Mercer
Christine Ritter

Musician
Caroline Blumer

Textiles/Writers
Dawn Atkin
Sheila Ayling
Jennifer Barter
Annette Carmichael
Heather Coombes
Catherine de Vos
Robyn Lees
Nigel Levinson
Sarah Martin
Jane Matthews
Janine McCrum
Yvonne Quinn
Bev Seeney
Annie Usher

Students of the WA College of Agriculture, Denmark:
Laura Bellotti
Adam Causton
Hannah Collins
Lois Kowald
Madison Meals
Rachel Perkins

Installation Art
Jennifer Barter
Anna Boaden
Ruth Dennison
David McKenzie
Annie Usher

Additional writing
Linda Bradbury
Annette Carmichael
Andy Ducker
Nicola-Jane le Breton
Participants of Our Secret River 2010

Bus Driver Paul Taylor

Photography Michael Hemmings, Anna Boaden, Jennifer Barter

Videography Michael Hemmings

Project Assistant Anna Boaden

Arts Practicum Student Janine McCrum

Textiles Facilitator Jennifer Barter

Textiles Workshop Assistant Annie Usher

Writing Facilitator Nicola-Jane le Breton

Noongar Cultural Facilitator Joey Williams

Director / Choreographer Annette Carmichael

Thank you
Wayne and Toni Webb, Harley Coyne, Sandra Hill, Joey Williams, Simon Parry, Silvia Lehmann, Catherine and Jade, David McKenzie, Jon Dodd, Andre Steyl, Jo Smith, Vivienne Robertson, Caren Blair, Donald Clarke, Teresa Thornell and the Denmark Arts Management Committee, Basil Schur and Greenskills volunteers.

Thank you to all our children, partners and friends who supported us during this project.

This Denmark Arts project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body and supported by the Western Australian College of Agriculture, Denmark and Greenskills.

Additional Credits
Second season of Solace+Yearning
Denmark Civic Centre
10 – 11 October 2014

Goldfields Institute of Technology Amphitheatre
17 October 2014

Performer/Director
Annette Carmichael

Set Design
Janine McCrum

Production Manager
Dwayne Peppin

e-book
Nicola-Jane le Breton
Fontaine Publishing Group
Text editing: Christina Houen

Presented with support from Denmark Arts and the Shire of Denmark.

The producers gratefully acknowledge the financial and other assistance provided by Regional Arts Australia and Country Arts WA and the Commonwealth of Australia through its Regional Arts Fund in the development of this work, which was presented at the RAA Summit: Arts & Edges in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia in 2014.

In rehearsal for the paddock dance, photo by Anna Boaden

Annette Carmichael, Nicola-Jane le Breton & Linda Bradbury would love to hear from you.

If you would like to offer feedback to the editors
or be kept informed of future publications,
please visit: www.vividpublishing.com.au/solace+yearning/

For news of the latest projects by Annette Carmichael please visit:
www.annettecarmichael.com.au

And for upcoming events with Nicola-Jane le Breton, please contact her at
write2unravel@gmail.com or visit:
www.facebook.com/write2unravel

Linda Bradbury is a wordwright who loves to explore the confluence between rhythm in language and in landscape. Stories left unspoken, underneath and beyond what has been written down, interest her most.
You can contact Linda at:
inwordindeed@gmail.com