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Stamping Ground on Global Village,
SBS TV screened 30th October, 2001
Transcript of report filmed between 1st & 16th January, 2001 at 5th annual Stamping
Ground Dance Festival - Richard
Gurney, Producer
The town of Bellingen on the north coast of New South Wales is busy each summer with
locals and visitors along what's known as 'the holiday coast".
The relaxed appearance of the main street belies more energetic activity taking place
in other parts of the town, during the Stamping Ground Dance and Action Arts festival
each January.
The festival has become for organiser, Peter Stock an unexpected new direction in
a long career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher.
PETER STOCK: Stamping Ground just grew out of a very modest little idea that came
to me when I was tutoring in a summer camp some years ago. There was a young fellow,
extremely promising with his dance generally, he'd just begun serious ballet training.
And I asked him who his tutors were, and he said, "Oh, Miss Jane, Miss Kylie,
Miss Shirley"...and I said, weren't there any blokes teaching you? "Nahh.."
And I said we should get a couple of guys together and see if we can do something
for the young dancers. Maybe get a few men, just have a good dance together for a
few days.
Peter assembles a group of men to run classes in dance, music and the action
arts. Although created with men and boys in mind, there's an undeniable participation
by women and girls, which the male fraternity is only too happy to accommodate.
From Sierra Leone, Blacker Conteh teaches Street Moves and African Dance to all ages.
BLACKER CONTEH: For kids I like to teach kids because they mean a lot to me, and
the kids, they're full of energy too so that makes it really nice because I give
them my energy and they make good use of it... The way they are with me you know,
wanting to do the class with them every day even when there is no class they want
me to teach even when there is no class so I think they're pretty much happy and
I'm happy with that.
All over town classes are held on a daily basis. From the Memorial Hall to the
Rivers Studio to the Showground Pavilion, stampers are kept as busy or as lazy as
they like.
PETER STOCK: We end up with a mix of people with no movement skills but very keen
to learn right through to the elite dance level. That's an amazing combustion to
put together because the experienced dance people love to see the kids and the adults
who've never moved before having a go.
JACOB: Well we're both from Auckland in New Zealand.
LISTON: This is Jacob and I'm Liston. We're contemporary dance students mainly but
we've come here to Bellingen to further our skills in different fields...
JACOB: No, we came here to get out of New Zealand and have fun and do some dance
and drink some beer.
LISTON: Yeah that too.
JACOB: A lot of it is meeting the actual other students and the tutors on a personal
level rather than having a teacher/student relationship, it's a lot less formal and
it's quite inspiring, you're surrounded by people on a human level but who are amazing
dancers with professionals who've been doing it for years and have a wealth of knowledge
and experience they can give you.
LISTON: I've only been dancing for two years...
JACOB: Yeah but you've been breakdancing for years, still dancing of some sort...
Adam McDougalls tap class has no music save for the sound of tap shoes on wooden
floorboards.
Local musician Luke Rhodes first came to Stamping Ground as a participant, and is
now teaching music making classes.
LUKE RHODES: I find kids are really enthusiastic about playing the drums and a
lot of people actually are keen on the drums especially in an area like Bellingen.
But I also find that with percussion and rhythm,, people in cities are also quite
receptive to it as well.
Stuntman, Gavin Wild came upon Stamping Ground by accident several years ago.
By demonstrating and passing on his talents in acrobatics and aerial work Gavin sees
something unique each year.
GAVIN WILD: I've been doing tightrope walking so I thought I'd bring it up here
and give everyone a go at it and to my surprise, two days ago I had a set up in the
council park... They get on, give it a go....interesting thing was, each time they
got back on it they went one step further. So I was really surprised how popular
that was.
I tell them that over the 16 days we have an open window period of working inside
a creative bubble in which we can become anything we want and Stamping Ground holds
the space for that and allows it to happen.
Wiruungga welcomes the spirit of the festival with a dance at Hungry Head beach.
WIRUUNGGA: The greeting dance is all about energy. It's about collecting energy
and borrowing it and giving it back to the people. And I call it the carpet snake
greeting dance. And it's a great dance for like, building bridges really, bringing
people together. I try and involve everybody to perform with me when I'm doing it,
I just don't entertain them, "I" dancing for them, I get them up and they
dance with me.
SALLY: I think Peter just saw the children in the town and thought they have nothing
to do and he realised that so many of them love to get into music and dancing and
this was something they could all get involved in. He wants to see the children in
this town achieve something in their lives.
A few days into the festival visitors soon adjust their body clocks to 'Bello
time' as it's known.
Helene Markstein came to the first Stamping Ground as a distraction for her son,
but soon became obsessed with dance herself, and returns each year: to take part,
but also to document the event, taking on the role of Stamping Ground's archivist.
HELENE MARKSTEIN: I think it's really important to have it here, to have it, this
documentation, this film ,these photographs, whatever, showing that people are actually
doing this.
I just freak when somebody gives me four steps and a kick, my brain goes to mush
and I think, I can't do that! But I can here.
My daughter was nine when she came, she was a ballet dancer...she was the only little
girl here, she wasn't allowed to participate in anything, so she sort of stood at
the very edge and she took everything on board, she took all the men's strong, strength
of movement and her movement over that two week period changed from this little fairy
on top of the tree to this really strong nine year old dancer.
ELA MARKSTEIN: When you're doing ballet in dance schools around Sydney you
never ever get to dance with, like guys, cos there's only like maybe one in the while
school. A lot of the time specially teachers don't know what to do with them cos
they're just used to having girls but up here it was really good cos there were guy
teachers and they knew how to handle boys and help them.
HELENE MARKSTEIN: I think a lot of it is Peter Stock and his sort of driving energy
to facilitate it all and the fact that he makes it for the young boys here, he makes
it possible for them to see men, other men, all sorts of men, the local builder,
the guy from the local service station...he makes it possible for them to see these
men doing this sort of stuff and it's OK.
PETER NOTLEY: This is my second Stamping Ground...This one I've really enjoyed as
I focussed on a couple of things that I wanted to achieve and to train in... I've
spent a little bit with a young boy in a class helping or dancing with him over a
period of 3 or 4 days... And that was really nice, it's nice to encourage young boys
to dance cos you know, it's frowned upon or it's hard for a young boy if they want
to get into dance...
The simplest way to archive dance is through filming it. Dance historian and
enthusiast Dr Don Herbison-Evans has gone a step further. His computer animation
program allows each dance to be studied, broken down and choreographed however you
want and from wherever you want.
In past years the fire ceremony to close the festival has attracted an appreciative
audience. The ceremony is presented as a ritual where boys are given fire as a symbol
of their "emerging manhood".
PETER STOCK: This year we had quite a huge fire show planned, beautiful fire sculptures
and some amazing aerial work planned...again, it would've been something to really
conclude the event on a very high note...but Mother Nature, in her wisdom, gave us
a rainy evening so ...the weather obviously was not going to hold and we had to pull
it apart... deconstruct... almost at the point where the whole thing was in place.
It was interesting watching the men do that, there was 'oh well', matter of fact,
we can't do it and we've got a pretty big show for next year already made.
A few nights earlier the women of Stamping Ground dance down the main street
of Bellingen. Devised by Helene so that all women and girls can easily take part
the performance uses water as its theme as a foil to the men's proposed fire show.
HELENE MARKSTEIN: I didn't want to do the traditional drums and flutes and that
sort of thing, I wanted it to be something different so I made these tapes of breathing...and
so there were parked cars around near the audience during their pathway down the
main street and these tapes would start when the women moved by.
SALLY: I don't want to show off in front of my town but once I get there and I start
I forget that people are looking and really get involved.
For a showcase of men and boy's movement Peter Stock asked a certain local concert
pianist to provide the accompaniment.
PETER STOCK: It was quite illuminating for me to actually see how successful that
was, this fantastic music and to put the movements of the participants with that..
David Helfgott is a remarkable special man, a genius with several brains operating
at the same time... and he could not have been more obliging or collaborative in
the process of creating this evening of fantastic movement and music.
BLACKER CONTEH: This is my first time in Bellingen here with this festival but I
think it's really amazing, I would like to be here next year because it's kinda like
everything you know, bit of this, bit of this, bit of this, you've got everything
going on in a different style, I love it.
WIRUUNGGA: That's what makes Stamping Ground so good I think, to see all different
ages get up there and boogie together, you could say, young and old.
HELENE MARKSTEIN: Little boys have said, why can't we have this as a school, why
can't this be our school, and it's on every day.
screened SBS TV Global Village - Tuesday 30th October, 2001 @ 6 PM
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