Between Worlds: Bringing the Natural World into Theatre Practice

The edge. Ocean meets earth.

At Little Wategos, we stood with our feet sinking into the sand, looking across the ocean towards Julian Rocks, Nguthungulli — a special place connected to a songline that ripples across Country.

We became still.

Not silent. Nature is never really silent.

There were waves, wind, birds, water moving against rock. And whales, passing close by.

This was the beginning of two days with Waangenga Blanco and his Bringing the Natural World to Theatre Practice masterclass.

Waangenga is a Meriam Mer/Pajinka Wik man whose career spans dance, theatre, choreography and movement direction, including many years performing with Bangarra Dance Theatre. He brought to the weekend a lifetime of movement, culture, Country, observation and storytelling — and shared his practice with great generosity.

The masterclass was part of Byron Theatre Company’s professional development program for regional artists, creating opportunities for local theatre-makers to work with leading practitioners, encounter different ways of making work and bring those discoveries back into their own creative practice.

For these two days, nature became both our starting point and our teacher.

We had arrived, as you do with any masterclass, wondering what the weekend might hold.

Waangenga lit a sacred fire. We sat together. He shared aspects of his cultural practice and invited us to slow down, observe and connect to the place we were in.

And then we played.

Remembering how to play

One of the first questions Waangenga asked was simple:

What does dance mean to you?

The answers were as different as the people sitting around the circle. For some, dance was a gift, a place of freedom. For others, it was a challenge — something that brought uncertainty or self-consciousness.

This wasn't a dance masterclass. There were no steps to perfect and no one had to prove they could dance.

Instead, we began by noticing movement.

We played Follow the Leader. We climbed over rocks and rolled down hills. Barefoot, we let our feet sink deeply into the sand. We explored the foundations of movement through BASTE — Body, Action, Space, Time and Energy.

And we paid attention.

To grass. A ladybird. The infinite characters of rocks.

Tom shared a poem about Moses finding the presence of God in the cleft of a rock. It seemed fitting. Here we were, looking again — into cracks, under leaves, across water — at things we might ordinarily walk straight past.

And somehow, the dance was everywhere.

Grass moved. Whales rolled through the ocean. Bodies navigated rock and sand.

Finding stillness, then motion.

Again and again.

At one point, we looked towards the migrating whales while listening to a recording of Uncle Mudjai sharing a whale song — a generous sharing of culture and song.

And the whales seemed to wave back.

It was one of those moments difficult to put into words.

Somewhere between reverence and ridiculousness, Waangenga gave us permission to explore. He could ask us to become quiet and honour the natural world around us, then encourage us to play and make believe. There was freedom to try and freedom to fail.

And really, given a nature immersion and a sunny day in Byron Bay, why wouldn't we play?

Taking the ocean inside

Then we returned to the theatre.

How do you take something as expansive as the ocean indoors?

How do you carry sand beneath your feet, the rhythm of waves, the enormity of a whale or the tiny world of a ladybird into a black-box theatre?

Waangenga gave us practices that allowed our encounters outside to inform what we created inside. Each of us began shaping work from an aspect of nature, while our freshly formed ensemble offered bodies, movement and imagination to help bring those ideas to life.

A whale rolled across an imaginary ocean and spouted into the air.

A dolphin danced through waves, with Waangenga demonstrating some rather impressive moves of his own. After barrel rolls that revealed considerably more than a casual relationship with movement, Dolphin Diva was born.

We formed a hill with our bodies so Tom — our newly crowned Master of Hill Rolls — could roll across us.

We danced with Maysoun and her Rock of Power.

We laughed. Our calves hurt.

And somewhere in all of this, something had shifted.

People who had arrived as strangers were now lending their bodies and imaginations to one another's ideas. Theatre asks that of us: to offer something before we know if it will work. To touch, move, listen, respond and trust.

Waangenga created the space. What emerged belonged to all of us.

Between worlds

During the immersion, I found myself watching the place where ocean meets earth:

Licking. Kissing. Beckoning.
Can one become the other?
A rock tumbles between.
Finding stillness, then motion.
Again and again.
A wet spontaneous dance.
Between worlds. Between worlds.
Until the tide goes down.
The sun warms the rock's back again.
Stillness.
But no silence.

We came to explore how the natural world might enrich our theatre practice.

It did.

Slowing down made us notice what was already around us. Playing reminded us of something we perhaps knew instinctively when we were younger. And working together showed us how quickly a group of strangers could begin to trust, respond and create together.

But there was something else.

Outside, the natural world was immense and constantly moving. Inside the theatre, in the stillness of the room, we began to understand something of its scale.

The theatre gave us time to sit with what we had encountered. To let an image linger. To follow an impulse without knowing where it might lead. To allow inspiration to gestate rather than rush towards an outcome.

Many seeds were planted in those two days. Some became movement, images and stories. Others may take longer to emerge.

Perhaps that is part of the practice too — knowing when to move and when to be still. When to make, and when to simply let an idea grow.

The waves don't stop dancing.

Their rhythm is eternal.

As one participant wrote afterwards, “I am still marinating in the magic.”

I think many of us were.

And it sings on and on and on.

Waangenga Blanco’s Bringing the Natural World to Theatre Practice masterclass forms part of Byron Theatre’s professional development program for regional artists and is proudly supported by Create NSW through the Regional Partnerships Program.