If you're unfamiliar with the layout of Little Andromeda as a venue then you might not appreciate the bravery inherent in taking a front row seat. The "stage" is really just an open area of floor and when you're front row the performer is almost uncomfortably close to you. The gent sitting to my right asks if I think we're "in any danger" sitting where we are. It hadn't really occurred to me to ask that question - after all, Jo Randerson is not an insult comedian - but it eventuates that there are plenty of audience participation moments in this session. It turns out I don't really know what I've gotten myself into.
In my head I was turning up to an interesting talk about the power of creativity. Maybe something that would inspire me in some creative endeavours. Turns out the "interesting talk" part of that assumption was not inaccurate exactly, but somewhat lacking all the same.
It started before Jo Randerson (award-winning playwright, performer and writer and founder of Barbarian Productions) even made it to the stage. As the audience filed in we were treated to an odd assortment of items draped in cloth occupying the stage area. From my seat I could see a pair of pink boots. At various points in their "theatrical lecture" Randerson would unveil props as they went along, using them to illustrate their point. Or giving them to audience members to do something with.
Jo Randerson enters the stage area looking like a cross between a monk and mountain, in long layered grey robes the colour of rock. I don't know what I had been expecting but it was certainly not this.
It's difficult to encapsulate the entirety of this talk/performance. It's unlike anything else I've ever seen, though it was a performance based on the ideas in Randerson's Secret Art Powers book, but one in which she gave a woman in the front row a set of bells to jingle "whenever there's a metaphor", so sort of chaotic and freewheeling as well as having a structure.
Below are a number of statements which I hope I jotted down accurately to give a flavour of what I'm calling "The Jo Randerson Artist Manifesto":
Art powers are opposite to the Patriarchy (that thing we thought was on the way out but is making a comeback)
The more knowledge you have the less fundamentalist you are.
Humans are like the fruit of Planet Earth.
"Live" is the power of being together.
Deleting Facebook is 40% as effective as going to therapy.
Art isn't the truth but it reveals the truth.
Our feelings need to blow through us like the wind through a house.
It is okay to look at things and not know what is going on.
Dogmatic, unfounded belief is dangerous...but if we don't believe that something is possible, it's not.
Imagination is a kind of futuristic lying.
Meta is the fifth horse of the apocalypse.
The power of moss - the oldest surviving plant - is that it quietly and softly persists.
In amongst all this was reaching under seats to find an envelope with a statement for the audience member holding it to read out, the throwing of red streamers by the front row (but not yours truly because I was too busy taking notes) to simulate the many deaths at the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and yes, the pink boots did get put on.
At the end Randerson exited into the bar area inviting audience members to come as say hi afterwards but I am unfortunately already late for my next WORD event, so I did not get the opportunity to thank Randerson for their energy and ideas and to compliment them on the boots.
More
Jo Randerson
- ‘I consider myself a bastard clown’: Jo Randerson’s secret art power, The Spinoff
- The Curious Five: Myth, change and ethical orcas Another WORD event featuring Jo Randerson
Secret Art Powers by Jo Randerson
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