Icebreaker question. What’s your go-to spot in Ulladulla when you need some time away from it all to clear your head?

Where is your happy place?

Being a school teacher I’m surrounded by people all the time, constantly, which is great, but when I’m not ‘on’ or working it’s nice to have a solitary space.Connecting with the environment clears my head. My brain just goes all the time, non-stop, so when I am outside I can focus on other things and it helps channel my thoughts. The beach is important to me. Rennies beach, because it’s close to me, is probably my favourite. I also like the Heathland Reserve which is near my house and is beautiful just to walk through. It seems like every time I go in there there’s something new to see - a new critter or plant I’ve missed - it’s a really beautiful spot to sit, sketch, think and have ideas. 

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We are very lucky where we live. There are so many places we can go to unwind, which leads me to my next question. I read that you were originally from Canberra. When were you first introduced to Ulladulla and what influenced you to live here permanently?

We used to holiday here in the ’70s when I was a little tacker, and it didn’t look like it did now! There wasn’t too much here, except Funland and the ice creamery. We would come and stay at this little fibro beach house. As kids, we would go down diving in the sea pool and catch the blue swimmer crabs that were along the bottom. In the early morning, my uncle used to take me down to watch the fishing boats unload. I used to look forward to sitting on his lap and driving out to the lighthouse. He had a Datsun 120Y and I would control the steering wheel while he did the pedals. That was pretty fun. It was just this little quiet country town that we came to for holidays, so that’s my original experience of being here. My ridiculous parents didn't think of investing or buying land because they thought it would never take off, thanks Mum and Dad!
Later, when my parents separated, my dad took off to Tasmania and my Mum moved out to Cunjurong Point with her new business partner. I was still living in Canberra completing my Arts degree and working as an actor. I would come and visit them at Don Hearn’s cabins out on the headland at Cunjurong Point and I loved it so much. I thought it was a really good place to come and save money because I wanted to go overseas. I had a little caravan on the headland that I lived in. I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean every night, it was so beautiful. That’s where I learnt to surf and be a beach bum whilst doing a little bit of maintenance work on the cabins. I fell in love with the beach, the coast, the lifestyle and the pace of the community. I learnt to scuba dive and dived a lot! I just thought it was paradise.

So did they give you the space?

Yeah, we did hire it for a little while before we got our own venue. Beautiful big hall with a lovely outlook.
We put on a show called The Tin Forest in the building where Rivers used to be. It was beautiful because the show was set in a junkyard and we needed a space that looked like that, so we just left the building covered in pigeon crap. We wanted to create a really terrifying space that by the end of the show was organic, covered in plants and animals and came to life. That was the whole point of the show. A lot of people said to me they’d never seen anything like it in the town. It was really nice creating magic like that.

We have performed off the side of fishing trawlers, out of gum trees, off cranes, we have done the Blessing of the Fleet forever. I’ve always said I’m the only sober person in this town on Easter Sunday because one of the last things we did before the fireworks in the evening was twirl and breathe fire. Years ago I tried to get into the pub when I was much younger for a drink and the publican wouldn’t let me in! They thought I was pissed! I’d just finished a gig but they thought they could smell it on my breath but it was kerosine! He just said to me “Whatever you drink on your own time isn’t my business”.
 

It seems like you have lasting relationships with students either through the circus or through high school. 
Do you think this is due to the subjects you teach or more so a reflection of who you are as a person?

I think as a drama teacher your class is very much based on honesty and trust, you’ve got ensemble and storytelling, so there’s all of that. 

I think with the circus kids it’s because we would tour all over the state. We would go to Tooleybuc on the Vic border and we would stay at the school for a week. Teaching circus is hard work, really hard work, and we all rely on each other to have each other's backs and to take care of each other. To get to Tooleybuc is 10 hours, we would rotate seats and tell stories and talk about where we are in our lives and I would listen to the kids and they’d share where they would want to be. 

During my Master’s degree, when I was doing the case studies and interviewing kids, they’d say if it wasn’t for the circus I would have left school - I’m going to cry - *laughs…cries* and so I get really emotional about that. Particularly in the Bay because it's a really low socioeconomic area so a lot of the kids said if they didn't have me or the circus they would have left school. It’s pretty powerful. So I feel like I don’t know, I don’t want to say it's because of me. My circus partner Geoff is the other rigger and he has the same relationship. We are having a big reunion of 20 years of circus in the Bay out on his property. There must be 100 kids coming to that. When I think about some of them - oh my god - they were suicidal, their parents would say it's the only reason they've stayed in school, the only reason they got out of bed in the morning. Sometimes it's just having an adult believe in you. 
 

It’s the care factor - to have an adult say that they believe in you, they’re proud of you. It really makes a big difference.
 

And being able to express themselves and be on stage. For a lot of the kids, it was the first time they’ve had that reciprocal relationship with the audience which is based on trust. The audience gives them their energy, and they’re flying, it’s infectious. 

That's what you don't get with digital performances and digital media, but watching a live performance, especially with something like circus, it’s so visceral, you feel so alive. You can smell the popcorn, the sweat, the floor, the energy. For a lot of these kids, it’s the first time they’ve given everything and they've felt that sense of satisfaction, they’ve done something good today, particularly with a charity gig or workshop, and they feel really good about themselves. *laughs* bloody Claire making me cry!

I had to ask! 

I wanted to know if you can pinpoint when you decided you wanted to get circus into schools? 
 

Yeah, it was a combination of things. When I did my Master's degree at Charles Sturt University I had some beautiful, amazing, inspirational mentors. My supervisor was a man called Bill Blaikie, and he is an artistic genius and general all-around beautiful man. 

I learned from a company called The Welfare State which creates site-specific performances. They're very much about community and about celebrating spaces. They go into an area, say Ulladulla, talk to the local people, get some local stories, look at some local places and create an event that is specific to that spot. It’s about celebrating your environment and how that can change people’s perceptions of where they live. Instead of thinking, you’re stuck here, it’s a hole, you can look at it like it’s my home and what does it have to offer me? How can I celebrate it and redefine it?

I worked with a man who has since passed away Reg Bolton, god bless him. He is widely recognised as the father of community circus in Australia and circus royalty. He is the one that I think instilled the respect for circus as an art form and an understanding of what it can do for young people, their bodies and communities. He comes from a kind of difficult area in the UK. He looked at what circus did for youth at risk. How sometimes doing “risky” things, such as riding unicycles, juggling knives and breathing fire can give the kids the same adrenaline rush as doing something actually dangerous, like taking drugs or whatever, but they’re not going to end up killing themselves. I don’t even have enough time to tell you all the things he taught me, beautiful man. 

I think a combination of working with Bill, the Welfare State and Reg and bringing those things together in my head… When I went into schools I wanted to create site-specific events that utilised the school spaces. So instead of taking the school hall or drama space, I was like what do we have here? Courtyards, walkways, the agriculture plot, the oval. We were really lucky at the time that our Principal believed in us. We had students suspended from the air in the cola and coming through skylights. I mean we shaved the llamas and dressed them up with sparkly bow ties! We had kids fire twirling. We redefined the school spaces.

At the time, the school where I was, had quite a bad reputation. It was a very low socio-economic area and had a lot of difficulties between the staff and the students. We put the staff in the shows with the kids, we brought community artists in, and we invited parents into the schools. Again, there were a lot of parents that wouldn’t normally come into the school. I have an Indigenous background and so we were bringing in some Indigenous parents to do workshops with the kids who would perform in the show. A lot of those parents said to me they were scared to set foot in the school but now saw it in a whole new light. 

We left our lights, set and rig up in that school for two months and nothing was vandalised or destroyed because the kids had a sense of ownership and pride. It changed the face of the school. It became a yearly event and honestly the whole school, the staff, and everybody would be involved. That was my vision for the school productions.