Graham originally studied to be a scientist and gained a Master of Agricultural Science degree at the University of Sydney . His extra-curricular interests included jazz ballet and modern dance, trumpet, and English literature. Eventually he succumbed to his passion for the arts and left both his science career and Australia in 1971, to pursue a professional career in dance and theatre overseas. His dance and choreographic skills were honed when he became a member of London 's renowned Ballet Rambert, and later in the vibrant dance scene of New York . He returned to Australia at the beginning of 1975 and formed Kinetic Energy Dance Company in May that year. It was the only contemporary dance company in Eastern Australia at the time, and made its debut in October 1975 at the Seymour Centre for the Arts in Sydney . Mary Emery commented in The Australian:
”The Kinetic Energy Dance Company are likely to be a force to reckon with in modern dance... Certainly on the basis of this programme Graham Jones their artistic director reveals an important talent as a choreographer/dancer.”
In the next ten years Graham and his company wrote some colorful pages in the history of dance in Australia . Graham established the first warehouse space in Sydney 's CBD as a permanent home for his company, just behind the Anthony Hordern department store at Liverpool Street , setting the fashion for artists cooperatives to occupy warehouses in downtown Sydney . This was a lively section of the city with a healthy mix of rag trade businesses, restaurants and off beat niche shops like Jazz Garter. For a while the area was affordable to live and work in, friendly to a vibrant cross section of the community, with a Left Bank atmosphere which Premier Bob Carr later promised to regenerate but failed to deliver.
Graham saw education and audience development as the keys to sustaining the company's work in the area of new dance. Within five years the company was touring annually for eleven weeks, teaching and performing at schools and universities, and giving public performances on a circuit that linked Adelaide , Melbourne , Sydney and Brisbane . And the company's Liverpool Street warehouse space had become a lively centre for dance study, apprenticeships and informal performances in Sydney . Desley Gardiner, writing in the December issue of Dance Australia , caught up with the company in September 1980 at the Cement Box Theatre in Brisbane :
“Kinetic Energy are to be congratulated for the high standard of their work. Companies of this calibre are a must if modern dance in Australia is to develop and grow.”
In 1984, after seeing the company at the Open Stage in Melbourne , American dancer Lenny Choice wrote in the September issue of Dance Australia :
“The work of the Kinetic Energy Dance Company is humanistic, intelligent and thoughtful. I enjoyed this company because of its strong individual identity, its quality of work and its fortitude in carrying on despite harsh financial difficulties.”
By that time, warehouse space in the inner city was at a premium and developers had their eyes on the Liverpool Street premises.
Graham had now been joined to share in the company's artistic direction by the Dutch actress and director Jepke Goudsmit . Jepke had studied at the Theatre Academy in Amsterdam and at the Mecca for modern actors at the time: Grotowski's Theatre Laboratory in Poland . From 1975 until 1983 she had been a core member of the International Theatre Research Group KISS, led by Jean-Pierre Voos. KISS was renowned for its original interpretations of classics such as the Greek Oresteia and Dante's Divine Comedy, and for its innovation in physical theatre. As well as performing many leading roles, Jepke also taught, directed & choreographed for KISS, and toured extensively in Europe , USA and Australia . On one such tour she met Graham Jones. She migrated to Australia , Jepke and Graham married, and soon there were two daughters exploring the studio floor.
In 1985, they relocated to a new space at the southern end of King Street , Newtown , which had the potential to become a flexible open-space studio theatre. With the help of some government subsidy in 1989, the renovations and fire & safety work to obtain a theatre and public halls licence were completed. The new venue was baptised THE EDGE as a home base for the company and as a low budget haven for practitioners in the performing arts. Merging their individual dance and theatre backgrounds, Graham and Jepke renamed the company KINETIC ENERGY THEATRE COMPANY .
Their vision was to create a company of skilled interdisciplinary performers, dedicated to ongoing training, research and creation. They launched an annual programme of performance seasons, collaborations with guest artists, educational work and apprenticeship schemes. They also initiated exchanges within the arts community, most notably through their ONE WITH AT LEAST ANOTHER series.
But in 1990, all funding was cut and they could no longer support an extensive ensemble. They restricted creation and performance to themselves, and continued collaboration with visual artists and musicians on major projects. In December that year, Richard Glover, SMH columnist and radio announcer at the ABC, was moved to say this about their work:
“Jones and Goudsmit are among the very few in Sydney who are still burning the flame of experimental theatre in this increasingly inclement climate. Theatre which works deeply to uncover truths. Which is experimental in the best sense of the word. It is joyful work with a texture, intelligence and great sense of energy and life. There is sincerity where one has often found snake oil, intellectual coherence where one has often found mere pretension. This is an emperor who does have clothes.”
So what is their work about and what inspires it? Paul McGillick, theatre critic for the Australian Financial Review, put it this way in 1992:
“Three things make their work special: First, it tackles the things that really matter - life, death and the interval in between. Then it does so in a theatrical language which is just right rather than just fashionable, just accessible or just pretty to look at. Finally, it does what it does well.”
And in 1993, Brian Hoad, theatre critic for The Bulletin, had this to say after attending a retrospective of the company's repertoire of works:
“One of the most haunting theatrical experiences for quite a while - theatre for those who can bear a little more reality than most; for those who enjoy a brush with the timeless moment, a glimpse of eternity and a sense of the stillpoint of the turning world... The compassion, humanity, warmth and humour of the performances defy the bleakness of the subjects in as subtle a merger of dance, drama, poetry, music and visual design as has ever explored the jungle of the Jungian world of the collective unconscious. They even sing beautifully.”
Hoad's concluding lines read even beter today:
“All bureaucratic arty farties at the Australia Council should attend at least a couple of the current cycles at The Edge. They may learn something about life as well as art.”
Apart from occasional project funding granted by the State Government and the Australia Council, Hoad's plea largely fell on deaf ears. But for another eight years KINETIC ENERGY kept the flame burning, doubling the size of their repertoire and expanding their schools and education programmes. Two international tours - to Amsterdam in 1995 and to Indonesia in 1996 - were embarked upon. And their ongoing events at THE EDGE in support of contemporary Australian performance were continued, most notably the DANCE ON THE EDGE series. In March 2000, in an article on the Company's retrospective season of seven works performed during that year, Jess Bell of Revolver Magazine said:
“An independent theatre company still operating after 25 years is practically a miracle.”
And the Sydney Morning Herald's John Shand, after attending the same retrospective, wondered:
“If there is anything Jones and Goudsmit cannot do”.
But in October 2001, their work was cruelly brought to a halt when a virtual near-death-experience occasioned by a particularly virulent form of reactive arthritis hospitalised Graham and left him partly crippled. They were forced to stop all operations at THE EDGE and vacated it in April 2002.
Fortunately Graham recovered sufficiently to begin a limited amount of performing and teaching again in the next year. And there was still unfinished business to deal with: the greatest lie in English literature!
Before Graham's illness, the pair had become intrigued by the controversy over the identity of William Shakespeare. They now picked up the thread and resumed work on their SHAKE-SPEARE project. The first two parts of this project premiered in 2004 at their new Sydney venue in St Luke's Church Hall, Enmore. Both plays (SHAKE-SPEARE Part 1 & 2) were then shown at Newcastle University , followed by an international tour to Baltimore (USA ) and the UK at the end of that year.
So where are they now and what will the future hold? After 33 years one wonders how much longer they can continue to do what they do, before time commits them to the usual fate reserved for “true national treasures of the performing arts”: the graveyard of anonymity, along with the real Shake-speare.
No sign of it yet! Moreover, they are mentoring the next generation and have begun the exciting process of nurturing young actors into a true ensemble (see CURRENT PROJECTS: SHAKE-SPEARE). Apart from this, Jepke and Graham regularly perform their most pertinent repertory pieces: WHO DIES? and UNDISCOVERED LAND - VOYAGE 2. Their most recent tours were of UNDISCOVERED LAND - VOYAGE 2 to Melbourne : at Monash University in 2007, and at La Mama's Carlton Courthouse in 2008 (see REPERTOIRE). They have also expanded their work for young audiences by writing and directing documentary theatre pieces on social justice issues (see CURRENT PROJECTS: VILLAGE SPACE).
And so the Company, led by Graham and Jepke, continues to create a place for itself that is culturally and socially relevant for the challenges and dynamics of today's world. |
