Northern Territory

A couple of the other dancers had made the trek up Anzac Hill in Alice Springs to see the sun rise over the Alice. Although I have only a limited role in the current Bangarra tour I still didn't think it was a good idea to head off when we're doing full days in the theatre. The morning of our travel day to Darwin seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a trek. As with Castle Hill in Townsville, it seems like the only reasonable reaction to a big lump of rock is to climb it so at six in the morning I found myself rugged up and bleary-eyed walking in the pre-dawn darkness along the barren Todd River, racing to beat the Sun. Fingers frozen because I had neglected to pack my gloves and because I was holding my icy cold tripod in one hand.

But the effort was worth it. The streets of the Alice were slowly waking up and the sky was growing bluer and brighter. Three of the other dancers finally made it up the hill after me just in time to get front row seats for the daily spectacle, my tripod already set up and capturing the view and there were already a handful of random people also waiting around. A band of pink slowly swept across the sky to herald in the Sun, which finally emerged above the horizon as a piercing and brilliant glow. Several cameras suddenly went into action, including mine.

About an hour later we were back at the Alice Springs Resort tucking into a well-deserved hot breakfast, feeling energised from seeing such a glorious view. It was a good way to top off a pretty exhilarating few days in the Alice. The night before the company was receiving rapturous applause from an almost packed house at the Araluen Arts Centre. We even got a second curtain call, which is pretty special for a regional show. It was especially good because an hour prior to that there was serious drama going on backstage as the directors were trying to work out how to replace one of the dancers who had just received a blow to the nose and was off to get it checked out by a doctor. Conveniently enough DB has quite a big role in the second half including a solo that nobody else in the company had gotten around to understudying. None of this applied to me as I have such a reduced role in the show already but when the second half commenced there was quite a bit of anxiety as to how the show was going to go.

Half way through "String" there were a couple of strings in the wrong place. We were all able to work around them but it was clear that we were all on edge.

But once it was time for DB's solo, the anxiety started to lift as PT took to the stage. He had volunteered to improvise to fill in the time. It was both amazing and funny to watch from side stage, with the knowledge of the extremely late "casting change", just about the entire company were watching on the sides cheering him on as he proceeded to twist and turn to the music. The energy onstage had changed, it was another one of those amazing electric moments that I hadn't seen since Ground Force in Melbourne. And no one in the audience besides the directors were none the wiser.

In the space of half a day I had been blown away twice.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Alice Springs, Anzac Hill, Sunrise, Northern Territory, Clan

Sorry for not blogging for so long. I've been taking my time with a revamp of the whole thing. It's hopefully coming in the not too distant future...

One day they're stranded in Katherine because of it. Now they're forced to flee to Katherine because it's roaring into town in the most intense Cyclone that Australia has ever seen.

Water. There's too much of the stuff up north in the past month. Cyclone Monica is moving towards Darwin, with wind gusts reportedly up to 350km/h. It's been a crazy couple of weeks for the family up north but they don't seem to be too concerned by it all. But it's not going to hit until later on today and, since it's already crossed inland, it'll weaken by the time it gets to Darwin, if it ever does. But it looks pretty big.

Tags: Weather, Cyclone Monica, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

Update: she missed!

FLOOD ADVICE

ISSUED AT 3.30 PM THURSDAY 6 TH APRIL 2006.

At 3.05 pm the height of the Katherine River at the railway bridge was 18.89 metres and rising.

Water is flowing into the CBD from the Lindsay Street end but is expected to stabilize when the water level is on a par with the river level. It is not known what the exact level will be in the CBD when it stabilises, however it is expected to remain at that level for about 24 hours.

People, particularly those in low houses are advised that driving out of the Katherine North and Katherine South areas will not be possible for much longer.

We strongly advise to evacuate now.

Residents evacuating are advised to go to the Evacuation Centre at Casuarina Primary School in Casuarina Street.

People who wish to drive their own vehicles are strongly advised to leave them at the grain board yard opposite Dalgeteys in Crawford Street. A bus will then convey you to an evacuation centre. Pets can be left at the Council Depot beside Mitre 10.

People who have friends in higher areas are free to stay with them if they wish.

The next flood advice will be issued at 10.00 pm Thursday 6 th April 2006.

Road Report Number is 1800246199

The Katherine River is on the rise again. The parents, who own a shop on the main street and lost alot of stock in the 1998 Australia Day floods, say they're prepared: they've raised stuff up off the ground and moved the rest. Its been raining constantly and the water is still rising but hopefully it won't be as bad as the last big flood.

Tags: Katherine River, Northern Territory, Australia, Katherine, Flood.

The initial idea was for us to film and take photos for the latest Tourism Australia international ad campaign at Rainbow Valley last weekend but rain in the central desert forced the producers to delay the shoot. There was even a suggestion that the shoot would be moved to Uluru but the claypans of the valley had sufficiently dried out for us to proceed.

Which turned out to be a good thing. For no matter how spectacular the big red rock is, I’m glad we ended up coming to Rainbow Valley. With the expansive flatness of the cracked white claypans, it was an incredibly dramatic view and I guess it would have been far more preferable to be dancing on the soft white clay than the rough red dirt of Uluru. And the large sandstone formation had its own lighting tricks that, especially at dusk, would take our breath away.

Getting there was an ordeal, though. A three-hour flight from Sydney was followed by a bus trip that ended on a deafeningly rough stretch of dirt road. Every part of the bus rattled so noisily, and we were bouncing around in our seats. I again suffered from sinus problems from the aircraft’s air-conditioning and Telfast has simply stopped working two or three pills ago. But finally we spied what looked like a terrific bite out of the worn-down sandstone hills, which made the agony of travelling all worth it in the end. Interestingly enough it’s the less dramatic-looking hill to the south-east of the big bite that is the sacred site though there are some rocks around the main geological feature that are off-limits as well.

It was mid-afternoon on Friday when we started to prepare for the first photo shoot. The Sun was still quite brutal, the temperature was around the forty mark, and we were constantly being warned to drink water whenever possible. Nevertheless, the lack of moisture in the air made the conditions seem quite bearable; it was much more preferable than the horrible mid-thirties mugginess that we were experiencing at our Sydney studios over the last couple of weeks. Much later in the afternoon, just after sunset, the temperature became more comfortable but we then had to deal with the large number of flies which became a particularly bad problem when we had to hold poses for the camera.

Photo shoots are already an exhausting process, repetitive and exacting, but to do it in such harsh conditions was terribly draining. On Saturday we had a dawn photo shoot as well as an afternoon filming and by the end we were all delirious. The dawn photo shoot was particularly frustrating and by the end of it I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the filming, one would think that it would be harder. But, despite the added complexity of filming movement as opposed to capturing still moments, there were so many more people involved one would think that the process would be far harder to co-ordinate, it ended up being so much easier. The greater the logistical problem, the greater it is necessity of organization. What helped were the regular breaks to keep us fresh and hydrated, although I guess in this instance the dancers were not the central focus so we were only given quite general direction. Not only that but we had the extra adrenaline boost from having a helicopter flying over the top of us!

And all the way through, we couldn’t help but take our own photos of the landscape. It was certainly a great way to break in my new digital camera.

Tags: Bangarra, Dance, Rainbow Valley, Northern Territory, Commercial.

As seen in the most recent edition of Katherine Times:

The Borja family wish to thank the emergency services of Pine Creek for assisting our son on the Stuart Highway on Friday December 16. Special thanks to the other drivers on the highway that stopped to lend their support. Their good spirits have helped to ensure our Christmas will be happy.

Wonder what that was about?

Tags: Classifieds, Newspaper, Katherine Times, Thanks.

It's well past two hours into Christmas already. Santa has come and gone. I should hurry to bed so I can get up and unwrap some presents.

Merry Christmas!

With JPB and I separated by a few thousand kilometres, there's not very much "gay" happening at the moment. I'm on the phone to Sydney pretty much every night and I did catch up with FagInTheBush but that's about it. Talking. Oh, and telling JPB that I love him and I miss him and JPB being worried about me when I told him about the blowout.

I set up my parent's audiovisual centre a couple of days ago and used Kylie's Showgirl dvd to test it out. Okay so this is not necessarily a "gay" thing but you can't deny that Red Blooded Woman is dripping wet with homo, none of the male dancers seem at all concerned about Kylie and instead would rather flex their muscles at each other. mmm... muscles... Oh, and there's that Pet Shop Boys collaboration with Kylie about some guy who's In Denial.

And on the news I saw Elton John and partner (sorry, dude, for not knowing your name) get "together". Not officially "married", to be sure, but at least recognised and with legal rights to... something... well anyway it was a bit of a shock to hear Tony Blair comment on it, saying that he proud that Britain is taking this step forward, allowing gay civil partnerships to occur. Good on you. Had you not sent troops to Iraq you'd be my favourite pollie.

Tags: Gay, News, Northern Territory, Civil Union, Gay Marriage, Elton John.

Update: Watching more news. Dad grunted disapprovingly and I chirped that it was a good thing. Elton John and partner are currently the face of gay marriage (even though they aren't really married). Lots of talk about the estimated combined annual income of all the poofs in Great Britain and I'm thinking "what's that got to do with love?" Maybe it's because Mr and Mr Elton John aren't really married, which is about love (apparently), they're just "unified civilly", which is more about tax. Oh well, baby steps...

So the last couple of posts have been a touch morbid. So to make up for it, I've got some lovely pictures!

On the right is the main intersection of the town where I grew up. Nothing much has changed, except the traffic lights got put up after I left. Can you feel the heat and humidity? It was about 36C that afternoon and the clouds were threatening to burst; they didn't, though, it was just hot and muggy.
The dog's name is Badyou (pronounced "Badge-oo") he kinda looks cute in a scruffy kind of way. My parents also have goats, and they sure do like to pose!

And finally, here's a picture my Dad took. Seems like it's not just the people that like a good beer...

I just killed something and I'm a bit distressed! I'm still shaking.

It's quite late at night and everyone else has gone to bed. Earlier on the dogs had been barking at something in the shed. It was a rat. Dad got woken up by the dogs and sent me out with a torch and a spear to kill it. Extremely reluctant, I headed off into the garden, spotted the rat, speared... and missed. Though I scared it off which seemed to silence the dogs for a while.

But about an hour later the dogs stared barking again and sure enough the rat had reappeared, it's cute little eyes and it's furry little body... well anyway i took aim again, speared... BULLS EYE!

Unfortunately this wasn't quite enough to pierce the rat's body because the spear was blunt. Instead it was jammed up against the shed wall, letting out this cute little squeal as I tried to ram the prongs through. To no avail. The dogs were going wild by this stage and I was getting quite distressed, I had to prop the spear up against a gas cylinder to keep the rat from getting away so I could walk around to rev myself up. I took up the spear again, looked away and gave one almight shove and... nothing! The rat was wailing to high heaven by this stage and, seeing the bloody hungry dogs jumping around madly, I took the rat by its tail and dangled it in front of the biggest dog, which then ravenously snatched the little critter into it's mouth and finished the job.

... I think I need a lie down...

Tags: Rat, Kill, Spear, Dogs.