Lake Studios Berlin

Into the Deep is a multidisciplinary performance research project by Perth-based theorbo player and composer Matthew Jones and choreographer Talitha Maslin. The work inhabits the threshold between sound and movement, investigating the aural and kinesthetic dialogue between contemporary dance, theorbo, interactive electronics, and paper as both material and collaborator.
Paper functions simultaneously as image, instrument, and question. It evokes natural phenomena — constellations trembling in distant space, leaves relinquished to gravity — while inviting reflection on sustainability, utility, and cycles of consumption and renewal. Through this fragile medium, the performance explores tensions between strength and delicacy, permanence and disappearance, control and unpredictability.
Talitha and Matthew will explore this collaboration remotely between Berlin and Perth.

Reflecting on the first half of my LAKE Studio residency

Today I did not want to get out of bed. Yesterday I received the devastating news that my beautiful Mallee Bear, the red heeler dog who has cuddled and loved me for 12 years has left her earthly body and gone to live with angels. Last night while struggling to sleep I started to feel her fur on my skin, the warmth of her body on the back of my leg where she would often sleep. I woke up and she was here, in my arms, following me to the kitchen to see what I was eating for breakfast (and to see if she could have some to). Just like normal. I sat in my loft bed, watching the flock of little birds frolicking in the trees and noticed the first spring blossoms of green on the shrub in the garden. I saw Mallee sitting there in the yard, watching the birds with me. I know this is my dreaming, but I feel her spirit here with me. This experience is soulful, it is connecting me to my spirits, my dreams, my guardian angels. Much like the work I am making. Paper transforming and transporting me to the dream world. To universes beyond this realm. It replicates natural forms, rivers, oceans, lakes, mountains and waterfalls, clouds and snow, but as it slowly transforms as I take intuitive actions, it transports me beyond this world and carries me to the world of dreams.

Why are dreams important? This question has arisen for me as I reckon with decisions and choices in pursuit of the dream. Our capacity for dreaming often feels it outweighs our capacity to be resilient in the choppy seas of vulnerability. Staying grounded and centred when we are delivered with news that is sure to knock us off balance and question everything we believe is difficult, but not impossible.

In these two weeks I have been through a gauntlet of emotion – Week one I was met with severe imposter syndrome, leading to doubt and a feeling like I can’t do this, like the goals I have for the work I am creating are a fool’s dream. I sit patiently and wait for inspiration to come, ideas I have ruminated on for years when considering turning the short work, one I felt has the most potential to connect with a universal audience, leave me feeling paralysed. Maybe there are too many options, maybe the ideas are better left as dreams, how can I make them happen alone? Then I remember I am not alone. Matthew sends me some sounds and his own dreams about the work and I feel connected again. I find drive, motivation, I can cut through the noise of doubt and insecurity and find my focus. In week two I start to find the rhythm, time in the studio feels like its passes quicker, almost as though I don’t have enough time, I ask myself why I wasted it in week 1, because it’s so easy, it is where I am meant to be.

Then she dies, my heart ripped from my chest. I try to dance, the dance turns into a spiral, taking me to the floor, collapsing in a pool of tears. Eyes swollen, face red, all I can do is breathe through it. I decide to give up, I want to stay in bed, but again, I am not alone. My biggest supporters are there and I feel their love. I consult the people who always know the right thing to say to help bring me back on course, and they do. I remember Mallee, how she would lay resting until the moment arose to go for a play, the clock ticks to the time I have booked in the calendar, I pull myself out of the bed, get my dancing shoes on. I am ready to go play, for her.

So here I am now, writing, my reem of paper waiting, rolled and ready for me to play with it. But maybe today is less about play and more about writing. I have always promised myself that if I was to get my dream to have international artist residency, I would do the things I am bad at because I would have the time and writing is one of them. I have never been a big writer, although I have had many people say journalling is good for you, I don’t know why, I have attempted and failed repeatedly. But as all my friends remind me to go gently, particularly now in my grief, maybe it is the moment for me to recognise that the way I write, the way I reflect, the way I make, the way I dance and the time it takes is enough. Maybe the time is now to give myself compassion and love in a way I never have before. Maybe that is the most important learning I will take from this residency. Afterall, this residency is a step towards and does not need to end with a fully polished product. I hope that will come, but maybe this mess, this connection to spirit, love and dreaming is the perfect undertones for the work. Even if I don’t unroll the paper today, the fact I showed up and let myself dream, gave myself grace for feeling low is enough, and this low time will bring a surge of energy as I move into the next two weeks that will bring surprises and a joy I couldn’t have predicted. Maybe that is what I needed, to set the intention to figure out how to move with my sadness and grief to find joy.

I have made several works which look at climate before, all of which felt they led to despair. I want this one to feel different. I guess that is connected to how I respond to my trails now. Questioning in how to move with grief to find hope, to enjoy the beauty of the moment, the beauty in the world around us. Drawing attention to sparkling waters of beauty rather than being caught in the cyclone of despair. How to treasure what we have before we lose it, because death is an inevitable part of life, life is precious, as are our dreams.

Reflections on the second half of my residency.

Every morning I have been waking in my loft bed and peering out the window as the sun rises over the garden, in this peaceful space of quiet reflection I grieve not only my dog but my past self. In this moment of loss, I am figuring out how to ground my body-mind-soul when I feel like the entire world has been flipped.

I enter the studio at the beginning of week 3 and feel I finally break through the imposter syndrome and find myself present in the room. I need this presence otherwise I become overwhelmed with tears. I find many beautiful expressive moments and a full cathartic release as I tear up the 10m roll of paper I had previously been so careful not to damage as I wanted to make it last and play with its full dimension in the space. Now it has broken apart, the sound so vivid, however I wasn’t recording it, so it was only for me. With the paper in multiple pieces, I move into more experimental territory, different lengths and fragments, crunching, ripping, and a skirt which becomes a metaphor for autumn leaves falling, a poetic lamentation, a reflection on the necessary loss in life. The paper naturally forms a scroll shape, a parchment, reminiscent of the ancient music Matthew is arranging for the work. Krista sends me their recording of Ancor che col Partaire, it feels amazing to dance to the recording, I feel their breathe, their harmony, and most importantly of all, I feel a connection to home.

Adding further complication to my already turbulent experience, I pinch a nerve in my ankle while walking by the lake. This pain has been on and off for quite a while, sciatic nerve tension, sometimes debilitating in my hip or knee, but I believe it has finally intensified in my ankle so I can really heal. Although, it means that I am basically unable to move for 3 days. Lucky the paper is there, the installation is there, the dreaming and imagery is there to keep me feeling engaged with the work I am set to create. In my inability to move, I take stock of my process thus far, and reflect on all my experiments to pull together a collection of images to present for Unfinished Friday.

I am grateful to be accompanied by the wonderful Tom in the studio for a few days, his assistance with the lights and sound was invaluable as I created the performance iteration for this residency. So many times I would be in a moment and taken out of it when needing to change the lights or sound, having the assistance meant I could fully enter the states of performance I needed to and feel how the performance was as a journey.

Unfinished Friday

For the sharing, I decided to use all the sections that reflected on time and rolling / unrolling of paper. The scroll, the flag and the fan being the most prominent, while a paper creature emerged which was reflected to me as evoking images of a renascence sculpture, the grim reaper and an ancient deity. After spending so much time alone, to share the work and receive such a wonderful response from the audience was so validating. I had a week during the residency where I didn’t want to see anyone or be seen by anyone, so I am extremely grateful for the supportive audience during the sharing, from such a vulnerable state, I was able to transcend and immerse myself in the landscape I created, and it gave me the validation to keep going, that my instinct that this work should be my first full length production was correct.

I will continue the work next week at RAUM 33 – Tanz Company Gervasi in Vienna. I feel ready to go deeper, In to the Deep, and will be forever grateful for my time in residency at the LAKE Studio.