Building an understanding of Grief from an Indigenous Cultural Perspective with Maree Clarke

In this workshop internationally renowned artist, Maree Clarke, will speak about mourning practices of South Eastern Australia. In particular, she will focus on the practice of wearing Kopi mourning caps.

Participants will first listen to a talk and then be guided through a process of experiencing clay headwear (Kopi) to support a deepened understanding of Aboriginal culture and the connections between arts and emotional well-being. The workshop will address ‘Sorry Business’, with the greatest respect.

The Kopi mourning cap represents loss, sorrow and grief. Aboriginal women would cut off their hair, weave a net of emu sinew and place the sinew on their head. They’d then cover it with several layers of gypsum, a white river clay, forming the Kopi. These Kopi could weigh up to 7kg and were a signifier of the wearer being in a state of grief. There is documentation of men also wearing the Kopi mourning cap. Women wore the Kopi from two weeks to six months depending on their relationship to the deceased. At the end of their mourning period the Kopi was taken off and placed on the grave of their deceased loved one.

In this workshop the wearing of the Kopi will be done with respect and reverence for the revitalisation of this mourning practice, within a contemporary context. Men and women are encouraged to attend.

Maree Clarke is a well-respected figure of the south-eastern Australian Aboriginal community for not only her inspirational work supporting Aboriginal artists but also for her own successful career as a visual artist. In her practice she works to revive elements of Aboriginal culture that were lost in the period of colonisation and use art as a tool to heal some of our country’s deepest wounds.

Deep Listening and Compassion with Frank Ostaseski

Frank Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer and a leading voice in contemplative end-of-life care. 

In 1987, he co-founded of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. In 2004, he created the Metta Institute to provide innovative educational programs and professional trainings that foster compassionate, mindfulness-based care. 

A primary project of Metta Institute® is the End-of-Life Practitioner Program that Frank leads with faculty members Ram Dass, Rachel Naomi Remen MD, and others. 

Frank is a dynamic, original, and visionary teacher. His public programs throughout the United States and Europe have introduced thousands to the practices of mindful and compassionate care of the dying, In 2001, Frank was honored by the Dalai Lama for his years of service to the dying and their families. In 2003, he was named one of America's 50 most innovative people in America by the AARP magazine.

"The reflection on death is life-affirming. When we come into contact with the precariousness of life, we also begin to appreciate how precious it is, and then we want to live more fully."

His groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the Bill Moyers television series On Our Own Terms, the PBS series With Eyes Open, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in numerous print publications. Frank has served as a consultant to several healthcare organizations, NGO's and foundations including Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Fetzer Institute and others. Frank is also the author of the Being A Compassionate Companionaudio series.

Frank and the Dalai Lama share a laugh

Frank has been a keynote speaker and consultant for hundreds of educational, healthcare, spiritual institutions and programs including: 

• Harvard Medical School. Boston, MA.
• University of California, Berkeley, CA.
• Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MI.
• Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH.
• Duke University, Durham, NC.
• University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg Germany
• Project on Death in America, New York, NY.
• Sloan Kettering Medical Center, New York, NY.
• American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Glenview, Il.
• National Hospice & Palliative Care Association, Alexandria, VA.
• Fetzer Instititute, Kalamazoo, MI
• Naropa Institute, Boulder, CO.
• Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA
• Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, CA.
• Upaya Zen Center, Being with Dying Program, Santa Fe, NM
• Sacred Art of Living, Bend,OR.
• RIGPA International, Germany, England, France, Switzerland
• National Hospice Association, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Unicorn Association & College of Medicine Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
• Numerous State and Local Hospice organizations

Meditation and Visualisation with Libby Moloney and Annie Whitlocke

The Doorway To An End of Life Vision

Together we will use meditation and visualisation techniques to create a vision of the end of our own lives. In safety and whilst being deeply held by experienced practitioners, participants will be invited to then explore the many elements of end of life, after death and funeral care currently available in Australia. 

With a focus on creativity, innovation and the sacred, we will create an authentic, sustainable and beautiful plan for your own care or for someone you love. Together Libby and Annie will guide you to the other side. You will depart the workshop feeling more empowered to choose creatively and authentically at end of life.

Libby Moloney is the founder of Natural Grace Holistic Funeral Directors, Chair of It Takes A Village Compassionate Communities Inc. and a founding committee member of the Natural Death Advocacy Network Inc. With extensive experience assisting families to care for their own dead, Libby will gently guide you through the myriad of choices, laws and possibilities in the end of life space. 

Annie Whitlocke is a spiritual care worker, volunteer Buddhist chaplain and death doula. Annie will guide participants through a meditative and visualisation experience to create a safe and fertile ground from which fears can be explored, profound understanding can grow and of end of life choice can be harvested.

When Someone You Love Is Dying with Julie Hassard

Accompanying a loved one to their death is an unfamiliar expedition in our predominantly death-phobic society.

Thrust into the mysterious world of dying and death without preparation for what’s ahead, the living can struggle through the fog, stumble clumsily within alien surroundings and ride the emotional whirlwind with heavy hearts and clouded minds.

Paying attention to the future death of someone we love can be unimaginable. Yet ignoring the inevitable stifles opportunities to explore emotional, spiritual, physical and other crucial concepts, while they’re alive.

This workshop taps into our own mortality. It offers gentle guidance and practical perspectives to help equip those who will ultimately travel by the side of a loved one, to their death. That’s most of us.

By her mid-40s Julie Hassard had walked with loved ones to their deaths, arranged five funerals for family members, struggled significantly along the way and learnt a lot about the silences and the systems that surround dying and death.

She believes that through exploring our concerns about death we can cultivate greater confidence and contribute to improving our collective approach towards better experiences of the end of life, dying, death and beyond.

A former nurse with a Master’s degree in Social Science, Julie Hassard led many public health programs, campaigns and health promotion initiatives over the past few decades, and worked closely with people living with and dying from cancer. Her Doing Dying Better programs help those working close to life’s end, build their curiosity, courage and their confidence to improve end of life experiences – for the people they care for, and importantly, for themselves.

20th Century Poetry and Philosophy with Peter Banki, Ph.D

In this workshop we are going to depart by reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s last unfinished poem: “Come you, you last one” and Maurice Blanchot’s very short novel “The Instant of my Death”, which recounts an ecstatic experience of death at the hands of the Nazis at the end of World War II. These will open the space for a discussion of four of the most influential theses on death and dying in twentieth century Western philosophy:

1. Our unconscious, which is to say, the greatest part of our psyche, does not know or believe in death (Freud);

2. Understanding that our death is possible is the condition for any authentic selfhood and historical existence (Heidegger);

3. Our relation to our death is firstly through the other, whose death has a philosophical and ethical priority (Levinas);

4. Our relation to ourselves is a priori posthumous; anticipatory mourning is the fundamental condition for any relation to ourselves and others (Derrida).

Time permitting there will also be consideration of the Zen tradition of writing a haiku at the moment of death.

Peter Banki, Ph.D is the founder and director of the Sydney Festival of Death and Dying. He is a scholar, artist, festival producer and teacher. He publishes and teaches mostly in the fields of continental philosophy from 18th Century to the present. He is also the founder and director of the Sydney Festival of Really Good Sex. 

He holds a Ph.D in German Studies from New York University (September, 2009). His book The Forgiveness to Come: The Holocaust and the Hyper-Ethical is forthcoming with Fordham University Press. He is an associate member of the Philosophy Research Initiative at Western Sydney University. 

Human Rooms with Efterpi Soropos

HUMAN ROOMS™ is an immersive experiential concept that can assist participants to reduce stress, induce relaxation and meditative states within a peaceful and harmonious environment that is self directed. 

The combination of content - video, sound and colour lighting sequences - are developed to suit the needs of the participant group and is influenced by research, place space, preference, embodied memories, biophilia and 25 years experience of designing performing arts environments. The content is delivered by a system which allows the participants to have control and engage with a variety of options. The interior architecture of the room is designed to absorb and reflect the sensory content and create an atmosphere that enables participants to re connect with themselves and the environment presented in the room.

Efterpi Soropos is a Visual Artist and Designer. With a background in performing arts lighting design, Efterpi has spent many years fascinated by the way combinations of light, sound and image can affect audiences, guiding them through spectrums of emotion and sensation. When her mother Evangalia, died of breast cancer in 1995 a process began that both devastated and enlightened her to research and develop sensory concepts that would create a better perception of space and environment through the senses for vulnerable people.  

As part of her Masters Research, Efterpi began a creative partnership with Monash Medical Centre as Artist in Residence in 2007, to research the effects of the interior environments of hospitals in palliative care units on patients. Following on from her research Efterpi developed an immersive interactive artwork in 2008 called the ‘Disambiguation Room’ housed in McCulloch House, Inpatient Palliative Care Unit at Monash Medical Centre, Clayton,Victoria. The aim of the project was to discover how effective the artwork would be in reducing anxiety, stress, fear and pain for patients and families. The room is now a permanent multifunctional art space and received the Primary Care Award, Australian Arts and Health Awards in 2009.

Human Rooms™ was established in 2008. Since then Efterpi has continued research and development of the Human Rooms™ concept as an effective interior/spatial and therapeutic intervention for psychological relief of the symptoms of stress, fear and anxiety during mental, chronic or terminal illness. 

In February 2014, Efterpi completed a Churchill Fellowship investigating various art programs and Dementia design in culturally specific settings to solidify the work of Human Rooms™ in aged care. As a result of this fellowship Efterpi has collaborated with Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria and Opaque Multimedia as the artistic consultant, to develop a new innovative experiential game for people living with Dementia as well as developing new systems, programs and apps that will utilise the Human Rooms(TM) for greater accessibility for residential aged care and the wider community.

The Funeral Ceremony: History, Poetry and the Eulogy with Remi and Dally Messenger

Rituals honouring the dead have existed for millennia. In contemporary Australia, these farewells were mostly organized by religious groups, and had very little personal content about the deceased. They were reassuring to believers while almost irrelevant to those who had no heart connection to the church, the mosque or the temple.  In the late 1970s celebrant funerals began to happen in Australia and suddenly family was allowed to help create these ceremonies themselves for their loved ones.  Yet learning how to create authentic, meaningful ceremonies of depth and substance took time. Most did not really know what to do.  Even today, there is a wide disparity between those who embrace the planning of their own funeral or for their loved ones, and those who find the whole subject terrifying and repelling, the ones who say “no one should cry at my funeral.”

Remi and Dally Messenger will briefly review the history of modern death rites, and then introduce the elements of a memorable and beneficial funeral. Funeral ceremony planning can be exquisite relief to the dying and a thoughtful, deep ceremony can assist the grieving process with grace for survivors and friends. You will receive some guidelines and a chance to begin writing your own eulogy, perhaps a confronting task. 

Dally Messenger III is a writer, speaker and pioneer of the Civil Celebrant movement. He has performed thousands of ceremonies including weddings, funerals and namings. His book Ceremonies and Celebrations, now in its fourth edition, is the classic text for understanding and planning rites of passage. He has also written Murphy’s Law and the Pursuit of Happiness: A History of the Civil Celebrant Movement.

He is the grandson of Rugby League great Dally Messenger and author of The Master, first published history of League in Australia.

From 1979 to 1990 he was founding publisher/editor of Dance Australia – still the most successful independent performing arts magazine in Australia. In 2008, he won the Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance presented at the Melbourne Arts Centre.

 In 2000-2002, he was instrumental in beginning civil celebrancy in the United States where he met Remi.  He is currently Principal of the International College of Celebrancy based in Melbourne.

Remi Barclay Messenger was a founding member of three prominent professional theatre companies in the New York City area – The Performance Group (l967-70, Dionysus in 69), Whole Theatre (1971-1990) and Voices of Earth (1988-2000), the latter two with Olympia Dukakis. Before moving to Australia in 2003, Remi was full-time arts therapist (RDT) in Psychiatry at St. Barnabas Medical Center, New Jersey. Her theatre work included years of acting, directing and teaching as well as creating workshops for a wide spectrum of institutions, schools and universities.  She became a marriage and funeral celebrant working with her husband, Dally.

Recovering Tradition: Rituals of Laying Out and Vigil with Annie Bolitho

This one and a half hour workshop with end of life practitioner Annie Bolitho of Kinship Ritual brings participants into the space of caring for someone after they’ve died, in the familiar surroundings of home. We’ll warm up to what matters, through introductions in the group, explore background on the practice of vigils and of helping families who want to stay at home. How do we sit with the dead, journey with the dead? We’ll enter into the quiet of ritual and look at various techniques that enable cooling, closing with an opportunity to join in questions and facilitated discussion. 

Living with Grief with Greg Roberts, Ph.D

It’s common after a loss or a death to feel very stressed, confused and tired.  If the loss or death happened in a sudden or traumatic way, like a suicide, disaster or an accident, then the stress, confusion and tiredness can be overwhelming. It is possible to be able to cope with these events, but sometimes it’s hard to know if you or other people affected are doing OK.

There is no single ‘right way’ to deal with grief and trauma – everyone’s different and needs different things.  But some know-how, good strategies and having a person to be a sounding board can be really helpful at times like this. This experiential and interactive workshop will provide some ideas that might be useful to you or someone you know.

Greg Roberts is a Doctor of Philosophy (Grief and Bereavement) and an accredited Social Worker with specialisation in the field of grief, bereavement and trauma. He founded a suicide bereavement support group in 2004 and co-founded the Suicide Prevention Awareness Network (SPAN) in Victoria in 2008. He is Clinical Operations Manager for SIDS and Kids and the Founder and Director of the Grief & Trauma Support service in Geelong, Victoria. Greg has been an adult educator for more then 25 years and is now the Trainer for CEP’s new Grief, Loss and Bereavement 2 year training, the only existentially-informed grief and loss training pathway in Australia

A Panel on Faith and the Afterlife: A Panel with Reem Sweid, Rabbi Allison Conyer and Dally Messenger

In this interfaith panel we will explore how faith and the afterlife is thought about in Islam, Judaism, Christianity and agnosticism.

Active Yielding with Alice Cummins

Yielding is a release into gravity as well as space. It brings us to a place of deep stillness and rest supporting recuperation for our nervous system and the potential transformation through surrender. In this workshop, Alice will guide participants through the experiential embodiment of ‘yielding’ – a Body-Mind Centering® principle that actively explores our relationship to gravity and space. Through our relationship with gravity we find our relationship with space. These yielding states impact every cell in our body. Yielding supports us finding connection and presence both within ourselves and in the relational field with others.

‘Living better’ in the ways proposed by the philosopher Whitehead is to find ways that are more satisfying. How we yield affects how we attend and discern. These are qualities to be harnessed for our everyday life and dying is part of that everyday.

Alice Cummins MA, is a dance artist, Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner and Movement Educator (ISMETA). She has been researching and teaching her work nationally and internationally for over twenty years. Her process creates an environment of refined somatic awareness and generates engagement and embodied intelligence within a community of shared inquiry. Alice’s approach is accessible to people from diverse backgrounds.

Alice’s performance career has given her the privilege of working with many wonderful artists across different artforms. She has collaborated with musicians, writers, visual artists and filmmakers. Her solo work has been performed at PICA (Perth Institute of Performing Arts); Performance Space, Sydney; and Dancehouse, Melbourne. Alice has a twenty-year history of creating improvisational performances and has a commitment and love of this compositional form.

Body-Mind Centering® https://bmcassociation.org is an embodied approach to learning, living and knowledge making. Workshops include experiential anatomy guided movement and touch, and experiential anatomy. BMCSM invites change that is an integration of your physical, psychological, intellectual and imaginative life. Alice studied Body-Mind Centering® with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in the United States, 1995-98.

http://www.alicecummins.com

Dressing For Death with Pia Interlandi

Pia Interlandi is a fashion designer whose work often incorporates death as a scientific and psychological concept. She has a particular interest in textile manipulation and garment transformation, informed by her fascination with human biology and time spent in Japan under the instruction of Yoshiki Hishinuma. As an undergraduate in RMIT’s Bachelor of Design in Fashion, she began dissecting garments ‘autopsy-style’ and experimenting with dissolvable fabrics as a method of exploring life’s transient qualities. This became the basis of her current PhD study at Melbourne’s RMIT University, entitled [A]Dressing Death: Fashioning Garments for the Grave . However it was when her grandfather died in 2008 and she dressed him for his funeral that her work began to move away from metaphor and began to engage in the realities of death. At this point she also trained to become a certified funeral celebrant.

One Million Years with Hayley West

The title 1 million years is derived from a simple childhood phrase from my daughter, her monumental exaggeration of devotion: ‘I will love you for a million years!’ A commitment that will endure from the grave.

I lay motionless on a bench in a concrete grotto in Katoomba, a melancholy and intimate space for the contemplation of one’s own mortality. My then 4 year-old daughter, Ramona, caringly shrouds my body with sarongs, symbolic of my past life (and her birth) in Darwin. I remain still throughout. As the shrouding progresses my head eventually too is covered and I am forced to succumb to blindness and abandon all control. The act of remaining still or playing dead symbolically infers a death; in reality I would not get up if I were dead. I had become silent, an absent mother. As cicadas are capable of ‘resurrection’ they became an apt metaphor for immortality. While Ramona plays with the exoskeletons by the lake we can perhaps lament that one day she will discover that she is in fact mortal. She must separate from her mother and individuate in order to thrive before she takes her final breath.

StartFragmentHayley West, 2014

Digital moving image; duration 6 minutes 36 seconds

Directed by: Asha Richardson

Filmed and Edited by: Peta Khan & Leigh Bramall, Maitree HouseEndFragment   

Hayley West’s practice relates to a lived awareness of death and memorial, working with sculpture, video, performance and installation. Her research explores the realities of grief through personal experiences and artistic practice, focusing on the inevitability of one’s own death and the impact on those remaining. Hayley has a Masters by Research (visual art) from Charles Darwin University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (sculpture) from RMIT and has exhibited nationally for over 15 years.

Residencies include: Waaw Studios, Saint-Louis, Senegal; ACME Studios, London UK – Australia Council for the Arts; Cité Internationale des Arts Studio, Paris France – Art Gallery of NSW; Hill End Artists in Residence Program – Bathurst Regional Art Gallery NSW; and Lost Generation Space Artist in Residence Program, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Awards include: Australian Post-Graduate Scholarship (APA); Ian Potter Cultural Trust Travel Grant - Ian Potter Foundation; Janet Holmes à Court Grant - NAVA; Volunteer Service Officer Coordinator appointment Australian Pavilions, Venice Biennale Italy - Australia Council for the Arts; Professional Development Grant & Presentation & Promotion Grant - Arts NT; New Work Emerging Artists Grant - Australia Council for the Arts.

Hayley runs the studio/death shop The Departure, is a Death Literacy Advocate, member of the Natural Death Advocacy Network and has co-hosted Death Cafés since 2014 in the Blue Mountains, Canberra, Senegal and now Castlemaine.EndFragment  

Share My Coffin with Alan Schacher

In this role-playing workshop, based on Alan’s solo performance Share my Coffin, we imagine and enact the idea that one is in their own coffin being not ready (unprepared) for death and departure, with things left unsaid or yet to say, conversations yet unfinished, feedback not heard.

In their respective roles, workshop participants will take turns to lie in a simple coffin and speak with those gathered around who witness and support them by taking on significant roles, listening and/or responding as stand-ins, representing those with whom there may be unfinished business and issues.

Alan Schacher is a contemporary performance-maker: a director, choreographer, designer, performer and installation artist, whose focus is on spatial experience and bodily mediation. An undercurrent of cultural landscapes and diasporic references, both imagined and inherited, form significant motifs in his work. He has developed an architectural approach to the interpretation of sites and use of materials which is carried through in ensemble performance, solo dance, video, installation and performance art. The body is a primary means and reference point in his work, which also employs large sets and spatial manipulation to realise projects, most of which involve a major collaboration by an artistic team.

With over 25 years experience, he was the founder of the Performance Ensemble Gravity Feed (1992-2004) he conceived and designed most of the company’s works and performed in them all. He also formed G.R.I. in 2000 and this is his current production company. As a dancer he was influenced by the methods of Butoh dancer Min Tanaka, with whom Alan trained and performed in Japanfrom 1989-91. Alan was recipient of the NSW Helpmann Scholarship for Dance in 1994, and completed an MFA at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW in 2000. He lives in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

b. 1952

Closing Outdoor Ceremony and Curated Feast

The Inaugural Melbourne Festival of Death and Dying will conclude with a closing ceremony and curated feast to help you digest the week-end. (Vegetarian and Gluten Free Options Available).

The Beginning of Peace-Making with WeiZen Ho

This workshop is a two day process, which will draw from Pancha Tanmantra (a West Javanese energetic practice). It involves two 90 minute workshops (one at the beginning and one at the end of the festival). It is only possible to do the second workshop if you have already attended the first. If you would like to experience this process, it is strongly recommended you contact WeiZen Ho via email prior to the festival at least 7 days before attending. (Her email is weiofzen@gmail.com)

Day 1: We will learn to recite the Varjasattva mantra as a group.  This is a 100-syllable mantra and which will be used as a vehicle to cleanse our intention in preparation for Day 2.  The purpose of this mantra is to offer clarity. It is a great foundation to set any ritual 'space’.   

Within Day 1, we will also play with some 5-Element integrated vocal-movement practice.

Day 2: We will then move on to facilitate individuals who wish to encounter the energies of a deceased or living family member, friend or lover.  Time may permit only one encounter per individual. If you do not wish actively to undergo the process of encountering the energies of the deceased, it is possible to act as a witness and supporter in the circle. This in itself is a very important role. 

Transliteration:

oṃ va jra sa ttva sa ma yam a nu
pā la ya va jra sa ttva tve no pa
ti ṣṭha dṛ ḍho me bha va su to ṣyo
me bha va su po ṣyo me bha va a
nu ra kto me bha va sa rva si ddhiṃ
me pra ya ccha sa rva ka rma su ca
me ci ttaṃ śre yaḥ ku ru hūṃ ha ha
ha ha hoḥ bha ga van sa rva ta thā
ga ta va jra mā me mu ñca va jrī
bha va ma hā sa ma ya sa ttva aḥ

English:

Oṃ. Vajrasattva, keep your samaya. As Vajrasattva, remain near me. Be steadfast towards me. Be very pleased with me.  Be completely satisfied with me. Be loving to me. Grant me all accomplishments. In all actions, make me mind pure and virtuous. Hūṃ. Ha ha ha ha hoḥ. O Blessed One, Vajra-nature of all the Tathāgatas, do not abandon me. Be of vajra-nature, O great Samaya-being, āḥ.

Varjasattva Mantra

Sanskrit:

oṃ vajrasattva samayam anupālaya

vajrasattva tvenopatiṣṭha

dṛḍho me bhava sutoṣyo me bhava
supoṣyo me bhava anurakto me bhava

sarvasiddhiṃ me prayaccha

sarvakarmasu ca me cittaṃ

śreyaḥ kuru hūṃ ha ha ha ha hoḥ

bhagavan sarvatathāgatavajra mā me muñca

vajrī bhava mahāsamayasattva āḥ

Imagery:

Vajrasattva is pure white in colour and is sometimes known as the Prince of Purity. His name means "Adamantine Being", or more poetically "Embodying Reality". He is a member of the Vajra family of Akṣobhya which also includes  Vajrapāṇi.

He is depicted as a young man in the prime of life, with all the silks and jewels of a wealthy prince. In his right hand he delicately balances a vajra at his heart. In his left had he holds a bell at his waist. The vajra represents Reality, and Compassion; while the bell represents Wisdom. 

WeiZen Ho is a Performing Artist and Deviser who brings together phonic-vocals and movement.  Her performances transform and extend mundane postures, sounds and everyday objects or speech into poetic prayer. She excavates linguistic processes searching out their connection to identity. Her work draws upon a lineage of Chinese immigrants who have lived for several generations in Melaka (Malaysia) and Java and extends it to her status as an Asian immigrant in Australia. She is fascinated by ritual, in particular the animistic rituals still practised by Chinese clans in her hometown and throughout South-East Asia.  For her, ritual and imageries, distilled into performance locates her visceral vocal-body. 

She is currently a recipient of Australia Council's Arts Project funding to study and develop Performances, Interpreted & Reimagined of Asian Animistic & Shamanistic Rituals (2016-2018).  The research phases have taken place in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo in May 2016 and Hanoi, Vietnam in March 2017. She devised and performed in Platform 2017 by De Quincey Co and will perform and conduct workshops for the Festival of Death and Dying in Melbourne and Sydney. She collaborated as the sound, text and vocal designer for Joshua Pether in Monster at the Yirramboi Festival in Melbourne in May 2017.  WeiZen was 1 out 4 artists in Body as Material: Solo Practice, a partnership between Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Bundanon Trust, FORM Dance Projects and Critical Path. She was also invited to perform for the Asian Performing Arts Market Japan, part of Setouchi Triennale 2016.

A performance improvisation event WeiZen initiated in the Blue Mountains, now called Sound Bites Body, presented its twenty-third programme featuring thirteen artists from sound, installation and dance disciplines at Bilpin International Ground for Creative Initiatives (Bigci) in February 2016. As a current member of Splinter Orchestra she recently did a recording project at Lake Mungo and performed with them for Tectonics at Adelaide Festival of the Arts, 2016.

Mortality Performance Night

An Evening of long and short works with Alice Cummins, Alan Schacher, WeiZen Ho, Peter Banki, Alana Hoggart, Lynne Santos, Myfanwy Hunter, Nat Grant.

Long Works

Alice Cummins - Navigating Eternity

Pia Interlandi - Material Mementos - Garments for the Grave

WeiZen Ho - Stories from the Body #6 – The Intolerable Body

Myfanwy Hunter - Cease & Persist

Short Works

Alan Schacher - Share My Coffin

Alana Hoggart (with Nat Grant musician) - Between Nothing

Lynne Santos - Dissolution

Peter Banki - Dying Embrace

Photo of Dean Walsh by David Brazil, Festival of Death and Dying, 19 November, 2016.

Exploring Suicide with Natalia Je and Sarah Roffey

Paraphrasing the words of philosopher David Webb, we are not very skilled at talking about suicide as a society. In some ways this is can be explained, because suicide summons two of our greatest fears – the fear of death and the fear of madness. As a result, suicide is often veiled in toxic silence; it's a taboo that feeds the ignorance and prejudices that can make talking about our suicidal feelings risky and difficult.

In this workshop, we will open a space for dialogue and reflection on suicidal urges and acts that steps out beyond the dominant bio-medical understandings, that assuredly connect them to insanity or 'mental health issues' and the preoccupation with suicide prevention promulgated by the national campaigns. In the first part, we will explore in a sensitive and careful way the effects of the suicides of others on us. In the second part, we will approach the question of our own suicidal thoughts and fantasies: where do they come from? What do we do with them?

Natalia Je has Master's Degrees in Social work and Psychology, as well as training in alternative medicine and bodywork. She is one of the founders and directors of OFF THE WALL INC. and facilitates the monthly CriticalPerspectives on Madness Reading Group in Sydney. In her childhood years Natalia received rigorous training in ballet dance and rhythmic gymnastics which informs her body practices (yoga and pilates) and body awareness to this day. Natalia's advocacy and activism centre around fostering non-medical, emancipatory and Mad-positive practices and discourses in and outside the mental health sector. Research-wise, she is interested in sexuality and madness and sanism in mainstream social work practices. She draws also from her own experiences of emotional distress and involvement with psychiatric services.

Sarah Roffey has qualifications in Gender and Cultural Studies and Social work. She is one of the founders of OFF THE WALL INC and also one of the founders and facilitators of Sydney’s Critical Perspectives on Madness Reading Group. She has experience facilitating therapeutic and educational groups and workshops, including on sex and madness. She is informed in her work by her own experiences of distress and other states of mind and is interested in challenging dominant approaches to what is often termed 'mental illness'. Sarah is interested in the intersections between the body, writing, literature, erotica, sexuality, madness and the exploration of diverse experiences.

Thresholds and Lust with Peter Banki Ph.D and Natalia Je

The proximity to death is not necessarily negative, it can be that which gives us the feeling of being most alive. Death touches us not simply as “a fact of life”, but also as a fantasmatic object of desire. Many people, consciously or unconsciously, search for limit-experiences for the intensity and thrill of being on the threshold of something that gives them the feeling of being close to death.
In this workshop, we’ll explore how certain erotic practices encroach the fantasmatic thresholds of death and dying. You’ll be given the opportunity to try them.  All activity will be safe, consensual and risk aware.
 

Peter Banki, Ph.D is founder and director of the Sydney Festival of Death and Dying and the Sydney Festival of Really Good Sex. He is a scholar, artist, festival producer and teacher. He is currently an associate member of the Philosophy Research Initiative at the University of Western Sydney, where he has also lectured and tutored in the School of Humanities and Languages.

He holds a Ph.D in German literature from New York University (September, 2009). His book Holocaust Forgiveness is forthcoming with Fordham University Press. His current research interests include the resonances of German Romanticism, the intersections between philosophy and sexuality, and the politics of reconciliation and forgiveness in relation to cultural trauma.

Natalia Je is a human services professional, postgrad student and ‘social justice’ advocate with background in social work, psychology, dance, alternative medicine and bodywork. Informed by her own history and experiences of ‘madness’ and distress, her research and advocacy centre on challenging the mainstream bio-medical approaches to emotional distress and fostering more emancipatory languages and practices in and alongside the ‘mental health’ sector.

Her favourite pastimes are reading, travel and bushwalking. She practices yoga and not taking herself too seriously. Both being damn hard.

End of Life Dreams and Visions with Dr. Michael Barbato

This workshop will focus on some of the unusual language and experiences of dying patients. It explores the history and significance of end-of-life dreams and visions and will show how these experiences and the language used by dying patients are often ignored or misinterpreted in today’s highly sophisticated medical environment. It will explore the myths and truths surrounding their cause and provide examples to illustrate the profound healing effect end-of-life dreams and visions can have on the person dying and their carers.

Participants will be asked to share their own experiences of being with the dying, the challenges they may have faced and the gifts they received. The workshop will foster a better appreciation of these unusual experiences and afford guidance on how best to respond to them.

Photograph by Tina FiveAsh for the Death Letter Project (www.deathletterprojects.com).

Following 20 years as a specialist physician in rural NSW, Michael Barbato moved to Sydney in 1989 to commence work in what was then the relatively new specialty of palliative care.

In the following years he directed services within NSW and the ACT before transferring to the Illawarra and Shoalhaven Palliative Care Service. Prior to his retirement in 2012 Michael did regular locums for the Northern Territory Palliative Care Service working in both Alice Springs and Darwin.

Together with his wife and partner Ann, Michael now runs a correspondence course for professional and community groups on the art of Midwifing Death (www.midwifingdeath.com.au). His research interests and publications include the doctor as healer, unusual experiences around the time of death, the nature of unconsciousness and the experience of dying.