15/11/2023
Meet Our Crew π
Today we meet Regional Arts Hub Coordinator, Gwen Knox π
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Hi, Iβm Gwen Knox,
I have worked at Goolarri for about three years, doing Part time work, 2 days per week, as the Regional Arts Hub coordinator. My job is to support local artists and arts workers develop their practice. Prior to that I have partnered with Goolarri for many projects over the years. π
Broome has been home since 1957, the year that I was born, in Broome District Hospital. It was the Broome cup day, and my father was at the races with the Doctor. Luckily, I arrived without the doctors help.
My family were station people and Dad managed Thangoo Station. I spent the first three years on the station before Mum and Dad moved to town to take over the butcher shop in Chinatown, so that their four children could access school. My siblings had all gone through distance education up until then, with mum as a supervisor. She had been a nurse before marrying Dad and sometimes our school classes were stopped so that she could deal with a medical issue like stitching up a horse or to mend a stockmanβs broken arm. I did all my primary school time at Broome Primary School which was called Broome State School in those days. My siblings and I all went to Swanleigh, in Perth, to board for high school.
I grew up in a derelict old house that was once the residency of Broome. It had seen grander days, but it was falling down around us. It was the best place to group up. It was on the site of Matsos and Captain Gregoryβs house.
I ran away from Broome in the 80βs to mend a broken heart which found me in University. During that time I went to the Toodyay Folk Festival where I met my best friend, love of my life and collaborator Chris Hill. π₯°
My main interest were once, getting from point A to point B around town on my horse. I had a free childhood that included taking plenty of risks. We could do pretty well what we liked as long as we were home at sunset, and we didnβt annoy our parents too much. It helped make me tough and resilient but found it difficult to make small talk and wear a dress. The whole family played at least one musical instrument and we used to have family musical events, so everything I create has a strong musical core. Sometimes I am even the composer for the event.π€©
These days I focus on providing opportunities to people, especially young people, in either developing a career in the arts or using the arts as a platform to develop skills that will get them into meaningful work, enabling them to become valuable connected community citizens. E.g., I have taught non-readers who could not sit in a chair in a classroom to juggle and they have become more focussed learners who found reading not to be such a threat to them anymore.
It is what I should have studied at University, if such courses were available then, but I got some bad advice along the way. I was always counselled into doing the things that would pay a wage instead of following my passion. I realised, almost too late, that my passion could pay a wage and I found myself working with great people who became lifelong friends. I love my work and look forward to it every day!
I spent 8 years studying for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Australian Studies (concentrating on literature, theatre and politics.) and Social Science, (focusing on Anthropology and youth) and an Agricultural minor, a graduate diploma in Education and I am a Churchill Fellow or perhaps a better name would be a βChurchill Sheilaβ. None of what I studied has been wasted. You never know when you will have to artificially inseminate a cow, for example! π€―
I started the Sandfly Circus in 1992 as a part time holiday program and a performing arts outreach program, which later became Theatre Kimberleyβs Dragonfly Outreach program, when I was easing myself out of full-time teaching. I handed both projects over to Theatre Kimberley when I was the Artistic Director of the company, in 2006-7, as I was getting too old and people with a lot more skills than I, were becoming available, besides the cost of insurance for an individual arts practitioner was ridiculous!
I have written many physical/visual theatre works that can include music, dance puppets, circus, or anything else that helps tell a good story. Most of the works have been for children or developed as community collaboration projects. My biggest cast was about 450 people. π
In 2008 I remounted the iconic βShip of Dreamsβ as part of my work as AD at Theatre Kimberley with a teenage Mark Cole-Smith playing the part of 85-year-old man. Originally written by Elizabeth Durack and performed by hundreds of Broome children Including myself and the Pigram brothers et al. around 1968, no original, complete script survived. I had to do a lot of research and rely on memory to develop a full script. The script would not have been acceptable in 2008 as it was as the written in the 60βs, when racism was systemic. In 1998 I helped get Worn Art up and running as a Theatre Kimberley project. I went to the Worn Art Revamped show last weekend (25 years later) and felt very proud that it is still a fabulous show.
I am currently working on presenting a site-specific play that I have written about my Nanna who is a Ballardong Noongar, woman. She was taught to tell people that she was MΔori. Her story is told with lots of comedy to help soften the blows that her Dementia, that has loosened her tongue, releases to disclose all sorts of truths. It will be performed in old houses in the wheatbelt. A kind of taking Nanna home project. β€οΈ
Gwen Knox
γviralγ·2023
