Of Celebrations & Creativity in Anxious Times

Sydney Opera House at 50

Yep, that’s me in the middle of the photo of performance trio Chrome. It was 1988 and we were making a wee ode to the Sydney Opera House. But why this image, now? Recent weeks saw the release of Play It Safe, Tim Minchin’s fiercely intelligent, exuberant ode celebrating said building and ‘brave creativity’. I’ve been taken aback at the range of emotions this song has stirred in me; from joy all the way to despair. It’s prompted me to examine my relationships to the Opera House and to Sydney – which is my birthplace but not my home – and to Australia – ditto to Sydney’s details. Plus it’s encouraged me to ponder what brave creativity means to me. And wonder what it means to others. Happy 50^th Birthday Sydney Opera House. Thanks for everything!

Chrome: Martin Hughes, Matthew Curlewis, Tony Strachan. Sydney, 1988. Video still (from original photo by Heidrun Lohr).

My initial reaction to Play It Safe was pure delight. On the heels of Australia voting No on whether to listen to the voices of our First Nations peoples, plus New Zealand’s massive swing to the right – let alone the horrors of Hamas / Israel / Ukraine / Russia / choose your global strife – I really needed a dose of joy. And Play It Safe totally delivered. How courageous of the Opera House to commission a song that so cleverly champions ‘going against the grain’, and ‘thinking big not small’. And how perfect to use the very DNA of a building that – just like another international icon: the Eiffel Tower – had to struggle so long and hard against vehement, public-opinion opposition to its very existence.

Which all led me to thoughts about the many different ways I’ve experienced the Opera House over the years – and to the subtle anchoring effect it has upon me as a symbol of ‘home’, even while I’ve spent more than half of my adult life abroad. I spent formative years in Sydney, both as a young child, and as a teen and young tween. The building’s white sails/shells make for a landmark visible from countless angles. Starting from way up high, you can see it from a ‘plane as you descend into Sydney Airport. You can see it from the majestic span of the Harbour Bridge as you cross that structure by car, by train or by foot. You can see it from a myriad locations on the shores of Sydney’s spectacular harbour, and from offices and apartments, houses and parks. From ferries or sail boats gliding over Port Jackson’s clear blue waters. In sunshine, in rain-shine, under lightning, under thunder-clouds. Lit by stage lights, lit by fireworks or simply shimmering in starlight. Always inspiring. Always uplifting. And always taking my breath away – before I’ve even walked through the door.

During my teen years in Canberra I played the flute in our school’s orchestra. So when I found out we had qualified to compete in an eisteddfod at the Sydney Opera House, I became excited out of my tiny mind. This would mean we would essentially go ‘on tour’, to Sydney, and I would be granted admittance – ‘behind the velvet ropes’ if you like – to this incredible building. While there are too many sensations to list here, of awe and wonder that arose from experiencing the Opera House from all-the-way inside, one of the things that most sticks in my memory is a small, rather nerdy detail. In our rehearsal room was a button on the wall that, once pressed, delivered a perfectly pitched Middle C, to enable you to tune your musical instrument. Within the gigantic stupendousness, I found this tiny feature to be jaw-droppingly amazing. Looking back now from 2023, I’m intrigued to calculate we must have performed there only five or so years after the Opera House officially opened. The building was still in its infancy.

“After three years of intensive search for a basic geometry for the shell complex I arrived in October 1961 at the spherical solution shown here. I call this my “key to the shells” because it solves all the problems of construction by opening up for mass production, precision in manufacture and simple erection and with this geometrical system I attain full harmony between all the shapes in this fantastic complex.” - Jørn Utzon AC. Thanks to Rudi for the photo.

As the building grew up, so did I, and over the years whether I was going there to see friends or non-friends perform in dance / theatre / music productions, or whether I was having drinks in the Green Room or the Opera House Bar, or gazing at it from a ferry, or (in later years) witnessing Vivid Sydney videos play on the sails, the Opera House was always a kind of comfort. So when it came time to shoot some international publicity photos for our Australian-based trio, Chrome, after we’d performed on the Opera House’s steps and forecourt during the Sydney Festival 1988, how could we not use our shark fin headpieces, plus a head-tilt or two, to give an informal nod to such a globally-admired building?! By this stage, the building had become a dependable companion in my life. One who was always there for me, yet never asked anything of me. And this feeling only increased as the years rolled by. Which is part of the reason I’m trying to express some love now, by writing this piece. Because, ‘Never being asked for anything,’ – in my book at least – doesn’t equate to, ‘Not feeling I don’t owe anything’.

That said however, while Play It Safe has certainly made me acknowledge my love of the Opera House and other aspects of Australia as my original home, the song’s razor-sharp lyrics have also ripped open my underbelly. I can never remember not HATING Australia’s tendency towards the ‘tall poppy syndrome’. (The notion that the minute you stick your head up above the crowd, someone who’s been waiting for precisely that moment, will chop it right off.) This syndrome is one of the main reasons I chose to leave Australia – temporarily at 21, then permanently at 24 years of age. At a cellular level, I’ve just never been able to understand this desire to cut down and belittle those who stand out. Perhaps because I can also never remember not being ‘different’. I was the Sydney kid, in Canberra. Then I was the kid from the farm, going to school in the city. As early as seven years-old I was yelled at for being a “Poofter!” – years before I knew either what that meant, or that I would grow up to be a gay man. I was nicknamed Unco (short for Uncoordinated), in a school of sporting champions. I had curly hair, unusual opinions, and outrageous clothes.

Consequently I guess, I was drawn to other misfits like myself, but in the ‘80s they weren’t so easy to find. So I searched various distant shores until I finally found my tribe, in a new home I created for myself in downtown Manhattan, New York. Dubbed the Ludlow Lounge because it was a ramshackle loft space on Ludlow Street, it became a drop-in destination, crash-pad, and party / performance venue for people across a broad spectrum of race, skin colour, gender, age, sexuality, you name it. People who most often had ‘left somewhere else, in search of something better.’ Everyone was welcome at the Ludlow Lounge. 

Um, let me re-phrase that. Everyone except for people who claimed to be victims. 
And except for people who yelled abuse.

But now that I had both found and founded this place where difference was celebrated instead of vilified, visits back to Australia took on new complications. Because now in contrast, the negatives stood out more harshly. While studying for my BA at New York University, I waited tables at nights to pay my rent. And then to relax / let off steam – Manhattan style – I took to rollerblading all over the city, usually after smoking a joint, often at two or three in the morning. I grew up skiing in Australia’s Snowy Mountains, and then later, trained to be a dancer in Adelaide – so by the time I began to rollerblade, I’d slalomed, pirouetted, or shimmied a good deal of Unco out of me. It didn’t take me long to become good, and then quite a lot better, on blades.

Photos by Taco van der Werf

With George Michael / Madonna / Sinead O’Connor / Annie Lennox urging me to greater heights through my Walkman headphones, nothing in New York felt like an obstacle – not the dense traffic of Houston Street or Broadway or Fifth Avenue, not SoHo’s cobblestones, and certainly not the broad, deserted stretches of the West Side Highway where I would dance/skate for hours at a time, gleefully pushing myself to my limits, basically ‘dancing for joy’ under New York’s dazzle and glitter. Here my skating was for ME and – totally uninhibited – I would twirl and zoom and glide my way through those late/early hours, regardless of who was or wasn’t watching. That said, every so often a passing car, truck or pedestrian would catch my eye and grin, or gesture a huge ‘thumbs up’, or shout to me “YOU GO!” So to acknowledge their acknowledgement I’d throw my leg just that bit higher, or add a spin, or strike a high-speed backwards balletic pose – which would incite yet more appreciation by way of applause or laughter or cheers and hollers. In this way, a New York ‘audience’ always encouraged me to do (and to be) my best. That was, and I think still is the 24/7 invitation + constant thrill of that city. Go bigger! Go higher! Go further! What are you waiting for? Just DO IT ALREADY!!!

CUT TO:

Skate-dancing ‘round Sydney’s Centennial Park, trying to work through my jetlag, it gradually dawns on me… I ain’t in Kansas anymore. I start to notice heads turning, and comments being snickered, and slack-jawed faces filled with incredulity and dismay. Distinctly un-New York expressions get hurled my way like: “What are you trying to prove, mate?” “Faggot!” “Catch a load of Twinkletoes!” Not to forget the perennial favourite: “Poofter!” I’ve grown a thick enough skin by this time that I don’t ‘go smaller’ in response, but nothing about these taunts and insults make me want to go bigger, either. Sadly though, it wasn’t only while rollerblading that I felt like this during visits home. And I would always end up baffled. What was I doing wrong? Was there a code I was unaware of, that I was not merely misunderstanding, but was flagrantly breaking? And how was something I was doing for my own pleasure / relaxation / exercise / self-expression, anyone else’s damn business, anyway?

Cross-fade back to New York where, unexpectedly, a dilemma regarding brave creativity appeared before me. It was 1990. Thick in the throes of the Gulf War, America had simultaneously become engulfed in yellow ribbons tied to pretty much anything. A yellow ribbon was shorthand for ‘We support our troops in Iraq’. One evening, in a nightclub I frequented, the performance artist Karen Finley appeared, unheralded, to make her own particular, art-political-performance statement about this war. She came on stage stark naked except for smears of camouflage-coloured paints, and – because of the death toll this war was causing on both sides – (ring any bells, 2023?) – expressed her opposition to George Bush’s, ergo America’s, involvement. Nude onstage: OK. Body paint: Fine, I get it. Her verbally expressed political statement: Sure, yep, no problem. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she conjured up a gigantic roll of yellow ribbon, grasped the end of it in front of her and took hold of a section behind, ‘mounted’ this, and then began to pull lengths of tape, progressively, through her crotch, from back to front, so the tape piled onto the stage before her, as she calmly advised the audience, “You might want to get comfortable. I have two hundred yards of this to go.”

At the ripe old age of 26 at this point, I thought myself pretty unshockable. My very first night in New York I’d attended an East Village party where the host Juan, proceeded to serve his home-made paella to everyone, while draped with his pet boa constrictor, Juanita. I’d seen a myriad of performances in Australia, and various countries in Europe, Canada, and the United States; from the dreary and banal, to the super controversial. And – Ohayō gozaimasu – I’d even performed in Tokyo as a stripper (only ever down as far as tiger-print briefs) at ‘Banana Power’, a cabaret club where the patrons used to throw banana cream pies at me and my fellow performers – three times a night – so, I’d both seen and experienced a thing or two.

In 1986 Japan, England was considered more exotic than Australia. Hence my character name: Earl Grey. Shown here hanging from Banana Power’s ceiling, as part of my act: Earl Grey in the Drawing Room - An Intimate Revue.

Clipping from Tokyo Journal, April 1986

But even for me, Karen Finley’s protest antics that night in New York let’s say… ‘made a distinct impression’. To use yellow ribbon which, at that moment in time was a borderline sacrosanct cultural object, in such a visually / viscerally shocking way, took me to a whole new level of brave creativity. And it rocked my world to the point of paralysis.

The following day I had work to do: turning what had begun as a live performance of mine, into a video. We’d shot the footage, but now I had time booked in an editing suite, to splice all the video pieces together. For transparency here: I also disagreed with the Gulf War, and had shouted my way through both New York and Washington D.C., in massive protest marches. So what was I doing making such a meaningless fluff-piece as my video? A light satire entitled Go-go Boys for World Peace, Really Soon. But after so many yards of yellow ribbon, this now felt pathetically simple. It wasn’t going to influence anybody, or stop the war, and certainly wasn’t going to change the world. Why Oh why couldn’t I be more courageous and cutting edge and in-your-face influential, like Karen Finley? I tried to edit a few frames that day but felt so despondent I gave up. It all felt so self-indulgent and pointless while people were dying in Iraq. Clearly I’d be better off drowning my sorrows in frozen margaritas at El Sombrero, our local Mexican joint opposite the Ludlow Lounge.

The next morning I awoke with fresh thoughts – thankfully – and realised hang on, No! I need to go back to the edit suite to finish what I’d begun. While Karen Finley’s voice was needed in the world, hers didn’t negate the need for different voices, including mine. Plus there was this: only four years previously I’d become grievously ill while travelling in Asia, had wound up in a coma, and then spent two months in isolation in an infectious-diseases hospital in London. While slowly crawling through my recovery process, would I have wanted to see a Karen Finley-type performance? Nope. I wouldn’t have had the strength to engage with her (righteous) rage, anger and protest. Would I have wanted to see something that brought me joy? That made me laugh? Absolutely. What I needed in that moment four years previously, was very different from what I wanted and/or needed to see, four years later.

Michael Whaites (left) & Matthew Curlewis - video still from ‘Go-go Boys for World Peace, Really Soon.’ Ludlow Lounge Productions, Inc. NYC.

It appears to me now in writing this, that I developed my interpretation of brave creativity back then, during that period. Which goes like this. I think that ALL creativity in the world is needed. And it’s needed ALL of the time. Because no two moments are ever the same, so no two creative responses are ever the same. And who knows when a creative expression produced at one time, is going to help another human being to get through, or understand, or stumble across an unexpected solution, during a totally different moment, at a totally different time?

Did the Opera House’s creators know that fifty years onwards, a little-known, European-resident Australian writer, via a joyful, commemorative Tim Minchin song, would still be honouring their decision to install a Middle C electronic button in their rehearsal rooms? Of course not. And yet, via the incalculable distances of these interactions, I feel connected to both the people who created the Sydney Opera House, as well as all the people who created this year’s Tim Minchin song and video. Because I believe these kinds of ephemeral interactions, inspirations & insights are the building blocks of our humanity. Even if sometimes they only manifest in incremental units – such as this essay for example – each one brings us that tiny bit closer to understanding family, friends, colleagues, strangers and, if we really take the time, to understanding our enemies as well.

But if, instead of being brave, we impose limits upon creativity, restrict what people can express, or silence them completely, not only do we cease to build upon our humanity, I believe something incremental then continues to happen – but in the other direction. We start sliding backwards. Into small-mindedness. Into parochialism. And into victimhood. Which is probably about the time the yelling begins. And then someone decides to throw something. But an opponent throws something bigger. Until whoever’s throwing, and whoever’s being hit – because so much head-wound blood is flooding into their eyes – can no longer see how or why their fighting began in the first place.

So thank you Jørn Utzon, and all who supported your vision of creating your iconic building. And thank you Tim Minchin, and all who helped you create your celebratory song. The rest of us, the world over, are richer for your efforts.

And to anyone reading this, I’ve shared a little about what brave creativity means to me. But I know there are billions of other interpretations available, because billions of us are present right now. What’s your take on this topic? What’s your interpretation? Maybe you could discuss this with a friend, or even a stranger. Or share some thoughts in the comments here. Or express yourself using some other medium, without any words. Because by doing this – no matter how incrementally – we’ll continue to find, and build upon our humanity. 

Love and light,

Matthew

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