ROCKABYE is a performance work exploring the inner duality between protection and exposure, comfort and discomfort, tenderness and rebellion. Throughout the residency, I have explored my queer body as a site of ache and liberation, returning to vulnerability as a source of power and connection. The work questions care: how we exchange it, fabricate it and inflate it, and how love, identity and boundaries can be both enhancing and restrictive to true expression.
During this residency, the scenography of the work became an active collaboration. Balloons, transparent materials, forts, fans and mirrors held their own energy, actively informing the movement rather than serving as decoration. I am interested in how these elements represent protection, chaos and fragility in their own right. The dance of balloons becomes a physical expression of the things we hold and attach to. They embody breath, becoming a captured offering of life that mirrors the exchange of care. I have experimented with inflation and deflation, delicacy and rupture, and how the body shifts as it holds the balloon’s tension between play, celebration, fragility and artificiality.
The development of a rich physical language is rooted in rocking and rolling. To soothe, to rupture, to liberate. I played with the dial of softness and strength in the body to produce visceral comfort and flow versus risk and fragmentation. I found the tension of these states produces many emotional stories that move through the body.
Throughout my time in the studio, I transformed the space daily, sometimes multiple times a day, playing with new structures to keep refreshing my perspective and begin building a bank of inspiration. This made clear to me the importance of a DIY aesthetic and an immersive audience set, one where the audience is led on a journey through the shifting performance space. Through my physical, sonic, environmental and emotional exploration, I hope to invite them into the journey of comfort and discomfort within oneself.
I delved into the softness of this work but also uncovered a flavour of rebellion. This comes from my influence of punk rock subculture, its anti-establishment ethos and its outlets for rage and angst within a held, communal environment. It speaks to queer expression and the rockstar within us. I’m drawn to its in-your-face energy and how that connects to the ways we sometimes feel the need to pose through ego and protective masks. How do we find the diva within, humbly, honey? I love mixing this with the work’s softness, a reminder that even rockstars need care.
A huge thank you to my friends and collaborators who offered their voice and support. I worked with Amelia Watson, who supported my playful process and prompted beautiful questions charged with their own experience of these themes. I also began discussions with Hailey Scott, brainstorming costume design for ROCKABYE. As I am working from a very visual place, it feels important to develop the costume alongside the work and let it shape the narrative. I am very grateful for their support while this work blossoms.
I am grateful to Lucy Guerin Inc and WXYZ Studios for the dedicated time and space to begin realising the multiplicity of this work. By releasing the need for a linear process, I allowed intuition, play and embodied curiosity to lead the making. Costume, set and movement developed together, shaping character, boundaries and resistance. During my time in the studio, I allowed my childlike, judgement-free creativity to run wild. I found inspiration when I had fun. Acknowledging that fun isn’t always associated with joy and ease, it is a gateway to truth.
I have been left with great excitement for this project and the prospects of continuing to develop its world. It feels like more than a performance piece. I feel myself developing alongside the work, which feels very special.
– Sam Osborn
About Sam Osborn
Sam Osborn is a freelance dancer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Their practice is rooted in a desire for liberation, truth, and reconnection to the joy of dance; both as personal expression and as a catalyst for social and political change. Sam has worked across contemporary dance, art and film, collaborating and performing with artists Alisdair Macindoe, Melanie Lane, Amelia Jean O’Leary, Lauren Brincat and other Australian independents. A graduate of Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year, Sam collaborated with artists including Jenni Large, Gabrielle Nankivell, Lucy Guerin and Melanie Lane. Creatively, Sam loves to work in ways that are both playful and honest, challenging his desire to exist with both strength and softness. Their work often explores tenderness, queerness, and the tension between comfort and discomfort; seeking movement that feels like both release and return.