A decade since my debut solo show....

 I know we are getting to the wind down part of the year when everyone is reflecting on 2024.

I could have many things to say about this year. I have been talking time to write something, afraid what I have to say comes out cliché: how do you summarise it?

“This year was made up of small moments, large challenges (lol), discovering thorns-in sides that have turned into splinters or some thorns I dug out and it was really painful at the time but is healing now’. Amongst other things, in 2024 I learned about comedy, becoming tangata Tiriti, grief, truly backing myself and investing. I said it.

Not quite the goals or resolutions I had at the start of the year but they were close. 

My first gig in 2024 was at 1:00am on 1st Jan, where I came out as Jaws- a shark- with simple dreams and goals, who ended up crowd surfing an amazing audience at AUM FESTIVAL. 365 days later I’ll be kicking off 2025 as Jaws Jolie, The Jazz Singing Shark who is auditioning for Ocean’s Got Talent at Twisted Frequency Festival AND doing stand up comedy in the same day.

In between those two performances have been all kinds of gigs, shows, moments and life lessons: 

Main marker was going through the process of honing and crafting a show Standing Still which was in  Whangarei, Adelaide, Melbourne then upgraded it to Standing Still (Still).

I could go on about that for ages but basically the moral of the story is, though it’s the end of 2024 which has been one year we are reflecting on, I’m thinking bigger picture to reflect on the fact that a month ago marked the 10 year anniversary of my debut solo show “Tinserella: Keeping Christmas Safe”.  A month has gone by as I’ve been trying to find the words to commemorate, acknowledge, celebrate this milestone. Something I had to learn pretty quickly if I was going to be able to last any time doing this schtick at all was that being an independent artist means you kind of have to tell the world what’s happening otherwise no one will. So here is an unfiltered look back at that moment then, and a bit of the stuff in between. It might feel self indulgent but I’m posting on a blog hardly anyone might read so it’s more for me/my memoir. 

I don’t know if when I started making my first one woman showI thought I’d still be making solo shows 10 years on. 

To be honest I made the show because I was sick of getting knocked back from auditions, sick of being a dancer who got treated like a moving prop, whose job is to tell other people’s stories when I realised I might have stories to tell. 

I made the show a solo show solo because it was cheaper to not have to pay anyone else, and I figured that if it flopped it would just be me I was letting down. Plus, Elizabeth Dawson Smith gave me the golden ticket of “You should do your own show and I’ll mentor you”. Cut forward to me having sleepovers at her house whilst she taught me photoshop to design posters, read and edited my media releases and her regularly bursting into my living room where I’ve moved the furniture away to make a studio space, her balling in , slamming her laptop onto the table then kicking my butt in rehearsals where I cried several times.

The show was a series of characters and vignettes that were conceived in friends' kitchens, on a rainy street inspired by a pair of boots and time to kill, songs I made up riding my bike, and some loose narrative about not fully knowing who I am or where I fit in. 

Here’s some of the reviews from it: 

"Joana Simmons has not merely hit, but smacked the solo stage with her debut writer credit, leaving nothing in the tank after throwing herself about and titillating the audience."

https://theatre-press.com/2014/11/

As well as my first NZ Fringe “​​I get the feeling that those of us smart enough to catch this show will one day be able to say, “Oh yes, I saw her in 2016 before she was so famous.” https://www.theatreview.org.nz/production/putting-the-gday-in-cabaret/#dynamic-original-funny-engaging-and-an-absolute-joy-to-watch

Being my first solo show I was pretty detached from reviews.

I actually was a reviewer at that time (so I could get free tickets) - and when reading a review I used to remind myself  “who cares what they say, remember, they are just people. They look at their poo before  they flush it like the rest of us!”

My debut opening night at Club Voltaire, Naarm Melbourne, was packed  to the brim with friends from dance school, people I performed with, some hospo mates, and a bunch of people from the gym I used to teach at. The show came together thanks to the help of key players: Libby,  Alice Pollard- Queen, who worked some lights and sound (too many cues)

Alex Nguyen built me a DIY smoke machine out of dry ice and a chilli bin. Natalie Breakwell stage managed and wiped my sweat and is now my best friend, and also had some somewhat inconsistent help of Dan, my boyfriend at the time.

(Who once told me he was worried I was gonna “make it” before him. Which was really weird to me because I had trained in dance and musical theatre and had been grinding at the stone of self motivation to break through as a professional dancer/ choreographer/ be in community tv/ doing music videos/working it out, and he said he was gonna start to dj DnB.

F**K. 

ANYWAY!

Since Tinserella (a made up name Libby came up with and I didn’t love it but couldn’t think of anything better)  in 2014, I have made 7 different comedy cabaret shows. Shows for theatres, for parks, in hotel quarantine, a dinner concert, a street show, one stand up comedy show with another in the works. 

I don’t know if I’ve “made it”

Or what that means. I’ve only been nominated for one award, received one grant, worked with one publicist, had mostly good reviews, have some people recognise me from coming third in the Wellington Pun Battle and still question whether I have any clout. But I’m still here. I have performed at some of my dream events (Woodford Folk Festival (QLD), Noisily Festival (UK), Solrise Festival (where I got to surf and do a show on the same day and performed under a marquee on a balmy summer Whāingaroa night in bare feet- that show featured the debut of my first public performance of “oh dear, I just stood on a snail.” 

Street Show, Adelaide 2024

Some of these shows were gardens that I nurtured over time: mines of understanding and processing and figuring out how to communicate things in an entertaining way to make the ART hit CathARTsis. Some of the shows were slap dash thrown together to meet a deadline or fill in an application. I’m so privileged to have done it and more and wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated mentorship of Elizabeth Dawson Smith in the early years. SERIOUSLY MATE. 

When someone invites you to go on Australia’s Got Talent to perform an incredible work that involved eating Spaghetti to ‘Hall of the Mountain King’ and you get through to the final and you make a thing together and get totally messed with coz it’s reality tv then you get buzzed out in front of judges and you end up washing blue slime off each other's backs in the Channel 7 bathroom, crying then meeting Dawn French, they are worth doing anything for. 

Thanks to my darling friend and stage manager bouncing ideas queen hype woman Natalie Breakwell, the support of Alex Nguyen, Amy Cooper, Chi-Uh, Scott Wings, Fraser Hooper, Kozo Kaos, Ria Simmons, Nikita and many people I’ve failed to mention here.

To the theatres and venues and festivals and platforms, techs. To the friends who helped with posters and posting and door and favours.

It’s been 10 years of shows mostly rehearsed at gym and yoga studios where I teach, in lounge rooms, on walks waving my arms around, in the ocean and in the park. Writing in cafes, in Cambodia, at my parents house, in my van, in house sits,  or riding a bike. At parties ducking into a corner to write something down. 

THE AUDIENCES. Holy moly. When people ask me what it’s like performing alone, I don’t really feel alone- I’m with peeps who have come to see me-  fostering community through the collective experience of live performance! I’ve been heckled by children, dogs, adults, a snail, had people smile and laugh and cry and be potentially a little bit challenged and I’ve met some of you and many of you I haven’t. The friends who have come to every show, then give me feedback in the car when I hound them for it. To people who were in the audience of shows with 4 in them in a Basement in Adelaide to a tent of 350 at Woodford Folk Festival, or a family and some randoms from Palmy on a winter night on Courtenay Place, or on zoom in lockdown. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for buying tickets, for telling your friends, for being touched, entertained by what I have to share.

And I couldn’t have done it at all without the support of my parents and family. Travelling to see shows, hearing the ups and downs (now I’m crying) sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if I can pull it off, and heckling me- brilliant. I didn’t think I’d still be doing it either. 

What really brings tears to my eyes as I reflect on this is not who I was when I was making that show 10 years ago, but who I was 29 or so years ago- the scrappy little girl who loved to dance down the back of her house. Who used to stand on top of a hill, gaze out at the view and perform for the horizon. who used to tell her family she could sing better than Maria from the Sound of Music and tell stories to the dog. 

I’m so glad I get to keep her fire alive. 

I don’t know whether “living the dream” includes the hustle, the rejection, the wondering when the next gig is, the bombing, the self doubt, the longing, comparison, feeling like I constantly need to be making, fatigue, fear, loneliness, the times of feeling too broke to buy new socks in your 30s.

But maybe following the dream does. In this capitalist society living an artful life and following a dream feels pretty self indulgent. I follow the mantra of ‘hiding your gifts from the world is a disservice to yourself and the world.’ So I’m sharing ALL this with you. 

I have more dreams for performances and things to write and sing and dance and cook and I am also doing Post-Grad study next year and getting better at surfing. All going well. Ready for whatever else comes my way. 

Show wise, another one is in the works. I am looking forward to sharing it with you and looking forward even more to working on it. 

Thank you for reading this and thank you for believing in me. 

Jj x

Banging out a blog on Monday morning

Like that rash you thought you got rid of, I am back on this blog.

I thought that was it for me and Stories, Sentiments and Sometimes Stupidity. I thought we had broken up and not decided to be friends and it was amicable. 
That it was going to be a thing on the internet to remind me of my past like my Bebo account and that time I tried to be a Vlogger.

Study and creative endeavours have had my fingers tap tap tapping on these keys and not even a 2-month European excursion pulled me back to this page. (I thought about it, but really, who needs another travel blog)

But, with the power of caffeine and a psychology exam this morning that I could be studying for, I am here. 

I might be the only one.

Like the time the Prince kissed Sleeping Beauty without her consent, the spell is broken.

Spring is flirting her coyish charm, wafting her perfume in the air and showing a décolletage of sakura blossoms in Melbourne. She pretended she was here briefly and I dusted off the Northside uniform of cordeory overalls and birkenstocks with the accessory of avocado I dropped on it, but not today. Today I can see my breath in the kitchen when I sip this coffee, and it's not even that hot.

I feel like there's no one who doesn't know me who reads this, so not much to update, except that 2020 is closer to us than it has ever been.
I can remember when I wrote a story about what my life would be like in the year 2010 when I was at primary school, in the year 2000.

I had a ferrari.

There is more in the story, but that is the bar for ten years ago and this year my assets are a Bose bluetooth speaker and two pairs of identical Ray-Bans because I thought I lost the OG pair and bought another before anyone noticed but then found the old pair and the very same thing almost happened with the bluetooth speaker.
Oh and my monstera is doing well, thank you. 
Oh I also have a laptop, loving family and incredibly amazing morning routine.

It's that amazing it starts the night before. 

This morning though, like a kinder surprise or unexpected item in the bagging area it includes writing this pointless piece of internet drivel to distract you from the burning earth, homeless person you are walking past, ticket inspectors, whether your barista ACTUALLY used almond milk, your hangover, the gas bill, your work, casual sexism, casual racism, casual ageism, casual speciesism, feminism, veganism, your child, or whatever else reading this is stopping you from doing. 
I hope it made you crack a smile and, to be even riskier, makes you smile at someone else. A stranger.

You never know, a dude asked for my number at IGA when I was buying kombucha because I smiled at him the other day so anything is possible.

Happy Monday
JJ x

To every woman feeling bad in their bod.

This is mostly for me.
But from talking to lots of woman, this is for you too.
Guys, I know you feel this way, even if it's not as acceptable for you to talk about it, and if you don't, reading this might help you get what your partners, your daughters, your friends are going through, not always, but more times than is helpful. 

There have been various posts of this nature by me over the years, and many more I want to post but don't, because these thoughts are pretty personal. 

But, a few things lately have sparked me to do this.
I teach yoga and fitness at a forensic mental health facility, which means I have the option to be active most days. We can also do health coaching for staff, and the other day some of the ladies at work, who are now friends of mine, came in to weigh themselves for the first time in the year, after the holiday season.

Before any woman steps on the scales around me, I want to hold their hand, look them in the eye and tell them that whatever the number says is just a number. (I do tell them this, sometimes just without the hand holding.)
I want to tell them that it's just a representation of their gravitational pull on the ground, not on the way their eyes sparkle when they see someone they love, or makes them any less competent or interesting. 
I want to tell them that they have the choice to pay as much or little attention to the number if they want.
They can tell it to go and get stuffed.
I tell them if there's other things in their life that are demanding their focus, like a child, a new house, a sick parent, or a stressful job, it is ok. 
That the holiday season is to be enjoyed.
To remind them that we have been brainwashed by the media and "the man" (man!) to think that beauty fits one, smaller size, and that we fail as women if we are outside this. 
That yes being healthy and strong is important but spending too much time on the physical side of this is not all that hot if your head is weak and a horribly smelly place.
That their body is a vessel for a spirit. When one thrives, the other does. 

I guess it's nothing new, we are told these things all the time.
Then we work to accept ourselves "as we are" but when "as we are" is now 2kg heavier than "as we were" it is the worst. 

I want to tell women all of these things because I have to fight bloody hard to tell myself them on a regular basis.

The past few days, the fight has been too hard.
I was set off by seeing some pictures of me teaching a dance and yoga workshop last weekend, and having to to sew a costume, which means trying on tight things and spending time in front of the mirror.
In the pictures I don't see the 24 people I taught moving behind me. I don't see the compliments people gave me on my ability to make yoga accessible to them for the first time. 
I see the way I look.
I am not going to say any adjectives in here because that's feeding into the negative self talk, and that is not why I am writing this. 
I don't see the costume I made by using problem solving and winging it, making up a pattern from a pair of shorts that I have never done before and calmly sewed it for the first time on the machine from the 50s I inherited from my late Ma. I see the mirror reflecting vibes that don't serve me, yet I absorb anyway. 

The mirror doesn't reflect back the smile on my niece's face when I send her a snapchat. 

Women, I am so sorry we go through this. Not all of us do. 
I am so sorry for all of the times I have not been present in my life because I have been fixated on things I cannot change. 
I am sharing this, not to receive your reassurance, but to reassure myself. 
One of the gifts these years of headfuckery (sorry, I can't think of any other way to put it) has given me is the ability to make other people feel better in their bodies. Because I have to constantly do it for myself.
I'm grateful for that.
I loved being at Woodford Folk Festival over new year and getting to appreciate the beauty of all ages and shapes. 

It is with this that I am reminded of the African concept "Ubuntu."
I am, because you are.

If I can see the beauty in other women (without comparing myself)
Then I can see the beauty in me.
And so can you.

Here's a few punchy helpful suggestions of things to do when you aren't feeling the love
1. Do a karate kick like you are smashing down a door and say "back off, bad vibes!"
2. Slap your butt, maybe grab a bit and think how juicy it is.
3. Roll around on the ground. Or just lie on the ground
4. Make up some kind of rhyme or rap to make the sitch ridic
5. Remind yourself that most body satisfaction comes later in life, so just go along with it for now. 
6. Wear power pants, or no pants, which are also power pants. 
7. Every time you fail at body acceptance, remember you haven't failed because you know body acceptance is an actual option! (working to accept it, rather than change it.)
8. NOTHING.

I love you.

Jj

New, Yeah?

2019 is three (now four) days in. I am writing this onboard a Jetstar flight from the Gold Coast to Melbourne, where I have not been for more than two weeks. I have sunburnt skin, fading ant bites and an overdue phone bill. I also have no desire to be in the city or back to reality at all.

I was going to do a post about being burnt out, because the year’s hectic spiral certainly caught up on me and I was having daily breakdowns come the last two weeks of December.

There are lessons and steps I am needing to put in place to avoid this happening again, and support I need to enlist….I am grateful for the people who got me through this time!

But the feeling is muted for now because I finally got to pull away from city life and have an incredibly enriching time at Woodford Folk Festival then at my friend’s place in the mountains in NSW, near the Gold Coast.

Some personal poetic revelations were made that will hopefully ooze out into my musings over the next few weeks.

Or they will just stay in my heart like a Polly Pocket.

Whilst the burn out feeling seems somewhat distant, I can feel the pressure that is the oncoming creative tasks and regular hustle that is being an independent artist, yoga teacher and later a student coming back with every day of the new year that passes.

Some people hate this time of year, because there is this kind of pressure to kick new goals, look back, brag on social media and maintain a tidy rig whilst drinking and eating too much.

I didn’t put many expectations on it, yet also feel the sense of needing to start things off “right.”

Rig and resolutions included.

(Rig is a super euphemism for body, so if someone has a “tidy rig” it means they are fit etc, as opposed to a “sloppy rig” or “loose rig.”)

My last year’s NY intention was to slow down. I managed till about June. The second half of the year wasn’t so much fast, but full, so it meant that there wasn’t time for such things as cups of tea and mornings sans alarm, or days off for that matter.

2019 so far, I have two, which I won’t share with you unless you ask me. (Ha! How is that for forced engagement/ seeing if anyone actually cares!)

Then there is kind of an on the side goal/mission as I started it before I left Melbourne.

I want to see as many sunsets as I can this year.

I wrote about sunsets in Thailand on my last post, and the fact that they do happen every day has got me wanting to practice what I preach.

The ones in Whanganui, my hometown, I almost missed had my brother not reminded me. They had us running across the road with not enough jackets, to lie under an orange sky that was reflected on the historic river. I loved being able to step outside with a full belly and hear the cicadas.

Sunsets at Woodford were framed by the trees. The Aussie bush more lush in this part of Queensland than the dull tones of gum in Victoria. They happened much earlier than expected, which was a delight because it meant more time under a starry night sky. (I saw three sunrises there too, that’s another post…)

So here is my brief ode to the new year. It's not anything fancy, I'm just getting it out there. 

Out with the old,

in with the New, Yeah?

JJ

Returning

I’m waiting for my return flight to Melbourne from Bangkok.

I was here in Thailand for a week.

A week on an island doing Muay Thai, yoga, SUP boarding, drinking coconuts and walking in the rain.

And now I am returning.

Going away makes you see coming back with a different lens.

I’m trying to return to writing this blog.

I want to return to writing here because I still want to be able to return to reading here. Old posts that make my eyes roll sometimes and other times have bought tears to them. A notion I know can be self-indulgent but I’m wanting to start tiptoeing away from the antipodean need for self-deprecation so I’m going to say it anyways.

There’s more space for Stories, Sentiments and Sometimes Stupidity now that uni is on holidays and Spiritual Gangster, my newest solo show, is done.

(That process alone is something I must write about!) 

There’s space that was created during a full week away where I have been able to either not respond to messages or respond with “I’m in Thailand, I’ll get back to you.” 

Space that was carved out by looking out the window on a bus when I finished reading my book or standing under a shelter waiting for the monsoon rain to stop that I didn’t fill with phone scrolling or wondering what I was going to cook for dinner or whether I was going to be late.

Go with me on this- it’s like making coffee.

You can do it in a machine; where the coffee is furiously ground then pressured firmly then hot water blasted through it and it takes 30 seconds an BOOM! 

Strong, bitey, sometimes burnt caffeinated gold.

Or

You can make it pour over style, call it hipster or whatever, but the coffee is corsely ground, then a little bit of water poured on, then you wait 30 seconds. Then a bit more water, bit more waiting so the coffee has time to BLOOM.

That’s genuine coffee jargon for what happens when you make a coffee like this.

5 minutes later, the result is more subtle, lighter on the tongue, caffeinated gold.

When there’s space, things can be a little lighter or clearer; like when you finally tidy the Tuppaware cupboard and you can find the container and the lid as easy as the people on the infomercials do.

Back to Thailand...About 4 days in I was supping a coconut writing in my journal and I realised I had returned to myself. 

It’s a strange concept, I mean, it’s not like I left my body and went away to get stuff done then come back with a tan and penchant for papaya salad for breakfast. 

My meditation practice allows me to return to myself daily. But I guess it’s the thing when you are travelling alone that you really have to really work that groove into the couch that is sitting in yourself, and make it comfortable.

When you are travelling in Asia it’s a very sweaty groove. 

It’s mid-December. In a week I’m returning to my hometown, something that makes me happy and a touch nervous.

Not because I might not win the Rosie O’Grady’s Christmas Eve karaoke contest and play out the events of when I was robbed of the title in 2011.  

Because when we return, we notice what is different compared to when we leave.

Or what hasn’t changed.

As we come to the holiday where commercialism sponges up our spare time over the next 15 days, as does planning, travel, cooking and worry, I am going to try remember the waiting in the rain. Remember seeing the thumbnail of pink sunset in the sky as my plane was landing, and how the seconds between day and night were filled with the finale that is sunset.

On the island I got to see several of those. 

A finale that happens everyday, the sun returning to the horizon, off the edge of the earth for a few hours till it returns to the dawn sky. We have the golden opportunity every 10 or so hours to witness it.

If we just make the space for it.