Sensory work

Life's a beach of a working day. The dancers recall their experience on the pristine Murrays Beach.

Matt Shilcock:
We piled up and spent a few hours at this beautiful secluded beach, which was probably the most beautiful beach I had seen. We did a few activities like imagining we were washed up on the shore and imagined how we would look. We climbed up on a big old dead tree and imagined that the tree was part of our environment and we became part of it. We did some slow walking on slippery rocks which was exciting.

As much as I love climbing rocks, I'm very cautious and over conscious of where I'm putting my feet and I really overthink how I'm walking on rocks coz I'm forever slipping over. It was a really good experience of letting go of that and focusing solely on where I was - my surrounds and things in the distance and getting a sense of the rocks with my feet being the sole input of where and how I was standing.

And after we climbed and explored for a bit - we did a fantastic blindfold exercise where we broke into groups. One member of the group was blindfolded while the others took them on a sensory journey. When I was blindfolded I had a little while to just stand there and get a feel of the air around me and the sand beneath my feet, what sounds I could hear, what smells I could smell.

I started to wonder in this experience who I was, where I was and what I was. I was then led by the hand to a bush and I started to feel this bush and how it felt in my hand. The different textures with the bark and the leaves - I think it was a bottlebrush. And then I was led away from there and whispered into my ears were some strange almost spiritual sounding noise. I was led down to a log which I was leant against and was given a head massage, buried in the sand and given a rock and was told it was the entire world and told to reflect on that.

I began to really experience the weight of the rock and the textures of it and I imagined if this rock really was the world, was it a burden to me in some way or was it something that I enjoyed holding and being with and experiencing. It was the taken away and I was given what felt surprisingly like it was a walking stick and I was told that I was the old salty fisherman. I was led by the stick. The more steps I took the more I began to believe I was the old salty fisherman. I began imaging the life the fisherman lived. All the things he had done and seen, the women he had loved and the ambitions he had still left to fulfill. Then it was time to die and I felt a little bit sad that I would be leaving this fisherman because I felt like I had a lot more left to experience in his life even though he was quite old. I was given 20 cents and then I was buried.

There was a good moment there where I experienced everything around me... the textures the sounds and smells and I reflected on the journey I had been taken on. It was almost overwhelming when I took the blindfold off and returned to the real world. I had become so wrapped up in this fantasy of the fisherman and just really focused on my senses other than sight that when it was returned to me and I was invited to step back into the real world, it was like waking up from a really good dream you're enjoying. I wanted to cling to that fantasy a little bit longer. I had never done anything like this before.

I then joined the rest of the group and caused mischief to our victims.