Aerialists perform on frozen iceberg in Legs on the Wall’s Thaw
Legs on the Wall’s latest spectacle, Thaw, sees aerialists perform on a giant frozen iceberg suspended 20m above Sydney Harbour – in the middle of summer.
Legs on the Wall is a physical theatre company known for many things – abseiling down the sails of the Sydney Opera House, for example, or taking over the Western Australian city of Karratha with multiple brightly coloured trampolines for a free show incorporating gymnastics, parkour, wall-running and dance to a score by Regurgitator’s Ben Ely.
What it is not known for is sculpting colossal 2.7-tonne icebergs. But a small independent arts company requires its staff to wear many hats. And so it was when artistic director Josh Thomson needed an ice sculpture of almost six cubic metres for his new show that he became an expert in making that very thing. At least he hopes he’s an expert.
This summer Legs will debut its new work Thaw, in which three aerialists will sequentially perform for 10 hours a day on a giant iceberg hanging 20m above Sydney Harbour from a crane on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. Following its Sydney premiere, Thaw will head to Launceston as part of the Mona Foma festival, which will see the iceberg suspended above Cataract Gorge. It is an audacious, risky concept that Thomson hopes will prompt people to action worldwide.
Somewhat ironically, the idea for Thaw came about as a result of the bushfires that devastated swathes of national parkland, not to mention people’s lives and livelihoods, in the summer of 2019-20. “I was really affected by them and felt pretty hopeless and powerless,” says Thomson, who lives on the NSW central coast. “I thought about becoming a firefighter or wildlife carer, then looked at what I do best and decided to lever that into a message.”
Legs’ artistic director since 2017, Thomson is also a choreographer and performer who has worked with companies including Tasdance, Townsville’s Dancenorth and Perth Theatre Company. He knows well the impact a powerful work of art can have, particularly when it’s not labelled as “art” and moves outside the traditional theatre or gallery space. His 2018 work, Tide, with fellow performer and collaborator Gavin Webber saw the pair dressed as real estate agents selling sandbars from an “office” built on a sandbar in the Gold Coast’s Currumbin Creek, a durational work that ran 49 hours straight. With no fresh water or food, the pair relied on people canoeing or swimming out to the sandbar.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but one of the most rewarding. It was real, we were out there, our bodies were (submerged) in up to one metre of water each time the tide came in, we were sleeping in the water, there were storms. But it felt like it had a reason to exist beyond entertainment,” Thomson says of the Helpmann Award-winning work, a comment on corporate greed and mindless growth.
Keen to do another outdoor work that focused on our rapidly diminishing natural habitat, Thomson conceived the idea for Thaw, in which the giant iceberg will slowly melt in the glare of a Sydney summer. At a time when the world is grappling with the deeply distressing reality of climate change and bickering over how best to combat it, Thomson is hopeful the arresting sight will inspire people, rather than force-feed them with guilt.
“The ice came out of wanting to show something shrinking. It’s a concept that inspires people in a way that’s relevant but doesn’t slam you in the face with guilt or impending doom, it has a spectacle element.”
From 10am to 8.30pm across three days this month, three Legs on the Wall performers will be rigged on a safety line attached to a crane operated by Thomson himself (another newly acquired skill) and perform on the slowly melting ice for 3½ hours apiece. Thaw Cam will livestream one full day through the Sydney Opera House’s At Home digital program. Thomson has worked with dramaturge Liesel Zink to create a loose storyline that follows three characters. Indigenous artist Vicki Van Hout is performing against type with her destructive yet humorous depiction of a ballgown and heels-wearing woman hellbent on partying rather than lamenting an environment lost. Contemporary dance artist Isabel Estrella is a sneaker-clad youth activist campaigning for climate change, complete with backpack and protest banner; while Australian-born First Nations New Zealand performer Victoria Hunt explores the Indigenous response to the question of how best we can nurture our Earth. Alaskan environmental campaigner and sound artist Matthew Burtner has composed a score that incorporates the natural sounds of glaciers and the aurora borealis to transport viewers from the hot city to an Arctic landscape.
A deliberately out-of-the-box company, Legs on the Wall has been around since 1984 and was founded by a group of young artists busking on the Sydney streets. The NSW government has since supported the company’s purpose-built home, a huge warehouse rehearsal space in Sydney’s inner-west from which it has devised a diverse range of works that have toured London (The Voyage was performed at the opening night of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad), Glasgow and regional NSW.
Productions have variously required trampolines or a Hills Hoist capable of supporting several performers — so when ice sculptors and engineers flatly told Thomson and co that creating a giant freestanding ice cube with rigging was impossible they refused to take no for an answer.
“We took it on ourselves,” says Thomson cheerfully. Eighteen months ago Thomson and rigger David Jackson, a former physical theatre and circus performer and director, began experimenting with giant tanks filled with water and rigging that was then frozen in a blast freezer inside a shipping container. What started as one tonne slowly grew to two. Today they have four 2.7-tonne moulds freezing their icebergs for the three-day Sydney season – with one to spare. Two synthetic loop lines frozen into the ice will be used to attach the mass to the crane. “When you rig a human you have to have a safety factor of 10, ours allows a safety factor of 70,” says Jackson. He notes that the synthetic line resembles that used by the supermaxis competing in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race; it is six times stronger than steel and its failure to conduct heat stops it from melting itself out of the ice.
Given the size of the ice it will melt slowly, but to be safe the crew will use a fresh block each day. “Because we’re at height and there’s risk, there’s an integrity to the ice we need to maintain,” Thomson says. The crane holding the ice has a mast that reaches to 20 metres and will lift, lower and “slew” (shift sideways) both the ice and the performer, who will at times be able to interact with passers-by. The three performers have been rehearsing on a suspended wooden deck that resembles the iceberg, but nothing can prepare them for the height, cold and damp they’ll experience once they move on to the rehearsal ice block 10 days out from Thaw’s premiere.
“Durational work is quite long and what makes this more extreme is the environmental impacts: they’re on ice, they’re out in the sun, they might be in rain, they’re confined to a small area and they’re in a harness, which has its own tax on the body,” Thomson says.
Thomson acknowledges there is risk but says it’s all highly managed. “At no point is anyone in danger, but it is dangerous. Someone being in a harness for 3½ hours is unusual and requires stamina; the ice is slippery and hard so if you were to misjudge something and move and your head came into contact with the ice that would lead to a concussion.” Of very real concern is the risk of the freezing process going awry, leaving them without an iceberg, hence the spare. “That keeps me up a bit at night,” he concedes.
Astonishingly, performer Van Hout has a longstanding fear of heights but was determined to audition. “I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year and burst into tears,” she says cheerfully. “And this time I’ll be swinging as well, ai yai yai! But I wanted the job so badly, there’s often a focus on emerging artists and because of my age (she’s 56) I was determined not to be passed over, I’ve still got a lot to offer. But it’s a learning curve.”
Thomson was deliberate in his casting of three women, and keen to represent a diversity of ages and cultural backgrounds. “Women hold the community together in a way men don’t and that was something (I wanted to reflect) ... and you don’t often see older performers doing this high-stakes stuff. There’s a great sharing of knowledge here.”
While spectacle is important, it is Thomson’s sincere hope that this free, unticketed show goes much deeper, prompting people to stop and think about the small part they can play to prevent the damage being inflicted on our environment. Legs has collaborated with impact producer Sophia Marinos, who believes art is a powerful way of bringing about positive change.
“Art is an amazing vehicle for people to engage in issues. When you have an emotional connection to a story you’re more likely to do something about it,” says Marinos, who worked on Big hART’s national theatre work and campaign, the Namatjira Project, which, supported by The Australian’s reporting, was ultimately responsible for the copyright of celebrated Indigenous artist Albert Namatjira being returned to his family.
Thaw has its own impact campaign that the team hopes will maximise the audience’s desire to step up. “We’re really intending to bring out hope; it’s not as if the lone performer is doomed on the ice, she adapts and changes as the ice melts and changes shape,” Marinos says. “How she changes is a strong theme and a good one for the broader population – how do we prepare for change rather than feel paralysed by the fact we’re in a climate emergency?”
As part of the impact campaign Legs has collaborated with Indigenous youth climate network Seed, who will give passersby small ice cubes inside which is a call to action printed on biodegradable paper offering suggestions of positive action, such as switching to green super funds or investing in clean energy. Legs has also partnered with the Sydney Opera House who will host Enough Talk, a one-day “climate change soapbox” inviting members of the public to have their say on the theme, alongside some of those leading the charge such as Climate Council councillor and economist Nicki Hutley. The SOH is also holding an outdoor exhibition of framed portraits and quotes from some of the world’s climate change leaders, including David Attenborough and Seed CEO Amelia Telford, offering tangible ways people can respond to climate change.
“What I wanted to show was the beauty and fragility of our natural world, and our reliance on it,” says Thomson. “I’d love the audience to be inspired, to know something is happening and continue the conversation. We’re working towards the idea of coming together as people with a shared voice, working with the environment, as opposed to always pushing against.”
Thaw is part of the Sydney Festival and runs outdoors at the Sydney Opera House on January 14-16; and as part of Mona Foma at Cataract Gorge, Launceston, on January 21-23.