Captions by Pippa Jefferies. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 PULSATING PERCUSSIVE MUSIC When I'm on stage, I feel like a totally different person, you know? I feel like I'm in with some sort of higher power. You know, I'm able to do things that I would not be able to do in a` just a normal state. I've returned home from the USA. I've been in` over there for 10 years, you know, having to find new ways to be home. You know, what does home mean? Uh, how can I, um, participate and inject myself back into my family? They've been waiting, like, you know, for me to return. OK, see you later. See ya. Take care. Kia ora. It's hard to come back and notice that chunk of time you missed out on, you know, because you see change. But, you know, once you're there, you're sharing the air, you sort of catch up as like nothing's changed, but it has, really, eh? PULSATING PERCUSSIVE MUSIC Yeah, so having to find new ways to be home, and one of those new ways is performing or creating this dance that I'm doing called Meremere, this solo work that is a biography around my journey. Not only life but mainly, like, about my journey in the USA, on the streets. It is therapeutic, you know, to revisit those emotions and feelings and memories and build some sort of clarity around why and what happened there. I was on the street for three years, and then I returned home in 2015. There is heaps of material here for a show, and it is a solo. < Yeah. Uh, and it is about you. Little did I know that` that all that` this stuff, you know, that I was going through at that time would evolve into something so beautiful or, you know, would be shaped into something that's sort of really has strong significance in relationship to, like, the` the thing I love the most, which is dance. I think we forget sometimes that your reality or my reality is very different to someone else's reality, and we have to. We have to share those things. Well, Rodney and I, we met, gosh, um, maybe in 1999. We'd always talked about doing something independently together, and then when he came back, I, sort of, contacted him to, sort of, work on a piece, and I had no knowledge of what experiences he'd been through. So when we got together and he started telling me about these things, it sort of just unravelled that that was gonna be the work. When I was homeless on the streets of San Francisco, I used to sleep on a park bench. I remember out of the morning fog used to form this one-legged seagull which I named Moana. PEOPLE CHATTER DOWNBEAT MUSIC (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Nga rangirua o te tangata. Rongo mauri kura e. Beautiful. Yes, excellent. OK. Yeah, so that will take you back as the red comes through here and you hear that chant. Yes. Or the call. Yeah. And then you'll end up here. HAUNTING MUSIC Dance gave me a new way to relate to my body. Yeah, cos as a dancer, you've obviously got to really look after yourself physically. But I feel this idea of being disabled is you just sit still and you stretch what you can feel and then everything else sort of just hangs around. But dance sort of gave me this, uh, new way of seeing and being in relationship to the parts of my body I didn't feel. REFLECTIVE MUSIC I had my accident in 1991. I had a motorcycle accident. And, uh, I was` I was drunk. HAUNTING MUSIC Yeah, and didn't take a bend and went through a fence and... Yeah, sure, I broke my back, but I broke a lot of people's hearts as well ` you know, my family, friends. And I'm not proud. I'm not proud, but... And I'm not saying I'm paying the price either, but I'm just telling the truth about it. HAUNTING MUSIC I was quite physical before I had my accident. And after my accident, I... Yeah, I just had this new vessel I had to deal with. You, uh` Just going toileting and these simple things that came pretty easy that we sort of forget about. Oh, not forget about ` that we sort of` I wouldn't say take for granted, because you don't know the things you take for granted till they're taken away, right? From the chest down, I had lost all feeling and control, and I had damaged my shoulder as well, which needed reconstruction. PULSATING PERCUSSIVE MUSIC Sure, I went through times of challenge, and they were different stages, like a` in relationship to what my new future would look like and what sort of a career I'm gonna be able to pursue. TRANQUIL MUSIC I reckon my mind's sort of opened up even more after I had my injury. I started getting steered into these new places. I sort of just jumped in the awa, in the river and thought, 'Well, where's this going to take me?' TRANQUIL MUSIC CONTINUES That's quite cool. Huh? When the... This looks interesting. Yeah, there's something quite animalistic about that. I don't know ` a bird? > And then the last one is that back wall, and you just` you just swipe. How's it going? Good. The seed of dance first got planted in me by a lady named Catherine Chappell, who's the artistic director for Touch Compass Dance Trust. I first met her back in the '90s, and she'd come and` and showed a video to the, uh, junior wheelchair basketball team that I was coaching at that time. I sat back and` and admired and had a giggle, I must admit, cos it was a new... Yeah, it was sort of a new energy for me. And then she wanted to bring me out into the space and sort of demonstrate a few movements with me. And I found` I found that sort of, like, a little bit, you know... a little bit weird at that time. Yeah, and then the relationship grew between her and I to dance, yeah, and then it evolved really quickly and... I remember the first time moving in front of a crowd of people. Yeah, it sort of` Yeah, that was it. It stole my soul. SLOW GUITAR MUSIC It was quite a natural transition for me. Yeah, I thought, 'Wow, this is interesting, eh? 'This performance thing ` you get to work with other people. You get to express yourself.' My grandmother... 'You get to try new things all the time.' And I thought, 'Wow, this is the life for me.' My river goes through the middle of my town, Te Kuititanga, like this. PERCUSSIVE MUSIC PLAYS Mangaokewa. My marae, it sits over here, Te Toka-nga-nui-a-noho, right by the railway tracks. BLUESY MUSIC PLAYS My mum ` she's down here on the flat. And me? I'm gonna build a house right behind my mum. It's gonna be shaped like this. BLUESY GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS I'm gonna have a deck out the front with a ramp. MUSIC CONTINUES PLAYING I'm gonna be able to look down the driveway to see who's coming. I'll have a big arch window over here to let the sun shine in. And over here, I'll have a special doorway just for my mum. It'll be shaped like this. BLUESY CHORAL MUSIC PLAYS MUSIC FADES There's a` There's another sequence where we've recorded himself asking himself questions. So what we wanted to do was try and create a version of his younger self, like when he was 8 or younger, and that developed through him having a conversation with his younger self about what he's doing now. What are you doing there? Me? I am dancing in my wheelchair. Dancing? Yep. And, hey, maybe they can't even see my wheelchair when I dance. Hey, do you...? Do you still have a girlfriend? Me? Oh, that's none of your business. Oh. Do girls like people like that? They sure do. Oh, OK. How are you, bro? How you doing? Yeah, I'm doing all right. Do Mum and Dad know you dance? Well, it's funny you ask. I've been trying to work out how to tell them. OK. So what shall I tell them? No, no, no, no. I've been trying to work out how to tell them. I'll tell them. I'm gonna tell them. No, no, no, no. Don't do that, bro. I'll tell them, OK? I've got it. You're in big trouble. So, great work, everybody. Uh, let's go through the notes. More energy on your wiri. Yeah, pump it up a notch. Yeah, so I relocated to America in 2007 to dance for a company named Axis. TRIBAL MUSIC PLAYS Axis is renowned in the USA. They're made up of people with and without disabilities. Yeah, and I was with them for five years ` relocated in Oakland, California. Yeah, and then that` how it ended up, I ended up on the street after being let go by Axis Dance Company. We obviously, uh, didn't earn much. You know, you don't earn much in the arts world. It's driven by passion. So I wasn't able` I was unable to accumulate funds, and so I, uh, ended up with no funds. And I thought, 'Well, my only option is to, uh, go to the street.' So while I was in San Francisco, I used to make use of the shelter system there. I got a 90-day bed. And in the morning, I wondered, 'Phew, I wonder what happens in the morning here?' We had to get out of there by 8 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, if I wanted to make money, I'd just busk, you know. Oh, I played harmonica. Yeah, I'd play harmonica or I'd play this game called Para-Dice. Paraplegic Dice of Life. Dice for short, cos that originally became my street name. The game would go like this. I'd get someone from the crowd. They'd come up. They'd roll out these three dice, and I'd have this board over here, and it had six wheelchair tricks on it that I could perform. You roll it out three numbers ` three-trick combination. THUNDER BOOMS That's Kiwi Thunder. UPBEAT GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS Always trying to live in this non-disabled world for a long time. I have lots of moments of anger and` and loss of control. ROCK MUSIC PLAYS Like, I would go through emotional states of jealousy when I had girlfriends and like that because I would think, 'Wow, I'm, you know, this disabled non-disabled thing.' Come up a lot in relationships, like, um, it was because of age as well, because I was young and compared myself with other young men at that age, you know, and they're all vibrant. They're very athletic, and they're` I was limited to a degree and being athletic before my accident, so it would bring up this jealousy thing, and it` and not so much jealousy that they're gonna steal my lady or anything, but just jealousy around that, which sort of will get out of control sometimes. I would, like, try and suppress it through our whole` and stuff like that, you know? I would like` Yeah, I'd distance myself from` from people. MUSIC FADES DOG BARKS IN DISTANCE BIRDS CHIRP MAN: How you going? Hey. I returned home in 2015, you know. Rediscovering what it is to be home. You know, what does home mean? Uh, how can I, uh, participate and inject myself back into my family in a positive light? They've been waiting, like, you know, for me to return, and` and I could imagine, like, having a son that's living homeless by choice, yeah, it's sort of hard to wrap your head around, eh? Brother? < LAUGHTER Bro? No one home. BOTH LAUGH Yeah, well, he talked about, uh, what it was like for them being at home, you know, and drawing understanding to what I'm doing. 'What the hell is he doing over there? 'You know, he said he was going for a year, and 10 years later, limited communication.' (GRUNTS) Oh, that last one. I'm the one that went away, you know. Family remained. Come in. Come in. ROCK MUSIC PLAYS, GIRL LAUGHS > Hey, girls. Your uncle's here. < Bro, I was... < GIRLS LAUGH Hi, darlings. GIRLS: Hi, Uncle. So, what you been up to today? < Oh, nothing. You sure? GIRLS LAUGH 'Nothing' means 'a lot', you know? Hard to do nothing. I might have had all these experiences and stuff like that, but so did they. You can either look at it like can I compare or just sort of share the air and go, 'OK, where are we now? You know, how do we move forward now?' I'm home and from what I've experienced, how can I best utilise that to support home? Man, I experienced 10 years over there, and it's 10 years that I do regret ` some of it ` because of the time per` you know, the sacrifice, the time period away from family. But the` that's what you do, you know, when you pursue your career. You know, you sort of get caught up in this roller coaster of, like, trying to achieve and just grow within and deepening your art or your career or whatever that may be. So it's up to me to come in humbly and reconnect in a way that doesn't disrespect people. It's good to be home, bro. About time you came, eh? It's been a while. Time's the key to everything, really, I suppose, and it's lock. Hey, you left us a bit stranded when you went away. < Yeah. Eh? < Yeah. Cos that was not long after the old man passed away, and you took off. I had to fly, bro. Nah, you just... you just wanted to get away. Mm. We missed you, though. Especially Nanny. Nanny missed you heaps. Every week, 'I wonder if Rodney's coming home. I wonder if Rodney...' And I kept telling her, 'I don't think he's ever coming back. He doesn't want to come back to Te Kuiti. Yeah, I'm still trying to find how to be home, though, bro. It's gonna take a while. Everything seems a little bit slower. You've just gotta move slower. Yeah, that's... Yes, that's the key. I feel like, um, just because I've been overseas and that doesn't mean that I know more than my brother that has six children, that has children that love him to the max. He's been nowhere. Oh, you know, sure he's been around the Motu, round the country and that. And when I say nowhere, I say that respectfully because I've been overseas, you know; I have all these worldly experiences. But in comparison, he's a beautiful dad, and he had to go nowhere. BIRDS CHIRP, CARS PASS BY I'm living at Motel Te Kuiti because I'm looking at getting a little unit built on the back of my mum's house, as my mum's home is a little bit inaccessible for me. Motel life everybody thinks is exciting, but, you know, at the end of the day, I think it's all right for a night or two, but long term it gets a little bit monotonous. And it looks like I'm gonna be there a little bit, you know` for a while, for a chunk. I feel as time has moved on, you know, it's` the cave has become smaller and smaller, this place. But yet, again, all I have to do is push down the road and be at my mum's, you know? And they have no, like, uh` She has no hot water there, so I shower with cold water just out of respect for her. PERCUSSIVE CHORAL MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUES MUSIC FADES So, this is the papa whenua where I'll be building my self-contained unit upon. It'll be a place of security, cos I feel like I've been displaced for so long, and it's like a` I don't call it homelessness; I call it` I've been home for... I've been roaming on this earth for a long time, since I was 15 years old, so it's good to return home and have a place of, um, stableness but also a place that I can feel independent as well. Hey! Hi! Movement of the Human has arrived. Hey? It's a nice day for it. Welcome, family. Hi, baby. Tena koe. They're a team of artists, AV designers, musicians ` to sort of do some research around, um, my story here in Te Kuititanga ` how I grew up, come and look at my marae, go and visit my dad up the urupa. (PERFORMS KARANGA) I think them coming down and seeing where I grew up and getting an understanding from where these memories come from, what makes me strong and getting a visceral idea of what makes me. Kia ora, te whanau. So, I'm Rodney Bell, and I'm seed of chiefs, and I'll never forget that. I've been cloaked by many beautiful things in my life, and we're sitting in one of them at my wharenui. Rodney's father and I are first cousins. We were gravediggers. Right up until, uh, Rodney's father passed away, uh, he worked up there day in and day out. We really missed him when he passed. SOMBRE MUSIC How's that terrain doing for you? It's really nice. (LAUGHS) Love it. BLUES MUSIC Is this where we're going? Yes. POIGNANT MUSIC MUSIC SWELLS HAUNTING MUSIC MAN SINGS IN MAORI Yeah. PEOPLE CHUCKLE So, did your dad see you dancing? No, I don't think he ever did. Yeah, he used to go around town, and everybody used to tell him about my dancing. He'd just go, 'Oh yeah.' < Did you invite him? Yeah, I think I organised some sort of bus once. But maybe they all forgot to hop on it. CHUCKLING INSECTS CHIRP Yeah, so when I was homeless, I... I tried to carry, like, five backpacks with me and then realised, 'Well, that's not possible,' so I had to go down to, like, four, then three and two, and eventually I ended up with just one. So I had to let go of a lot of stuff. What I kept in my final bag was mainly warm things cos I knew it was gonna get cold out there. But I did keep some treasures that I sort of carried around for a while. Like I remember I had a necklace for my dad. I had a photo of my dad, stuff like that. I always said to myself that I couldn't show any signs of weakness, cos then I'd fold, you know. So I knew I was on my own. I knew I had to fend for myself. Um, my nutrition ` you know, that was all` everything was gonna happen only cos of me. No one else was gonna help me, so why feel down about it? That was the facts, so I just, like, pursued it and formed it. BIRDS CHIRP PEOPLE CHATTER UPBEAT BLUES GUITAR MUSIC (PLAYS ROUSING BLUES TUNE) GUITAR ACCOMPANIMENT PLAYS I had high expectations of myself before my accident, you know? So after my accident, I sort of, yeah` I lost a bit of hope in relationship too, like, 'Far out, gotta start again.' Always tried to keep on the up and up. Always tried to, like, um, make sure everyone else is OK. (PLAYS BLUES RIFF, TUNE) I feel there's been, um, this demon cloud over disability, Maori culture, homelessness, you know? They all get these demon clouds. They all get, like, stereotyped, 'Oh, Maori culture. Oh man, they're lazy. They just do nothing.' All this crap. Disability, 'Oh nah, they're Deaf. They're in a wheelchair,' you know? I just wanna be part of that movement, I am, and part of that movement to push those clouds aside, you know, give some hope. (PLAYS BLUES RIFF) MUSIC ENDS Obviously, I was told, 'You're disabled,' you know, 'You're not gonna be able to do this, this, this, this.' It's like that confines you straight away. 'All right, OK, I'm not gonna be able to do those things. Cool. 'What am I gonna be able to do, eh?' I can disagree. (CHUCKLES) I can, um, just not turn up and do your OT thing. You know what I mean? I can, um, go against the grain and try dancing, you know? I think it's about choice ` choice and control. PERCUSSIVE MUSIC PLAYS I'm still wanting to hone in and challenge this idea of disabled dancer, cos obviously it's obvious, right? I have a disability. I get on stage; a lot of people come up to me and go, 'Oh, I didn't even see your wheelchair.' I think to myself, 'OK, what are they trying to say?' They're just trying to say, 'Wow, that was a beautiful performance.' Why not just say that, you know? Why not just say that? Why do you always have to refer to the chair? Just be accepted as a` a performer, you know, without the pity, without the empathy. SOFT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS # On the streets with all the stories unknown. # It's great to be acknowledged for what you do, eh? Brings great pride. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS, FADES APPLAUSE, CHEERING CHEERING CONTINUES REFLECTIVE, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC PLAYS Captions by Pippa Jefferies. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016