The pic here is of a beautiful mural-fountain-staircase-thang commemorating the fact that in 1893 New Zealand was the first country to give the right to vote to all women.  When I first visited New Zealand in the early 2000s it had its first female Prime Minister – the Labor party’s Helen Clarke – who (unlike the UK’s first female Prime Minister) also appointed a number of other women to key positions in government.  The Clarke government in New Zealand (which lasted from 1999-2008) is now looked back on by many in the country as a time of great progress.

Ironically, just as I was leaving New Zealand for Australia, Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister was being deposed in a leadership coup, which rather amazingly happened in the middle of an election campaign (though, since Gillard came to power in a leadership coup, and was being replaced by the man she ousted, Kevin Rudd, there was a kind of ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ logic going on).  Gillard of course hails from Wales’s own Barry Island – where she was born and lived the first five years of her life.  So we could say she was Wales’s first female prime minister – just not of Wales.  She was less well regarded in general than Clarke in New Zealand, but many of the people I met on my visit felt she would be looked on much more kindly by history.  There’s certainly no doubt she was subjected to some shocking sexism –and her response to the opposition leader Tony Abbott after one such attack is the stuff of YouTube legend 

I was over in Australia to give a talk as the guest of Deakin University in Melbourne where I was the 2013 George Fairfax Fellow – which sounds like I should be there all year, but sadly only involves one lecture!  My presentation focused on NTW’s work of course, and was titled ‘Making Everything Risky:  Theatre in the Age of Google, Occupy and the Arab Spring’.  It was great to get to reflect on NTW’s work from the perspective of participation and risk.  I also took part, along with three really interesting Australian Artists in leading a workshop on site specific performance – around 60 Melbourne area artists turned up to what turned out to be a really stimulating conversation about how and why we do site specific work.  I was impressed by the range of approaches; I don’t have all of the links I should, but the Next Wave Festival is a good place to start looking for interesting work in the Melbourne area. 

I also got a chance to visit Sydney and had good meetings with the Sydney Festival and Sydney Theatre Company.  A big question for us at NTW is how we can fulfil our goal to bring exciting new Welsh theatre to international audiences while also maintaining the strong sense of location and engagement that is central to NTW’s work.  The festivals and venues I met in Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney were all very interested in this question of how we get beyond the standard touring model and I hope there will be plenty of productive conversations growing out of the visit.

So big thanks to Creative New Zealand, and to the Arts Participation Incubator at Deakin University for inviting me over and being such generous, joyous hosts. I learned a lot, and I hope I was able to share some of NTW’s learnings with you.  Here’s to more and deeper connections in the months and years to come.  Perhaps we can send you some located, risky theatre in return for a good female Prime Minister!