PERFORMANCE
Aviva’s first performance was at age nine. She’s now fifty-six, so there’s a lot of experience to sum up.
There’s always been a lot of questioning why people perform. Is it because they need the accolades? Not for Aviva, whose workshops and private sessions have changed so many lives for the better. She explains:
“Well, performing is the only way I can truly be myself, express who I am, what I’ve done, what I love, what I think, touch people deeply, make them laugh, think, and not get locked up for it. It’s on stage that I truly live. Everything else is mere existence; what I do between performances.
Aviva, Amsterdam, performing for the Verbeelding B.V., in the studio of painter, Henk Zomer,1979
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When I get paid for performance, it’s even better! Of course, teaching is also a form of performance as any good lecturer or teacher knows.
Performing as a mature-age dancer with disabilities is a challenge too big to resist for Aviva. Maturity and life experience have brought qualities a younger performer cannot feel, let alone express. She’s kept her flexibility despite her feet not being what they once were. Nobody expects her to leap like a twenty year-old…but then, nobody expects her to do the splits either! (See the Sydney Morning Herald, article Short Sweet and Dance.) |
Aviva - in Short and Sweet Festival
October 2007 |
In recent times, she’s performed in the Short, Sweet & Dance Festival and the Short and Sweet Play Festival , Sydney; with Shunyata, the Kiama Women’s Peace Choir at numerous cultural functions between Gerringong and Wollongong; solo story-teller, Vocal Dancer and Belly Dancer in and around Kiama for cultural functions and fund-raisers. She was also MC at the Illawarra Folk Festival.
Aviva is also a very popular public speaker, with a lot of unusual experiences to share. She does this with humour, warmth yet with depth.
Book Aviva for your next function!
Contact: |
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THIS IS A WAR ZONE, BABY -- IMPROVISE! The Show
The show comprises true stories as far-removed as:
- learning military secrets while being a "good luck charm" for a sweaty, drunken U.S. General;
- witnessing the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk;
- putting on false eyelashes while perched on amplifiers on the back of a truck with battle action at the side of the road;
- encounter with a woman who taught her "we all same-same";
- having the agent's genitals dangled in her face on the night of her arrival in Saigon;
- facing the machine gun brandished by a Viet Cong in the jungle on her eighteenth birthday
and more.
An original story with original touches
Aviva regales and touches her audiences with her present-tense "telling it like it is".
The lesser-known entertainers in the Vietnam War (an estimated 3000) had a vastly different trip from the stories we've heard up to now.
They were not protected from any aspect of the war - including military personnel and the agents who 'looked after' their passports and livelihoods.
Aviva exposes the truth.
| The show combines spoken word, Jazz and Flamenco dance, Rock'N'Roll and Vietnamese music, comedy and drama. |
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From the show:
"Come 'n' sit on maaahh lap, be mah gud luck charm while I have a lil game o' poker wi' m' buddy here" - Drunken US general to Aviva...
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Read the reviews!
Quotable Quotes |
Vitalstatistix, National Production House for Women in the Theatre, featured "This is a War Zone, Baby - Improvise!" in their Winter Play Readings, 1999.
Aviva was assisted by a Stage Two Mentorship Grant from the Australian National Playwrights Centre.
Aviva has written her autobiography assisted by Arts Industry Development through ArtsSa.
Aviva acknowledges the support of the Vietnam Veteran and Vietnamese Communities in South Australia.
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