"I feel like my identity is slipping and I’m sad about that."
Covid-19, its associated lockdowns and restrictions, has been very difficult for McCormack, like many in the arts. It has forced him back into the building industry he left as a teenager for dance.
"I’m building full time. I’m having this conversation in Mitre 10, literally standing beside spouting systems. It’s very New Zealand dancer."
Covid-19 impacted the art scene a lot more than people were aware of especially those independent practitioners not supported by a structure, he says.
"You were on your own, it just became to fragile, too hit and miss."
So the Auckland-based McCormack decided to go back on the tools.
"I had to shift into this to survive. It’s funny but it’s also tragic. It’s been really, really hard as there is a lot of identity attached. Each day I work more here, more and more of my identity and what I’ve achieved in dance just disappears."
It is not through not working hard, despite what some might think.
"I’ve worked hard to dance my entire life, made enormous sacrifices. Living overseas, while it’s fun, it has its challenges."
Made an Arts Laureate in 2017, McCormack, who graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2001, has worked with the Douglas Wright Dance Company, the Royal New Zealand Ballet and Australian Dance Theatre before joining the Belgian radical dance collective les ballets C de la B and then Australia’s Chunky Move. He has also been commissioned to choreograph works for New Zealand and Australian companies including Footnote Dance, New Zealand School of Dance, Okareka Dance Company, Perth’s Link Dance Company and Townsville’s Dancenorth.
"Now I’m waiting in a queue to buy a bag of cement and I’m not the only one. There are quite a few of these stories out there."
Like a lot of people, his identity has been wrapped up in his career — what he did and still hopes to do.
"That’s not something to scoff at. "
McCormack came late to dance. While always a performer growing up, the North Canterbury boy took up a building apprenticeship when he left school.
"It was a big decision to step into modern dance as I had to step out of my apprenticeship to do it, but it opened up enormous doors for me.
"I haven’t looked back."
He admits he never thought he would be returning to those skills mid-career.
"When you’re in your 20s you can diversify, live transiently, and live off the smell of an oily rag, but when you are in your 40s it changes."
"It can be a very strong driving force. It’s only when it is unchecked, it can be very exposing."
On the positive side, he says, the experience has given him a new appreciation for the arts.
"It’s been an eye-opener. I’ve taken it for granted and I now cherish what comes my way — every moment — as if it’s my last hurrah."
McCormack is not confident the arts sector is out the end of the pandemic’s reach, and believes its impact will not be revealed for another three to five years.
"For many independents it’s hard to keep going. It’s been tough times and there is this notion about that you haven’t diversified enough. But the enormity of Covid, the loss of overseas contracts and the enormous amount of people applying to Creative New Zealand ... "
So at the moment he is juggling a full-on schedule doing long days on the building site while fitting in part-time dance teaching at Unitec and the odd performance when the opportunity comes up, such as bringing his show Artefact to the Dunedin Arts Festival.
The show was inspired by a news story about an old Spanish woman attempting to restore a prized 19-century fresco of Jesus.
The woman, upset at its deterioration, attempted her own restoration, horrifying art experts who considered the result made Jesus look like a monkey.
"That’s hilarious," he says. "What a situation that is and so awkward. The picture was hilarious — she wasn’t an artist she just really cared and I thought that was really funny and kind of brilliant."
That led McCormack, who last performed in Dunedin in the Janet Frame adaptation Owls Do Cry, down a "rabbit hole" of looking into the funny things that happen in art galleries and museums.
"Accidents and odd occurrences — there are so many."
There are the classic stories of cleaners at the Tate Modern leaving their trolleys and coming back to find them surrounded by people taking photos, refusing to believe they’re not an artwork.
"They have to go get security to tell them that it isn’t a piece of art, they just need their cleaning utensils back. Everyone moves away very embarrassed pretending they knew in the first place."
Then there is the guy who took a pineapple out of his bag in a museum and forgot it.
Those sorts of stories create intriguing questions about what is art these days, he says.
"It’s always been a question but I just like the funny side of it for some reason."
He says the behaviour of New Zealanders in galleries and museums is quite conservative.
"We’re quite well behaved. We wouldn’t question much and so I just find the whole thing fascinating so I thought I’d play with that."
McCormack spoke to Auckland Museum, whose artefacts are even more precious because of their historical importance.
"At that point I thought maybe I can make some fake works and see how we go and also set people up and take advantage of that caution they have around art work — that place it puts you."
So he developed Artefact, How to Behave in an Art Gallery where he embeds dancers in the uniforms of the gallery staff.
"You can’t tell the difference between the performer and a person working there and then just exploit a little bit those feelings around what is art and how you behave in a museum and gallery. Mix a bit of reality with it.
"I do make a piece of art work — which I do think is amazing — which is presented in such a way that makes you go ‘Oh my god’, which I think is great."
Artefact has a cast of six, plus McCormack seeks out a person from the community to take part. In Auckland he involved a retired Swiss Alp horn play who had "a really great look".
"He gets out an enormous Swiss Alp horn and gives it a blow. I’m always on the hunt for someone in the community who plays an instrument. It’s always good when it’s an odd instrument and I dress them up and throw them into the work."
The piece, which journeys through the museum or gallery, reacts to each space it is performed in.
"It’s a fast tiki tour through the gallery with people who don’t really work there doing their best."
TO SEE
Artefact, New Zealand Dance Company, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, October 22-23.
