So much so, they have created a dance work out of it.
Both students themselves, Butler is in her fourth year of law and Gay, a science graduate in neuroscience who is studying part-time this year, they h remember those first few months as students after leaving home for the first time.
"It’s a really scary kind of thing. I came from Wellington, and Maddie came from Christchurch. And being away from home is hard. And starting university, making new friends is scary," Butler says.
They have called their work Motion Sickness to reflect the ups and downs students experience in that first year.
"Moving away from home, you have these awesome highs where you meet new people, and it’s really exciting and cool, and you’re starting a new degree in life. And then you have these lows where study’s really hard, maybe you’re not making friends, you really miss home. And it’s kind of all about getting that motion sickness from big changes in your life."
But it was a big call for the pair to take the plunge and create the work. They got the idea last year when taking part in Willow de Jonge’s Feroce Cabaret at last year’s fringe.
"I did some dancing and Maddie did some singing. And we were sort of like, maybe we could do this. Maybe we could put a show on for ourselves. And we talked to Willow, we were like, how difficult is it? And she said it was really difficult. We were like OK, and she was like, you’ll be OK, you can do this."
The pair are both involved in the Otago Dance Association (ODA), a student-run club which provides accessible dance classes to everyone as well as having a performance troupe which performs at sports games and other events.
"It’s where we first met."
This year Butler, who has been learning dance since she was spotted in her local library as a 3-year-old dancing around finding books, is president and Gay vice-president. Their involvement in it and directing the team for its big show of the year gave them an insight into how to put a show together. They learnt about things that work and do not work and how to organise a "whole bunch" of dancers.
"So we were like, OK, this is a good trial run to figure out how we could do it."
Butler also has directing experience from Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festivals back in school days when she was selected to go to London’s Globe, although Covid-19 scuppered the trip.
"My time with Shakespeare was really awesome and I learned a lot about directing through that, which was really cool. And I also I directed the Law Review last year which was really fun and more comedic than our show now."
They both figured this was the best time, if they were going to do it.
"With the university timetable, we’re not working full-time or anything like that. Maddie and I live together as well. So I can kind of bug her all hours of the night about when we need things done. When else are we living together as best friends?"
So utilising Gay’s choreography skills — she has been the university dance club’s head choreographer for its hip-hop troupe for the past two years — and Butler’s dance and organisational skills, they forged ahead.
They came up with the narrative for the piece based on those first-year experiences and started the funding application process. They were successful in gaining funding from the university, Dunedin City Council and the Fringe Festival.
"We were just like, right. People have given us money now to put this show on. We’re going to have to do it."
Gay, who is from Australia but calls Christchurch home, says they pulled together a talented troupe of 13 dancers, aged from 14 to late 20s, figuring it enabled them to spread the load on the dancers over a one-hour show.
"They’ve got so much to learn. Whereas when we spread out the dancers among our larger cast, it means that there’s a lesser workload.
"They’re not too tired by the end of it, hopefully. And we’ve got a really cool, good variety of dancers that have hip-hop strength, musical theatre strength, contemporary strength."
Butler says while the motion sickness theme plays throughout the piece, it is not a rigid storyline. Instead, each of the 18 dances has its own mini concept.
"Each dance that we’ve got on the show has its own concept that can relate to anyone, but does tie into that overall theme of motion sickness and how you feel when big changes happen in your life, and how good that can be and how bad that can be."
The choreography for the show has been a challenge at times for Gay, who also teaches hip-hop and ballet to children.
"I’ve had some very hard themes that I had to try and make a dance for and actually show a storyline through so it really challenged me, pushed my boundaries you know I had to think really outside of the box."
"Maddie and I were in a whole bunch of clubs and extracurricular activities, which is so awesome, and it fills our lives with so much joy, but it can wear us thin sometimes."
There is also a dance sequence critiquing the role of the patriarchy, something both are passionate about.
"Because it’s tough being women and putting on a show and feeling maybe not as confident as we should do. But we’re doing it."
The show is also giving them a chance to promote other areas they are passionate about such as sustainability and sign language.
They have a no-buy policy for the show, believing creating costumes for one show that is performed only four times is a waste.
"Sometimes when putting on a show, you have to mass order a whole bunch of costumes so everyone looks exactly the same. And often, working on a low budget, when you mass order these costumes, they come from fast fashion brands, they come from unethically made shops and that kind of thing. And we’re really against that, because we think it’s really silly and unethical and bad practice."
All of the dancers are on board with the policy of self-sourcing everything they need for the show. Some already have costumes left over from other shows cluttering their drawers and cupboards so are hoping to reuse some of them, while others will "beg and borrow" from friends, family and flatmates.
"And it’s going really well so far. Things don’t need to be perfect, you know? You don’t need the exact same shirt on all of your dancers. A colour theme, we’ve got dancers in suits that are all in different colours, but it’s the suits that kind of matches."
Sign language is something Butler is passionate about and has been learning for years so she wanted to make sure they catered to the deaf and hearing-impaired community.
"Something we talked about is that what often deaf and hearing-impaired audience members can miss out on dancing is the clever choreography that fits the lyrics of the songs that we have. And if you’re deaf and hearing-impaired, you don’t hear those lyrics and you just see the dancing, which is a whole other experience in itself, but you sort of miss the magic of the timing and those clever wordplays that you do in your choreography."
At the beginning they envisaged having a sign language interpreter sign the lyrics for them but soon realised if people are looking at the interpreter, they will miss the choreography.
"Deaf and hearing-impaired audience members would constantly have to flick between an interpreter and the dancing and would actually not experience the dancing as we want them to. It would be kind of overwhelming."
Research also showed the process could be "othering" for hearing-impaired people.
"It is sort of the idea that in the aim of catering to people who are affected by disability, you kind of "other" them from what you’d call people who are unaffected by disability."
So Butler has helped Gay incorporate sign language into the dances themselves and they have someone from the deaf and hearing-impaired community coming in to help make sure they get it right.
"So to incorporate both and have the dancers doing the sign language means they’re watching the same performance as everyone else, hopefully eliminating that "othering" factor and giving them an experience of seeing dance and the magic of the wordplay and the rhythm of the music."
Both are firm proponents of dance and the university’s dance club as being one of the reasons they have enjoyed their time in Dunedin so much as it helped with their mental health and dealing with stress as well as meeting like-minded people.
"It’s my happy place, after doing hours and hours in the library studying law and I go to a dance class for ODA and man it’s just such a cool break for your brain to move. I would talk about the itch to move your body after sitting still for so long."
Butler had decided to give up dance before she came to university yet ended up going to the club’s open day, got asked to audition for a troupe, met Gay, who started doing physical culture and rhythmic gymnastics before going to dance classes, and the rest they say is history.
"Now I feel like I do more dancing now than I ever have in my life."
TO SEE:
Motion Sickness, Dunedin Fringe Festival, Playhouse Theatre, March 20-21, 6pm, March 22, 1pm, 6pm.
