Snow is falling in London. It falls straight down from the sky, melting as it touches the warmer ground. Walking through it, I remember arriving at Davis station, Antarctica. Snow was falling then, but gently sweeping around. It did not melt, but attached itself immediately to the ice. Over thousands of years this has been happening. A massive ice sheet now covers the continent, weighing down rock and displacing some sea. All this is changing. When the ice melts, the rock and the sea will rise again. I had flown from the ship by helicopter, with Antarctica’s first Indonesian visitors. They had never seen snow before, and danced around in it, smiling. I was happy to be on land, to feel the rock and ice. I was intensely aware that although we had come to the same place, what we experienced was different. Perhaps we all knew that, as I we looked around in delight, waving our arms amongst crystals.
Walking around here now, snowflakes attach to my coat. It’s my father’s big blue coat, and I’m suddenly five years old. He is holding me tight on the ship, taking us to Australia. My mother and sister are seasick below, while I ride the waves with him. I remember the distance between us.
I danced this moment in Sydney. It was at Tony Osborne’s final movement improvisation workshop for 2007. All his sessions had begun with a simple activity to warm up the body, and provide a structure within which improvised material might suggest itself. We began breathing into motion, and voicing. Beginning on the floor, lying with eyes closed, we grew aware of the natural motion within our bodies while breathing. Tiny movements of the limbs followed, rising and sinking, initiated by breaths. After a slow transition from floor to standing, the rhythm of the motion remained with me and became the structure for a dance. We each took turns to improvise a 3 minute solo. I stood still in the space and then words emerged from my breathing. It was as if my breath and voice and motion expanded into the space beyond me. I was the wind. I was a child inside my father’s overcoat – at once protected from and exposed to the elements. I told the story of my family’s passage from New Zealand to Australia by ship. My body drew vast distances around the room, between my father and I riding the storm above the decks, and my mother and sister, seasick and hysterical below. Beneath was cosy sickening warmth, and above was the ice cold sea. Both were pretty frightening, but I chose the sea.
“What happens at sea stays at seaâ€, a friend of my father has told me. What drives some people to the ends of the earth may never be fully known. I felt like I was entering dangerous waters, asking about my father. But I know when to stop.
I now see how the animations I’ve begun can form a cycle. The last one is not yet started, but can return you to the first of the 21 animations. It will start and end with a ship. Each of these animations can be developed much further, to chart my own journey, and how it relates to the different connections others have made with Antarctica. I will learn how to make the Flash interface of the Home Page lead you straight into this.
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The biggest ever complete specimen of a secretive squid has been found in Antarctica.
The cephalopod stretched 230 centimetres (7.5 feet) from the hooks on its hunting tentacles to its tail, and weighed nearly 30 kilograms (66 lbs).
The specimen was found and is being studied by scientist Amanda Lynnes, from the British Antarctic Survey.
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A four-man science team led by British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) Dr Andy Smith has begun exploring an ancient lake hidden deep beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet. The lake – the size of Lake Windermere (UK) – could yield vital clues to life on Earth, climate change and future sea-level rise.
BAS News
Press Release
Issue date: 15 Jan 2008
Number: 01/2008