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Mel Naumoff

@cococabanaqueen

1.4K

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Dancer, producer, showmaker✨
Creative communities & (sub)culture 📝
Sustainable arts practice ♻️
@neoncarousel🎠
@sadcowgirltours 👢

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Look who it is 😍 Far too long between time with this one. Love you 👯‍♂️ @fetishnoircouture
🧡🧡🧡🧡
#thosewhopapiermachetogetherstaytogether #roomies #gettingthebandbacktogether #noclapperboards by @cococabanaqueen

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10 months ago

This is a @lizzy_jane_baker appreciation post. It was her birthday today (it's still today Italy time), and it feels strange to not have spent the last month with her this year. What a year. And even though she's uncharacteristically not much inclined to celebrate today, Liz is one of those miraculous, generous souls who knows just how important it is to celebrate and be celebrated.

I don't need big milestones and ceremony for my appreciation post, because Liz is someone whose light is warmest in the moments-in-between. I'm in constant admiration of the way she holds space, creates freely, and invites openly. She has a way of making spaces (houses, studios, playrooms) into homes. She knows it's the little things, and experiences, that really matter. It is the most innate ability and people feel it in her presence.

And look, I know everyone loves that about Liz, but it's not all about everyone else ok? What I love the most about her is that none of this is performative. She knows how to be present - with people she meets, or is celebrating, is teaching, or caring for, and with her loved ones, and herself, and with her grief and love and pain and fury and hope and DANCE, and a thousand hours of voice memos and boiled eggs with tea at the kitchen table.

Liz, my soul sister it is a privilege to join you through all these moments, from the highs and lows to the most mundane drudgery of life, and purely wicked laughs from the belly that no one else can or should ever be witness to ever..

What an honour to be present with you, dancing always. Happy birthday Liz, I hope I can make it over to you soon. Sending love from a bus somewhere between Bologna and Barcelona xoxo
🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️

1. Swinging on rooftop @nineteentenadl
📸 @photographygemmarose
2. We dance. Gogo workshop by Liz 🤍 by @cococabanaqueen

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10 months ago

I've been living in remote east Kimberley since April last year... and with that chapter turning over it seems I'm resurfacing. Remember that time I disappeared for a year and a half and showed up in your story feed making costumes and fangin' round Europe? Well, I haven't much felt like sharing for a while... I've been deep in it.

My time in the EK was mostly spent working very remotely with communities across Gija, Mirriwong and Balanggarra country - growing food, cooking together and building gardens in some very rocky pindan. We made art, and shows, and medicine and stories and big feeds. And I loved so much being there fully, not half-attached to the whole world via social media.

It was beautiful and fulfilling and life changing. It was also incredibly difficult, and being away from my home base (knx) 4 days per week, every week, was a slog of a tour schedule. Jeepers. And that's from me - your girl who just loooooves to tour. I drove a lot.

So I've had a lot of time to think, about time and presence, resources and nfps, about visibility and deep need and community and love and the systems (formal and informal) that do those things no good at all. I've made dear friends, swam and hiked, and would have liked more time for all of those. But no. Next visit. I met a puppy companion who needed some care. I've loved and lost in equal measure.

And now home is calling sooo sweetly. To make art, and dance, see my beautiful friends and and family and do summery things in city places. A couple more weeks of this adventure... then next chapter.

See you soon pretties xx by @cococabanaqueen

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a year ago

I've spent most of my time since November working between Perth and Cardabia station in Coral Bay. It's been the most incredible experience working with the Baiyungu land owners in the lead up to presenting their second festival at the station, and while I would have loved to stay for event delivery my next project awaits!

The last few months have been spent with the small but incredible ops and programming team to work with the community in building up skills and foundations for the festival this year and beyond, and I'm wishing them well for the event. Have fun without me team, miss you already 🧡

Thank you to BAC for your resolve and for welcoming me so warmly, and for your continued friendship and support. I'm looking forward to seeing the festival and site flourish under your guidance. Will visit soon 🧡

As for me, my next project starts next week! Can't wait to share it with you.
Xx

1. Good hat choices, before rain.
2-4. Sign painting! Upcycling project with the Shooting Stars kids from Carnarvon 🎨
5-6. Rain came
7-9. Cardabia beauty

#baiyungucountry #nyinggulu #communityevents #producerlife #volunteerprograms #gascoyne #cardabiastation #westernaustraliacoast #waartists #ningaloo taken in Boorloo by @cococabanaqueen

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2 years ago

Opening weekend for @fringeworldperth is dusted for another year! 💕 I've been making roving magic with @neoncarousel for around... 12 years now? I decided a few years ago that Neon Carousel would only take on the work I wanted it to - no pressure to be big or visible or take over the world. And so, it continues to be joyous, and fulfilling, and nurturing, and gentle, and to make people happy. Including me, and these silly beautiful faces.

(Thank you again to my gorgeous performers, you are precious gems 💖🦢)

This pic was taken at FW one year ago, after opening weekend. I never posted it, because that's just like me, and also because it was the day I decided that I'd had a nice day but I needed a break. It was sandwiched between a big burnout and some quiet recovery time, and so when I look at this pic I can see my layered mix of happiness and weariness. So tanned, so tired! And the break that followed was a good reminder to take breaks even if there's a festival on. There will probably be another festival.

Performers, producers, creatives - how do you keep your work sustainable? How do you check in with yourselves when the work is wild and plentiful?

Love and good rest to you this festival season my sparkly friends xx 🦢🦢 by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

This is my crying-at-the-airport post. @lizzy_jane_baker , my best friend I'm so lucky to have found in this world. My sister in dance and soul. We live so far apart but just up the road, and it always feels odd to be leaving, like leaving home. And each time our plans are bigger than the world will allow for, and still we are lucky just to make those plans in each other's company. So lucky! No workshops or shows this time, and neither of us mind. That will all come in its due time. This time was for the heartspace, the truest, most mundane and most needed soul company after a year that begs us for rest and while the world turns gritty. I'm so grateful for you!

See you in just a minute. Xx taken in Adelaide, South Australia by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

Do good things today everyone 🌟 Love you 🖤💛❤️
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#absenteevoting #wa #dogoodthings #love #yes #healingcountry #healingcommunity #community #wereinthistogether #kimberley #broome #kaurnacountry #whadjukboodja #yawurucountry taken in Adelaide, South Australia by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

Home now and reeling from an epic few months with @turanewmusic on The Journey Down. It's been exhilarating and challenging and absolutely heartwarming, and so much else I can't even put into words.

Thank you Tura for having me on and trusting me to produce this incredible project, and congratulations on an epic and successful journey. Thank you and bravo to the creative team and the artists for lending your talents and sharing culture, you've been endlessly inspiring and a joy to create with. What a beautiful beautiful thing this has been.

Thank you @wamuseum for lending Warnarral Ngoorrngoorrool back to us for the last 3.5 thousand kilometres. Sorry about the steering.

And something beyond thank you to the incredible crew and production team for being so damn good at what you do, for making it possible and for the good humour always. Family now 🌀

Welcome home everyone, until next time. Miss you already xx

1. Hugs and goodbyes with Pelican & Preben
2. Workshops at Wankadjunka
3. Brolgas with my tour wife in Fitzroy
4. Perth show, a semiotic metaphor
5. Morale officer Marble
6 & 7. Cable Beach show by @edifymediaau

@anhedonianne @tristenparr @avivaendean @nessietomlinson @georgeflyingfox @jamessavage1968 @justinwesleymarshall @learsonist taken in Whadjuk Country by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

Today I'm on my way up north to kick off a tour I'll tell you more about as I go. And it's also the last couple of days of #plasticfreejuly, which is an extra kind of challenge on the road and on tour.

I've been posting about this in my stories for the month, and to be honest I think I'll just keep it going. I've loved talking with everyone about how to move through sustainability more consciously as an industry, in our businesses, on behalf of the businesses we work for...

Now, how to do that for me plus 17 people on a month long regional tour?! We'll see... Updates in my stories xx

#ontour #plasticfreejuly #creativeindustries #sustainability #touringwa #showgirlontour #producerlife #womeninarts #itbegins
@plasticfreejuly taken in Whadjuk Country by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

Late night packing and contemplating that delicate balance between performer life and producing life... They rarely make space for each other.

It's a life of late nights...

It's complex injuries and struggling through getting shit done when your dancer body just wants to come back to itself. (Hips, feet, breath)

It's frustration that there is never enough time, or resources, or patience. (Never!)

It's balancing authenticity and self-expression with cultural sensitivity and dutiful respect for communities (each its own time and place, each a different treatment and expectation of the body).

Sometimes it's putting yourself aside, because its not about you...

And sometimes, you get to throw yourself into work that is so gloriously fulfilling it feels a bit too wonderful.

(It's normally all of those things at the same time.)

Countdown to the next big drive up the road. Xx
🧡🧡🧡

#backsoon #latenightpacking #producerlife #dancerlife #goingontour #upnorth #🧡 #lovemywork #lovemyjob #midcareer #thisis40 #womeninarts #bekindtoyourbody #injureddancer #dancerproducer #artistproducer #pertharts by @cococabanaqueen

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3 years ago

Last year was a big one. Talk about experiences! It was full of big, ambitious projects, and some unexpected journeys and soul connections. It really went places. Time and space did remarkable things.

But, it was also a year that taught me harshly about tyranny and ego and broken systems and depletion and disorder and endings. It showed me again (again!) the fickleness of this industry, and brought up some very real concerns around trust and leadership and duty of care. (Again and again, not just one and once. This is not coded blame).

This handmade creative life is one that will do that. It will teach you harshly, and nurture you, and deplete and fill you and deplete and fill you, and on and on and on it goes.

The great catch is, coming to the end of a whopper of a year like that means lots of permission to introspect and go wandering. For me it's been a few weeks of some very happy time to not do or be at festivals, for a spell. I've been nursing my burnout and revisiting some important places that held me through burnout the last time, many moons ago. And I've said yes please to some new projects/roles I'll talk more about when it's right, and made some big soul plans for picking up threads on creative stuff and dance practice. Ohhh how my body wants that joy.

So, workshops and projects soon in some way. New/old creative journeys. Body love, soul goodness. Quiet. All those things. And maybe some life things coming up that are making me a bit giddy. Who knows! Who knows.

Love and gratitude to the women in my life who walked through the year of the tiger with me. What a time to be alive.

#creativelife #producerlife #festivallife #timeoff #introspection #bodyhealing #lunaryear #newjourney #womenwholead #dance #dancer #dancetraining #healingthroughdance #perth #waartists #backhome

📷 @lizzy_jane_baker my forever person 💖 taken in Cape Keraudren by @cococabanaqueen

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4 years ago

Happy birthday Maggie 🖤 Missing getting my legs out for you tonight 👑 See you in the summer xx
📷@magnethouseperth taken in Magnet House by @cococabanaqueen

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4 years ago