Creative arts therapist statement

I have a long-standing love affair with wire. It/they have been my companion, confidante, mirror, interpreter, regulator, devil’s advocate, mediator, collaborator and longtime ‘recalibrator’. So, it’s no surprise that we have collaborated in this expression of Rumbeando. This multi-layered collaboration begins with following an impulse to converse with materials and evolves as we listen deeply to one another and notice and respond to what is emerging between, around and with us. Words when they emerge are co-formed, multilingual, and often challenge the usual modes of syntax. They are as much about sound and relationship to each other as they are about meaning.

Born in Uruguay and grown for the most part amongst the coastal sheoaks and tea trees in the salty, sandy soils of Bunurong Country, Australia, I consider myself multilingual. I speak Spanish and English, and consequently also Spanglish. In addition, I dabble in dialects of ‘Miecatian’ (expressions and turns of phrase that seem particular to the MIECAT-trained), and ‘Garabelli’ (a nonsensical, faddish, emergent language spoken by my family and friends). I have a strong fascination and respect for emergent languages (verbal and non-verbal) that people, plants, animals, microbes, the elements and materials can cocreate in moments of connection.

Rumbeando is a Latin American expression which roughly translated means ‘orienting or finding a pathway’. I feel that, for me, to rumbear is a non-linear and emergent process that includes a kind of faith or trust that no matter how meandering the path may be, it’s on the way. Where that is on the way to is undefined, undetermined, and not a goal but more of an urge. It is emergent inquiry, improvisation, curiosity and playfulness.

I like that rumbear can also mean ‘to party’ as it speaks to the musicality I feel in this experience. When I am rumbeando with another, I can almost hear the soundtrack of our inter and intra actions (Barad, 2007). Perhaps it is the score of our mutual meanderings? A distant rhythmic clatter of hands slapping on skins, punctuated by a lone drumstick hitting wood and resin, fading in and out of the encounter. The little wire ones wobble and sway in the breeze, catching the tune.

Recalibrando isn’t really a word, but calibrando means ‘to calibrate’ in Spanish – so for me ‘recalibrating’ is an embodied sense of returning to balance: physically, emotionally and with my values.

Pretzeling describes a long-held pattern of forcing myself into uncomfortable and unnatural shapes and positions in response to the effects of dominating systems of patriarchy, heteronormativity, neurotypicality as well as oppressive personal relationships.

In my work and play I have noticed that it is not just the meaning of words but their rhythm, rhyme, sound and cadence as material/entities, which can offer a deep source of connection for people of all ages and socio locations in their relationships to and with cultural belongingness (e.g., ethnicity, identity, family, profession, etc.) and their experience of the world as it is being ‘worlded’.