The Cosmic Nuns, Day for Night, October 2022 | by Sarah Barry
Cosmic Nuns :
1. End of life doulas and holistic funeral directors who are present in the visible spaces of ceremony, as well as the invisible spaces of the mortuary, laying their hands on and taking care of our dead.
They shimmer the fear out of death by bringing it into everyday conversation, moving grief through their bodies with words, stillness, sensational outfits and dance: a welcome sight for all when navigating the thresholds of grief, life, love and loss.
2. Specifically, Victoria Spence and Sarah Barry.
It was a wild weathered day in February 2022
when Victoria and I were bestowed the name ‘The Cosmic Nuns’. We were twinning it in sparkly sequinned kaftans made by my wife Megan Oliver at Elizabeth “The Goddess” Burton’s memorial. The name stuck.
The Cosmic Nuns next appeared to host Grief Works, and then we were invited to open Day for Night, a 12 hour immersive queer art dance party presented by Performance Space at Carriageworks on October 29. Our performance was an opportunity to set the tone for a magnificent endurance event. Together with Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, the first hour of the party was dedicated to honouring those who were no longer living, and the lineage of queer parties that have held and still hold space for the LGBTIQ community over the last few decades.
It was a soft and gentle landing for everyone coming into the space, who were warmly greeted by Victoria and Aunty Rhonda, and served iced soy chai by me with an additional Cosmic Nun blessing, as a soundscape of birdsong filled the room.
After a beautiful Welcome to Country from Aunty Rhonda, she wowed everyone by singing ‘True Colours’. When a friend of mine told me afterwards that he’d had a good cry during the performance, I asked him when he started crying. “When Aunty Rhonda started singing” came the reply. “And then I kept crying throughout”. Tears of release, moving through the audience as safe space was held for grief in all its forms.
Victoria delivered a ceremonial manifesto of epic proportions, calling in a powerful queer lineage, and speaking to the complexities of holding space for ethical, trauma informed funeral and ceremonial care in the midst of patriarchal sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia.
“We are the Cosmic Nuns: Deep diving divas, destroyers of colonising patriarchal power structures, discrimination, transphobia and misogyny in all its forms!”
Finton Mahony had created an extraordinary moving installation - a transformed parachute that billowed up and down, like lungs, at one point entirely covering the stage, with us three and the Auslan interpreter within. Breath was central to our piece, and his installation was a synchronistic addition to what we were speaking to.
Following Victoria, I performed a spoken word piece from my position as the ‘High Priestess of the Mortuary’. With dance music underpinning my words, I recited the first names of some of the people whose bodies we had cared for, and opened the door into the often invisible or unspoken part of the funeral industry - sharing the Life Rites level of mortuary care that is afforded to all who come to us, without exception.
“…Lying on the table
Water on your skin
Being gentle with your bodyHolding your feet,
Holding your hand.
Saying your name
Listening to your favourite musicEasing out your rigor mortis
Knowing your worth…”
As I finished, ‘Breathe’ by CamelPhat, Cristoph & Jim Cooke started to play, and as I danced on stage, Victoria and Aunty Rhonda moved into the audience, dancing and inviting people to get up and move with them.
Someone said to me later that they had never seen an audience all get up to dance at the end of a midday performance! It was what we all needed - dance being a perfect expression of moving grief through the body, connecting us with breath, easing the tension that grief can bring, lightening the heaviness that can sit in our hearts, and reminding us that we are not alone.
The Cosmic Nuns are here, at your service, for holding performance spaces as well as funerary ceremonial spaces. We welcome you to meet us at the thresholds.
Credit the images: Day For Night 2022, Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art presented by Performance Space, Photos by Lexi Laphor