Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY 2023
Katherine Lyall-Watson
Australia
www.belloocreative.com
About
I am the co-artistic director of an award-winning, femaleled
theatre company Belloo Creative. I have a doctorate
in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and
Belloo has produced the following plays of mine: Motherland
(2013 and 2016), HANAKO (Brisbane Festival 2016), Rovers
(Brisbane Festival 2018), and Boy, Lost (Queensland Theatre
2022). I have had two of my plays performed in Japan with
Belloo and IDIOT SAVANT theater company: House in the
Dunes (Yokohama, 2020) and AKIRUNO (Tokyo Tokyo
Festival 2021). I have also written the cabaret Hot Mess
Mama (with Emma Dean, Brisbane Festival 2020) and Home
Grown Opera (Opera Queensland and Bleach Festival 2022).
I have a long history in theatre having worked as an actor,
director and theatre reviewer before starting playwriting.
I regularly mentor younger and emerging writers and I was
the chair of Playlab Theatre from 2014-2019. When I'm not
making theatre, you'll find me in my garden, tending to my
two beehives.
Quiet and Stillness
I came to Arteles a burnt-out husk of myself. Within a few
days of losing myself in the forest’s thick snow, I started to
recover my joy and love of writing.
Things that helped me: nature, silence, digital detox, and
daily meditation. I couldn’t believe how many more hours
there were in the day without the temptation to doom-scroll
through the news and social media.
In one month I achieved everything I’d set out to do and, as
an unexpected bonus, I collaborated with Alexandra Cool,
new friend and fellow resident, on a book of photographs and
poetry about Parilanjärvi – the constantly changing frozen
lake at our doorstep.
Arteles opened the door on a new way of being as an artist
and of approaching my practice. My challenge now is to
bring what I learned in the quiet and stillness back to the
“real” world …
beneath the snow
bulbs wait tightly furled
expectant