I was born in France and lived there until I was seven so I can speak French. My Dad was an English businessman and he worked in Geneva, Switzerland. My first kindergarten was the United Nations school in Geneva. Mum reckons I was fluent in English and French at three years old so somewhere in my brain I have a heap of French. On my bucket list is to go back and live in France for a year. For my major birthdays like 40, 50 and coming up to 60 I’ll be going back to France.
Mum and Dad divorced when I was seven and Dad stayed in France and moved to Paris so we went every year to visit Dad. I love Paris. Mum took us back to London and we lived there for three years then we moved down to Devon which is a beautiful slow place to grow up but maybe not such a good place for a teenager. Mum was the local Librarian so I have a love of books and a love of reading. If anyone asks to borrow a book from me I say, Yes you can borrow it but don’t turn the pages down. I’m quite strict with my books, I get that from my Mum. As a teenager, I had a little fat pony at the time and I did a paper round to pay for her food. We did pony club and I loved horses. We were quite poor, and lived in caravans and all sorts of rental places and we moved a lot. I have a full brother who is 55 now and Dad had another son with another woman and he’s only 40. He’s a Journalist and lives in New York. I was there 2 years ago for his wedding.
When I reached 17 I was like, wait a minute…boys, discos, going out dancing!! So I sold my pony and went out night clubbing with a real love of dance. I guess that’s when I decided to be a bit rebellious. I gave my Mum a really hard time. I was a very “bad” daughter. Mum was a worrier and I’m strong willed so I was like, Mum I’m going to go out every night until 5am if I want to. I gave my Mum a pretty hard time… for about 10 years (laughs).
I immigrated to Australia when I was 20. My Australian cousin Jo had come over when she was 18 and we got on great. I found England a bit inhibiting so my Australian Aunty Marcia had a sandwich shop in Pyrmont and she sponsored me. I worked with her and around the traps.
My boyfriend at the time and I decided to move to Far North QLD. He had finished his Landscape Architecture Degree so we lived in the rainforest in the middle of nowhere planting exotic tropical fruit trees, swam in the creek and went to Cairns every couple of months to stock up on food and culture. It was a pretty special time but we ended up parting ways. I went back to England and then lived in Canada for 6 months with my Dad who had emigrated there. Eventually I came back to Australia, went to Uni, did half a Social Work degree and was working at Betty’s Soup Kitchen off Oxford St and volunteering at Redfern Legal Centre. I was trying to be serious about life. This was in the 90s and I was 28.
Then one of my dear friends was in a very serious car accident and she challenged me to do what I really wanted with my life because she said, ‘My life has been taken away’. She said, ‘What do you really want to do?’ All I could say was dance. So I went to all these dance classes around Sydney and had a great teacher called Janis Claxton who was a free and wild teacher. She said, ‘Gabrielle, you should go to Lismore and go to the Con where you can study everything: Ballet, Butoh, Choreography, Jazz’. I thought that’s a good idea. I was already getting into performing in Sydney. One show, we had to do this repeated choreography and the first time I did it, I just felt like I was me. The second time, I remember the moment where I had to turn on this inner switch. I’m a performer, I turned the switch, went out and it was then that I realised how to do this. I went on to do fundraisers and Freaky Friday in Sydney so when my dance teacher suggested Lismore I thought it was a great idea.
I thought, right, I’ll go to Lismore, do nine months and come back down, have skills and training and of course 30 years later, I’m still here. In 1997 I drummed in the Mardi Gras parade with a big African Djembe which bruised me black and blue. I had one hour’s sleep, my friend strapped my bicycle to the roof of his car, all my stuff was in bags in his car, still glitter all over my face and he drove me to Lismore. I went to the Engine St warehouses and stayed there. I worked really hard at the Con, went to Cafe Confusion, hung out at Dr Juice Bar. This was the late 90s. Lismore was such a happening place. There were warehouse parties, so much great live music, cool restaurants, benefit nights, community fundraisers, so much going on. Lismore was pumping. I do love Lismore. It has the lovely Queer vibe, the feral vibe. It has the mature age students and the hippy vibe, it has everything I love, the whole healthy produce vibe and great farmers markets. A very good friend at the Con, Kat Worth and I formed Company CHAOS which was a disability dance company, a little bit like Sprung! is now. We did shows and tours.
When I was 33 I fell pregnant unexpectedly and decided to go with this sidetrack. We were at this fabulous restaurant in Lismore at the time called Tribes when I realised I was pregnant. I’d been feeling a bit weird and ordered something creamy which normally I love because that was our place to go but I didn’t feel great. The next morning I did a test and I was pregnant! My boyfriend and I bought a little house at Corndale. It was super cheap, renovated it and then we broke up. We had a son who is now 24. His name is Alby and he’s lovely.
We sold our little house at Corndale. I was really poor growing up and we moved a lot and I was very motivated to have a home so I bought a house in Mullumbimby and was still running dance classes in Lismore. In Lismore in 2003 I auditioned for Krinkl Theatre who were based in Kyogle. I auditioned as a dancer with no puppetry experience and I thought I’ll just have a great time, I won’t get the job but they said to everyone, We’ll call you tomorrow, they called me straight away and I got the job. With Krinkl we went on tour to South Korea, Slovenia, Singapore and all around Australia.
When my son was seven someone offered me an opportunity to train as a Pilates Instructor in Adelaide. I didn’t want to be a single mum on the pension in Mullum…