In 2004 Daghdha Dance Company invited members of Basta! Youth Collective to visit with us in Limerick and be present at the opening weekend of Framemakers Public Thinktank. We also commissioned them to make a response to our project in the form of a zine, which they compiled on their second visit to Public Thinktank some three weeks later. In September of that year BYC collaborated with Framemakers to produce a gig on the roof of Project Arts Centre in Dublin as part of Framemakers’ social choreography ‘Theatre Congress: SEVEN DAYS OF EVERYTHING’. Dylan Haskins, a prominent member of the collective, appeared as a guest interviewee in the same week’s events. I caught up with him in early 2007, again at Project Arts Centre, to make this interview:

I’m wondering what your mature thoughts a year later would be on choreography as an aesthetics of change and framemaking . has any of it stayed with you?

the main project we’re doing at the moment is a film, originally it was about basta but I couldn’t see any potential coming out of that documentation other than ‘this is what happened’ so the documentary we’re making is about the ideas and the ethics of the people in diy culture – how it works within the punk scene and the extended scene at that – to try and open the ideas up – the diy scene can only work on a small basis but that would go in with a lot of our thinking that society can only work on a small community basis and all these communities linked up so we want to make and tour this film and be there to give talks hands on – I always reference the talk that was in the cube downstairs with the panel and the sombre weird atmosphere at the end* – these women came up to me saying ‘I really hope you can make a change in the world’ – these people won’t be able to access these ideas with blaring music in their ears so what we’re trying to do is put the ideas in a format that is totally accessible and be there as people as well – I guess in a sense you’re trying to choreograph lives a bit or try to influence how they might perceive to do that themselves – providing a guide book would be totally ironic cos its nothing to do with the impulse of it so that’s why I wanna just put the ideas out there using a case study so that people can say ‘oh’ and then apply it to their own lives themselves

so what’s the name of the new collective?

it doesn’t have a name yet we found that a large collective it was too hard to keep everybody involved and actually get anything done – it was definitely a structure flaw – it was easy to get stuff done when there was four or five of us and then when it was opened up there was no structure built in for people to be able to get involved – if its just a closed few people you’re not really getting many new ideas in – so we’re trying to get the best of both worlds – it’s a project based collective in that it’s project cells – a project could be one person or three people – and each project is totally autonomous within the collective – it’s a better way of working that you can focus on something and if nothing interests you in what the collective are doing then you can start your own project – it’s much more informal – we’re not doing the meetings where everyone was sitting around in a circle cos some people are afraid to speak in that type of scenario so in the house I’m living in now we’ve decided that every Friday we’re gonna have a vegetarian or vegan open dinner where people would just be hanging around chatting before they go out whatever that night – its the best type of format for discussion if you’re sitting around eating – we also found that it was a lot to do with the loss of paddy’s hall as well when that place was demolished and made into apartments – the collective very much revolved around that space and using that space and when that space was gone it was too hard to find a new place so that sort of killed it as well – it came to a stage where the only time you would see the community would be during parties when people would be drinking and stuff like that and it’s a great atmosphere for ideas but it’s a bad atmosphere for actually following through on anything – so the dinners before people go out on their Friday night would be a cool way to sort of just chat and hang around – it makes it opener to new people as well

so it’s a social space and all you have to do is be

yeah and things can happen organically out of that – we had sort of a seed meeting and the collective came out of this – everything seems to be interlinked within it so we’ve got these three or four main longterm continuous projects and then hopefully other once-off projects – organising a certain gig on a certain day could be a project – but those longterm focus projects are in itself what make the collective – if the dinner was a project in itself then that project is the basis of the collective, it wouldn’t work without that project and the same with the film – the first project is the film and the film is about the first project and the collective and it coming about – it all ties back into itself that way

what’s your motivation? why are you doing stuff in a social context as opposed to just making the movie yourself with your mates . why this openness, why ‘collective’?

my very initial motivation was just boredom where I was living – its got away past that stage now where I’m just up to my eyes all the time but I think I thrive on the excitement of it and all these links forged in different countries and friends that I’ve made in different places – I think it’s the potential that from my political beliefs… – I’m an anarchist so I don’t believe that if overnight there was a revolution the society that has been built would be able to cope with that – I don’t think it would be able to make a transition – the best I’ve found from what we’ve been doing – sort of a micro level way that’s really sustainable and very fulfilling – I think that’s the motivation anyone looks for in life

I think the best thing we can do at the moment through this way that we’ve found of living is to try and educate people so that they can find ways of putting these ideas into practice in their own lives – it’s not a case of the good Samaritan – the more people doing this the bigger a network – I like to see links develop into other aspects and other communities and other people – what we’re doing in the documentary is also trying to look at people that are doing projects that are diy that don’t even know that diy exists – people doing it without realising it because it’s a natural impulse to do stuff yourself – we do it ourselves because we want to not because we have to – when we went to limerick with Daghdha in the church we were going to get some food and we found a flyer on the ground for a gig that was hand-written and we were like ‘look at that. right we’ve gotta find these kids’ so we see these group of kids standing around and it turned out to be the kids organising the gig who since then have put on countless gigs and we’ve put on their bands and a friendship developed – we interviewed them about it and they hadn’t heard about diy some of them and now they’ve got their own really strong collective down in limerick called organized chaos doing gigs regularly so its nice to see links like that come about – maybe you can give a better understanding or a better drive to people if they’re doing it themselves, saying ‘yeah look there’s other people using the same thought process as you’

do you want to change society or are you happy just to make a nourishing situation for yourself and your peers or – second or – is it about creating an alternative reality that is there for people to choose

its a mix between the third and the first – it’s definitely trying to change society, that’s another major drive – even if you’re just trying to do the smallest thing I think its impossible to try and live in this society with a clear conscience and not try and do anything – a lot of kids get involved in byc because its another option and they see it as something different and they just get hooked – some people don’t – a lot of people are conditioned to a different way of living – sometimes they can be totally daunted by it – there was a band that came to play in paddy’s hall they came in with all their massive expensive equipment and we showed them where the gig was which was a little room at the back of the hall not the big main hall and they were sort of looking around looking at each other – they played and now they’re all friends with everybody else in the scene and they’re totally integrated and they’re in new bands and stuff like that its funny how your first impression… I’ll never forget their faces when they came into it and now just chatting to them normally – they know what its like – I’ve put on gigs in my house which is about the same size as this room and bands are calling asking can they play – you get about fifty people max squashed into the room and other people standing around – it’s a different experience and a different way of interacting with people – you’re there on a parallel level rather – I was talking to a girl loosely connected with the scene through other people – she was at one of the gigs and I was asking her about the bands and she hadn’t seen any she said she just goes to the gigs to talk to people – its a nice alternative social reality – sometimes we can be a bit too concerned with ourselves but I think its necessary to try and further your own community and find ways to spread your ideas and its also about having fun its definitely about having fun – the mix of the whole culture that goes with it is another reality – it’s not trying to escape from what’s here, its trying to.. not integrate it but show a working model of a different way of doing things so that people can see this working model and this working model can grow so maybe if its in a ratio thing one day this working model will be bigger than what we have now

how would you describe how these two realities get on with each other: your reality that you work on and in, and the mainstream or however you frame that – the thing that is not what you are – what are the qualities of the skin contact between them?

its impossible to totally live outside of the mainstream at the moment, I think its been crafted that its impossible to totally live outside of it, the clothes I’m wearing the way I travelled here its all part of that structure – you can’t totally shut yourself out from all of that unless you want to just go live in the woods – but there’s a difference between say buying a certain brand and organising something that’s sponsored by that brand, there’s a very different line there – I think what we’re trying to do is build ways and find ways so that there’s less of it in each way – the idea with the dinner is you’re cooking together and we want to grow vegetables so we’re creating our own means with the resources we’ve got and you can only do what you’ve got with the resources you’ve got otherwise you’re just crippling yourself and you can’t you won’t do anything – it means you’re constantly weighing stuff up and weighing stuff up and none of us are perfect we all know that, we all partake – we’ve written songs about the fact that sometimes you go watch a movie in a shopping centre which is the culture that you despise but it could be a really good movie (laughing)

is the mainstream reality willing to let you be and let your reality grow or does it not want that to happen – is there enough space for both – do you have to make a lot of effort to make space for your reality

yeah we definitely have to make a big effort – the mainstream is content to let the diy continue on until it sees it as a real threat and there are times when it does see that as a threat and it definitely definitely doesn’t want to see it happening – one of the main reasons I think we lost paddy’s hall was because the gards found out who the owners were and were able to contact them and tell them that they were having trouble which was a load of rubbish but they wanted us out of there and they got us out of there – and the reality is that property prices are insane in Ireland fullstop so its really hard to get a space to do stuff – it’s a really essential thing that you need space just to talk or organise or get your heads together – the mainstream that’s here keeps eating and eating and eating and taking in everything that it can – its like a big fat person trying to sit beside you on the bus and you’ve just gotta hold your own in it – that’s why the old collective petered out because there was no conscious definite effort being made – its easy how quickly it comes back again to what’s already been built when you do make that effort – that’s a matter of getting it just in time – it could easily have just fizzled out because there was nowhere for us to do anything

you talk about conditioning.. do you feel it necessary to also create or manifest space in people’s heads or in their lives or in their imaginations free from the conditioning?

I think everything is interlinked – I think that space is made up by the way of living and by the fulfilment that I get out of doing something within the diy scene – the fulfilment opens up a whole new area in your mind – its why I got hooked on it and involved with it in the first place, going to this gig, being totally overwhelmed by what was there – that feeling creates a sort of excitement in your head and it gets you thinking about other things but you can only do so much thinking before you actually need to do stuff so I think that space is totally interlinked with physical space as well

so.. you have some experience that overwhelms you or that comes in and cracks open space in your mind or in your being or in your body

yeah

in your life as you conceive it, but if sooner or later you don’t do something that comes out of that – physically manifest something out of that – then that space will just close up again

yeah exactly

so you need physical space in which to act on your impulse and that keeps the space open or opens new spaces

yeah it opens new spaces definitely and it makes more of those spaces away from the conditioning – it opens up spaces within that conditioning and starts to move that conditioning and you start to see and you start to make links between everything else – you start to see the bigger picture – I think it all comes to unlocking that

the basta space is closed now but the energy there is a new space that has opened –

I don’t think we’ve still found a space so we’re trying to work on creating a different type of space that isn’t reliant on the music and a different way of going – we’re trying to look at other ways to do what it is exactly we want to do

i really observe in you guys a frustration of being young and not taken seriously and slightly bullied by adults like with the police and I’m observing now that as i get older i have less and less space to do things – certainly that’s been true in my life I don’t how I could pull off the kind of things I pulled off when I was nineteen – that even as you become supposedly more empowered as a human and as an adult there’s actually less space for you to do stuff something different something else

I think you’ve less time – you’ve loads of time to think about stuff when you’re younger and you’ve loads of things you want to do but you’ve nowhere to do it really and then you get older and you do get physical space but then you forget what it is you wanted to do with it because you haven’t been doing it – making the decision to dissolve the collective and even to forget the name – the name had been known – is another example of when something that is healthy gets established it can get problems so I think we wanted to examine those problems – its organic that something starts, goes to a certain stage, there’s problems with it at that stage, you see what those problems are, you see if you can deal with them, if it can’t be dealt with within what’s there or even if it can be sometimes its better to just break down start afresh – this cycle of starting stopping keep going reassessing where you’re at – it’s a constant re-evaluation of yourself – the fact that you’ve come together to make that decision in itself is a great thing in that people still care and you’re getting them in that crucial stage so now these people have a fresh drive and a fresh direction and they know what they want to do – create a platform – I think that it’s important to try and bridge the gap between younger to older as you get older

that’s something about diy as well is that something happens and it dies then something else happens and it too dies . is that natural?

I think it’s totally natural I mean look at life people come people die people go

but the culture that is counter to you, ‘mainstream’ culture is all about things staying the same, things lasting

yeah and I think that stagnancy is what frustrates a lot of people to try and seek something else that maybe isn’t as definite – I know with myself that if I could foresee what I’d be doing when I’m older I’d be totally bored – it comes down to fulfilment – if you’re doing lots of different things I think you’re making more of a person out of yourself through more experiences you’re having with the world

*SEVEN DAYS OF EVERYTHING Day 5