Amateur Hour: We Got Creative In Our Free Time And All We Got Was This Lousy Sense Of Accomplishment

Are you a siren in the shower but too afraid to croon to a crowd? Are you a closet Fred Astaire who yearns to twinkle your toes in the limelight? Do you have a story to tell but no one to tell it to? An increasing number of keen amateurs are revealing their inner artist to the world. We dared three plucky writers to get creative in their free time.

The Brisbane Pub Choir 
Words by Velvet Winter

It's half an hour until doors open for Pub Choir's first birthday celebration and the line of excited participants is already snaking around the street. The community collective has captured the city's hearts and minds. It's a unique concept that invites anyone and everyone into a pub for an evening to learn a popular song in three-part harmony. The idea was born when director Astrid Jorgenson was sent to a rural school to create a choir, a job that she maintains is one of the best she’s ever had.

By the time the scheduled 7pm start rolls around, The Triffid is stuffed to its 770-person capacity with reports that hundreds more were turned away at the door. It's an eclectic crowd. Scanning heads reveals every demographic from pink-haired twenty-somethings holding $5 schooners to middle-aged couples tipping champagne into chilled flutes.

A huge cheer erupts as Jorgenson, MC Meg Bartholomew and musical accompanist Waveney Yasso emerge on stage. They begin by revealing the song that this throng of strangers will be uniting to perform tonight. It's My Happiness by Powderfinger, a Queensland treasure and even more apt considering the band's former bassist John "JC" Collins owns the venue the choir currently resides in.

As I look around, I can tell the people who have and haven’t attended pub choir before. The haves are jovial, making conversation with anyone that crosses their eyeline. The have-nots, including myself, are a little more reserved, unsure of what they’ve gotten themselves into.

The evening opens splendidly, with Yasso, a proud South Sea, Birri Gubba woman, guiding the audience through the most beautiful Welcome To Country song. As Yasso's last glorious chord rings out through the space, everything becomes a little more formal as Jorgenson snaps into teacher mode.

She sorts the overflowing audience into three sections: men and male-identifying people are regulated to one side of the room to provide the bottom harmonies, then the remaining women are split into low and high registers.

Jorgenson wastes no time steamrolling into the song — after all, she only has an hour to get this done — and time ticks by dangerously fast. Thanks to Jorgenson's masterful direction and infectious joy, people are singing without limits, belting out their best voices. Every single person in the venue is beaming. This could have something to do with the insurmountable number of beer and wine bottles that litter the walls and Yasso's fierce encouragement to "DRINK!" every time the crowd nails a bar. Despite the jovial atmosphere, by the break, Jorgenson is confident her choir is ready for a full run-through.

But first, cake. It is a birthday after all. A realistic keg, which hides the Mississippi mud cake underneath, is rolled onto the stage, cut enthusiastically by Bartholomew and handed out to the punters below.

By this time, every single person in the venue is a have. Punters who were strangers an hour ago are sharing pieces of cake, returning from the bar with a full jug of beer only to find it empty seconds later as they’ve happily filled every cup on the way back to their place and those with tired feet slide down the curved wall of The Triffid, contently going over their parts with the person next to them. We had forged a community and we didn’t even know it.

After a short 20-minute break, Jorgenson is raring to go, but not before bringing out JC to sing with the crowd, who clearly couldn't contain their excitement at the prospect.

A couple of tweaks, some words of faith and the audience is ready for the big moment. It's breathtaking. The crowd may have only been connected for a couple of hours, but at that moment everyone feels like family. Jorgenson conducts with feverish enthusiasm, guiding her choir through their moment in the sun.

As the last note settles inside The Triffid, there is a split second of stunned reflection over what has been created. Quickly, a roar of cheers breaks out among the people. Louder than any rock concert or sporting event, this is a cheer of shared accomplishment, of a communal victory.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur of ear-splitting chants of, "PUB CHOIR!", confetti cannons and congratulations. In the shaky, smartphone-filmed videos that flood Instagram in the event's aftermath, it's easy to spot the imperfections in the song, but it's impossible to miss the pure, unbridled happiness on every person's face.

I’ve been to hundreds of gigs and I’ve participated in dozens of group sing-a-longs but there was always something selfish about them; we were singing for the artist and not for us. Pub Choir is for the people, everything Jorgenson and her team does is completely selfless. They’re doing it for us, for our community, for our shared sense of worth. There’re so few opportunities in life where you try your best and even if it’s not spot on people will accept and congratulate you anyway. This is one of those opportunities. Because it’s not about perfection, it’s about Pub Choir.

Body Electric Dance Studio
Words by Maxim Boon

Terror. I am standing in a dance studio, with 25 strangers looking at me. I'm wearing hastily purchased but not previously worn activewear (it's at least a size too tight and leaves nothing up to the imagination, at least not in the way I'd like). I'm about to do something called a "step-ball-change" across the room. One wall of the studio is covered with mirrors, and I suddenly realise that means there are actually 50 pairs of eyes – both real and reflected – locked on me. The lighting is mercilessly florescent. Self-consciousness levels are peaking at maximum WTF and I fleetingly wonder if I should fake a seizure.

The music pumping out expectantly over the sound system is You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester, tearing along at a white-knuckle 132 bpm. This means I'm expected to step and ball and change in less than a second. And I literally have no fucking clue what a step-ball-change is. What fresh hell is this?

As it turns out, a fresh hell that will eventually become one of my favourite places to be.

I moved to Melbourne from Sydney a little under three years ago, and arrived on the mean streets of Collingwood not knowing a soul within a 700km radius. Now, it's a tricky thing making new mates in a new city, especially if you're a cynical xennial who trusts no one, such as myself. It got me to thinking, how the hell do people even make friends? A quick google told me: "forced proximity coupled with important life experiences." Not a combo I was likely to find by tapping a stranger on the shoulder in Coles. Shit.

But, as I settled into my new life as Nigel Nomates, I was gifted a lifeline in the form of a recommendation from a mate back in Sydney. A dance class, for total beginners. 'I'd rather dry-hump a beehive,' thinks I. But in an uncharacteristic move out of my usual comfort zone, I threw caution to the wind, signed  up to the Body Electric Dance Studio, hastily bought some too-small activewear, and wound up preparing to execute a truly simple dance step that nonetheless was likely to result in me shattering my femurs.

I take a deep breath. I close my eyes. I let the rhythm of music move through me. I feel the disco beat calling to me: 'Dance, Maxim. DANCE!' And then I lollop across the room like a drugged toddler, balling when I should be stepping, changing when I should be balling, and generally butchering the art form of dance in every way possible. I prepare for the humiliation to wipe me out like a tsunami, but then, something wonderful. I see, one by one, 25 people shuffle, trip, stumble, and yes, occasionally step-ball-change, across the room. Failure is a relative concept in this dance studio. Here there's no such thing as a bad dancer.

Set up by local dance teacher Jade Duffy ten years ago, Body Electric began as something beautifully humble and has since grown into a legendary Melbourne institution. What was originally conceived as a bit of fun for a handful of people who dance like nobody's watching, has snowballed over the years so that a decade on, hundreds of Melburnians now cross the threshold of the Body Electric Dance Studio each week, to learn a few bars of choreography to an iconic pop banger (my first was Poison by Alice Cooper. My second, Babooshka by Kate Bush). Over the course of a 12-week semester, each class - of which there are usually 8 to 10 - prepare a routine for a grand spectacular showcase, which is usually attended by more than 1000 revellers. Yes, that's right. 1000 people choosing to watch amateur dance. And loving every minute.

But beyond the opportunity to acquire hordes of adoring fans, Body Electric also provides a space for community, inclusivity and acceptance. There's no fitness expectations or any previous experience required. There're no auditions or tryouts to see if you make the cut. The only real necessity - and it's an unspoken rule - is that you be a show-off, of either the "closet" or "dreadful" varieties. This quality is most evidently displayed in the costuming of each Body Electric troupe, which channels a range of aesthetics from Haute Couture to Tuesday night at Hooters.

With guidance by Jade Duffy, who not only choreographs but also devises a fully realised theatrical concept for each routine, Body Electricians are expected to produce their own costumes, and by god, do people step up to the plate. With glue guns and staple guns and sequins and tinsel and trips to op shops and dollar stores and garage sales and multiple haberdashers, the creative efforts of Body Electric dancers are jaw-dropping. Making my first Body Electric costume was also how I discovered that glitter is non-toxic, and that if your dog consumes four full tubes of it, toilet time becomes a disco fantasia for at least three days.

So, from abject terror, Body Electric has brought me nothing but joy. And most importantly, forced proximity coupled with important life experiences. Goodbye drinking alone, hello brunch with many a wonderful dance buddy. Jazz hands!

The Moth
Words by Samuel Leighton-Dore

As someone living with occasionally debilitating anxiety and panic disorders, public speaking comes with a number of risks. Vomiting, for starters — or breaking out in hives. Or good old-fashioned fainting. Public speaking is therefor the kind of thing I’d normally agonise over for a solid month; memorising each word, line and punctuation off-by-heart.

That’s one of the reasons I initially felt drawn to participating in The Moth — just how deeply uncomfortable the very prospect of it made me feel. I was already familiar with the popular storytelling podcast when I saw that it was coming to Sydney and — on a drunken late-night impulse — bought tickets to attend.

Starting in the US State of Georgia back in 1997, The Moth has grown into an international phenomenon, hosting ongoing live storytelling programs in more than 29 cities. Names are drawn from a hat to decide which audience members speak. Speakers then have five minutes, with no notes or prompters allowed. Each event is themed and each story is judged — with a winner announced at the night’s end.

It’s personal, engaging and thought-provoking stuff — and would make for a truly wonderful night if you weren’t quietly freaking out in the back row of the theatre, terrified that your name might be called at any given moment.

The problem was that I hadn’t mentally committed to volunteering my name as a possible storyteller until the day before. As a result, I hadn’t been through the obligatory cycle of panic, doubt and acceptance. I didn’t know my story word-for-word and the thought of potentially humiliating myself in front of hundreds of independent-beer-drinking theatre hipsters made me want to puke.

Then my name was called and suddenly I was walking on stage, staring into a spotlight that felt blindingly bright, hot and entirely unnecessary.

I stepped towards the microphone, leaned in and spoke the honest truth: “Sorry, I took a valium when my name was called and I just need to wait for it to kick in.”

And then the audience laughed — my very own Sally Field “You like me!” moment. My shoulders relaxed. For better or worse, the band-aid had been torn off.

I can barely recall the five minutes that followed. It felt like from the moment I opened my mouth, my conscious mind tapped-out and mental muscle-memory kicked in. I hit my beats, delivered my lines, improvised a few moments, and was greeted at the end of my story with laughter and applause.

Then the scores were read — and I somehow managed to win (albeit narrowly). As a painfully insecure gay guy in his mid-twenties with a boxful of silver and bronze medals from a short-lived career in high school athletics, the symbolism of winning an audience-judged storytelling competition wasn’t lost on me. Storytelling, in its many incarnations, has always been what I valued most.

I think I found the experience so empowering because it forced me to do something that, on some level, I’d always wanted to do — but was firmly outside of my comfort zone. It allowed me to confront my deep-seated fears of failure and rejection in an environment that championed those brave enough to stand up and give something new a try.

The only problem with winning was that it meant I have to do it all over again — in front of an even bigger crowd. And this time my family is going to be there!