By Helen Musa

Liam Budge is one of Canberra’s busiest cross-disciplinary artists.

Born Liam Creswick Sydney Pepper Budge, he now goes by the stage name Creswick, under which he will present and perform his newest production, Channels: Artists On Aging Creatively, at Tuggeranong Arts Centre in early August.

With a major production behind him, the Australian Dance Party’s Sphere, performed in May, for which Creswick created a 365° surround video landscape, he’s also working on his first production with Quantum Leap, Mettle, for which he will create another videoscape.

One of Canberra’s top jazz vocalists, Creswick took off in 2014 for Manhattan, where for six years he sang and played with musicians including Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, Kris Bowers and Brad Williams, while also studying with jazz vocalist Kurt Elling.

But when their son Julian arrived, he and his wife Abby figured Canberra might be a more congenial place than Brooklyn to bring up a child and run their photography and video business, Creswick Collective.

Back home, he immediately became involved with The Street Theatre, performing in Sandra France’s song cycle Flight Memory, and then in his own show, In His Words – Voices of Fatherhood, based on video interviews with nine fathers, for which he won a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award.

Channels follows on from that, for at the age of 36 Creswick feels he is facing middle age.

Just as he did with his fatherhood show, Creswick has been out interviewing people, this time a carefully selected group of senior artists.

A no-brainer was his old vocal teacher from the ANU School of Music, Vince Jones, reluctant to step in front of a camera but a natural once he did. At 72, he’s the youngest of the interviewees.

Much more familiar with the spotlight is dance pioneer Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, now 92 and still going strong. Composer Judith Clingan, the architect of many music groups in Canberra and now 81, is still creating, as are Tharwa ceramicist Malcolm Cook and his partner, Brazilian-born artist Marily Cintra.

Creswick says Channels is a hybrid live documentary with a live music score performed by himself on vocals, guitar and piano, along with Lachlan Coventry on guitar, Nick McBride on drums, Damien Slingsby on keyboards and Chris Pound on bass, an all-Canberra quintet.

The music moves from jazz to folk to rock to cinematic, “a real range,” he says.

“As our quintet plays, it must enrich what you’ll see on screen.

“I want it to be sensitive, not loud rock music over Elizabeth dancing, for instance.

“But when I perform as a singer I can be a bit more musically adventurous.”

It’s been a monumental task. With no funding, having just missed out on one grant round, he embarked on shooting in January. Fortunately, Tuggeranong Arts Centre came to the rescue with a guaranteed fee for the band and he hopes to secure funding for the future.

Choosing the artists was not as hard as you might think, as Creswick explains.

“Judith was my wife’s music teacher, Vince was my teacher. I met Malcolm and Marily at an open studio Malcolm held, and I met Elizabeth a year ago through the Australian Dance Party.

“To me, this show is a celebration of ageing, about how people can use art to create a more fulfilled life.”

“I absolutely didn’t want to make a show that was ‘down’ or morbid. I’m in it because it will inform me as I age… It’s an uplifting show.”

His subjects will be seen talking about different aspects of ageing and there’s a balance of male and female voices.

Vince Jones demonstrates his power by still achieving high, sustained notes, while Clingan talks about the vocal chord problems familiar to many post-menopausal women but snatches of her music appear, too.

During the process, Creswick has become aware that much of what he’s speaking about reflects white Australia, where invisibility is a big problem. But, he notes, First Nations culture still gives reverence to age.

“But I have a lot of power in the edit,” Creswick says. “I’ve deliberately avoided personal bios and kept it more philosophical and focused on creativity.”

Channels: Artists On Aging Creatively, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, August 6-8.

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