R.A.I.N DANCE

DANCE

22 Sept

Recently landed: R.A.I.N Dance

Gracia’s written response to Harrison Ritchie-Jones’s R.A.I.N, especially for Fjord Review.

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What form might radical compassion take? If you tease apart an acronym for cultivating mindfulness, and allow a herd of horses to gallop through the middle, what might arise? So speculates Harrison Ritchie-Jones on the opening night of R.A.I.N, presented at Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall.

R stands for Recognise what is happening. A stands for Allow the experience to be there, just as it is. I, for Investigate, but with interest and care. N, for Nurture with self-compassion.[i] But this rainfall is but a point from which to spring. A framework on which to climb, play, distort, and allow “fiction and shifting realities take over.”[ii] Ritchie-Jones and long-time collaborator Michaela Tancheff turn a mindfulness framework into a physical one over the course of 50-minutes. Together Ritchie-Jones and Tancheff continue to “follow the energetic memory of their own structures until their bodies develop rogue agendas,” in an investigation several years in the making, that grows tighter as it loosens and becomes raw.[iii]

Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture could equally apply to me in the audience, as a way to scale the scaffolding of R.A.I.N. I recognise Roy Rogers and his palomino Trigger in the cantering steps. As Ritchie-Jones crosses his right hand over his left, in a relaxed position, held before his lower torso, he is the classic cowboy at one with his horse. His hold of the imaginary reins imparting consistent, gentle cues. R is for regulating or managing movement. A rein is a direct line of communication between a rider and their horse, and together they are a three-beat harmony. Yet there is only a dancer, bobbing up and down, in this intentionally stripped back, repeated revelation. Sidling up alongside him, slowing to a trot, Tancheff could be an incarnation of the Lone Ranger upon Silver, or Zorro upon the black stallion Tornado. The pace is serene, in a reflective moment. There is a sense of action on the horizon, in the beautiful and fluid storyline muddle, if you allow it, and know it to be.

[i] The RAIN acronym was originally coined by Michele McDonald, and further developed by Tara Brach. RAIN, https://www.tarabrach.com/rain-practice-radical-compassion, accessed 17th September, 2026.

[ii] Harrison Ritchie-Jones, R.A.I.N, Arts House, https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/r-a-i-n/, accessed 16th September, 2026.

[iii] R.A.I.N has been assisted by Studio 24, Chunky Move and City of Melbourne. Chunky Move, R.A.I.N, https://chunkymove.com/events/r-a-i-n/, accessed 17th September, 2026.