David Young

I consider this whole website a kind of resume of my life and work. But here I would like to share some reflections and stories that I have gleaned over the last 50 years or so.

I first remember playing the piano at the age of four. I had a “piece” which I called “Butterfly”, and I would play it over and over again, no doubt delighting and infuriating my family and neighbours. This is when I first started realising that I was an artist. Around this time I also began climbing tress to alarming and probably dangerous heights. I would shimmy up hallways, and swing from bars and ropes whenever I could, much to the terror of my parents and teachers. I remember being called “Monkey” which I kind of liked and kind of didn’t. What I did know is that I loved exploring what my body could do, taking it to whatever limits were reachable.

In parallel with piano lessons and choral singing, I trained to an elite level as a gymnast. In fact my first career was as a gymnastic coach, completing my apprenticeship with the former Chinese Olympic coach, Yu Ting. Plato said that too much sport makes you violent, and too much music makes you neurotic. I attempted to steer a course somewhere between these extremes.

When I stopped coaching gymnastics, I started working in a psychosocial rehabilitation program for people with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. From these day programs I moved into employment support and social enterprise. With my colleague Caroline Crosse, we founded the pioneering charity Social Firms Australia (SoFA), setting up businesses that employ people with and without disabilities. Based on an Italian model, social firms are a very dignified and effective approach to employment support which has since become a recognised and recommended approach to the scandalously high unemployment rate for people with disabilities, especially mental illness. SoFA later merged with a much larger national organisation and there are now many social firms operating and employing people across Australia.

Concurrently I was busy in the arts. I completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at the University of Melbourne (where I studied with composer Liza Lim https://lizalimcomposer.com/), and my PhD in Music Composition at the University of Queensland. The music that I composed, mostly chamber music for small ensembles, was regularly performed in Australia, Japan and Europe. Graphic notation became my main preoccupation, exploring how musical scores could incorporate images, photos and animation.

In 1994 I co-founded the ground-breaking company, Aphids www.aphids.net, creating and producing cross-artform collaborations in Australia, Asia, Europe and the US. After more than 30 years, it is still one of the most iconoclastic and experimental companies in Australia.

Next Wave Festival 2002

https://nextwave.org.au/festivals/next-wave-festival-2002

Chamber Made Opera

https://agileopera.com/desperate-measures/


Gradually and circuitously this artist-self, body-self and entrepreneur-self have settled into a more unified and coherent being, the David Young that people meet today. After more than 20 years of making the most experimental art performances and projects, I discovered Alexander Technique. I was finally able to crack apart the rigid habits which had given me great drive and discipline, but lacked self-care and kindness. Had I not stopped when I did, I have no doubt that my work would have eventually killed me.

Once I had retrained as an Alexander Technician, as my architect friend Michael Roper likes to call me, it was a much smaller leap to meditation. Vipassina is like Alexander Technique for the mind. With more calm and concentration, I could begin undoing ingrained patterns of mind and body which has lead me to more lightness, freedom and equanimity. Spending three months living as a monk in the Sri Lankan forest monastery, Athdalagala, was one of the toughest yet most rewarding undertakings of my life (running a marathon in Iceland came a close second).

I invite you here to discover more about the Alexander Technique, consider meditation and explore the art archive. If you have any questions or something you would like to share, please contact me.

“Just as a fletcher straightens an arrow shaft, so the wise straighten the trembling mind.” — Dhammapada 33