A ball of energy

Ruby Reihana-Wilson gives really good hugs. Auckland choreographer Natalie Maria likens it to feeling a ball of energy shaking around in her arms. But what Natalie is feeling is a classic sign of the self-described “theatre person’s” cerebral palsy.

Ruby doesn’t like standing up, her fused vertebrae and spine restrict her flexibility and give her constant pain, although she is reluctant to let that slip: “Yeah, it’s a bit shit,” the lighting technician, designer and stage manager says, “but you kind of just get used to it.”

Cerebal palsy is one of a wealth of health complications, including osteoporosis and arthritis, mainly concentrated in Ruby’s spine. She should have been a caesarean baby but doctors were late to diagnose that and she was born bum-first with her legs wrapped around her neck.   

It means when she hugs people, they feel her tremor, her shaking. It’s common for people with cerebral palsy but for Natalie it just adds to what she sees as Ruby’s magnetism and charm. Along with what Natalie calls Ruby’s “sheer zest”, her tremor gives the impression she is a fully charged positive force.

People are drawn to that. A fellow Unitec graduate, dancer Lydia Zanetti, says Ruby got the loudest clap from the crowd at her graduation ceremony. In a way Ruby’s health challenges, or more rightly the ways she has chosen to live with them, have been the key to her career so far.

Georgia even taught Ruby how to walk. The pair took their first steps on the same day. Ruby was four.

Natalie, founder of Auckland contemporary dance collective Black Sheep Productions, says Ruby has been her go-to theatre technician and lighting designer since the pair met as students at Unitec in 2009. 

Natalie says she wouldn’t know who else to ask if 24-year old Ruby had to stop working – which she will if the doctors are right. Doctors told her she will be in a wheelchair by 30 but Ruby isn’t worrying about that yet. She’s already lived 23 years longer than they said she would.

Ruby’s 15-month younger sister Georgia says Ruby has always challenged herself to try new things. “She’s got her limitations but she’ll always want to prove people wrong and push and push and push,” Georgia says. “She’s been doing that her entire life.”

Ruby is grateful for Georgia's support: “She was practically my bodyguard growing up”. Georgia even taught Ruby how to walk. The pair took their first steps on the same day. Ruby was four years old.

These days, Ruby knows she should stop working so much because her body’s deteriorating. But work is fun, she says. “I get to hang out with friends and paint things and drink beer.” Plus, Ruby’s in demand. She has been working full-time since graduating with a diploma in performance technology in 2010.

She has taken shows to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has just returned from the Melbourne Fringe Festival.  She’s been the assistant stage manager for the New Zealand Opera, has a regular gig stage managing shows for the National Youth Theatre Company, and in 2011 won the newcomer award for stage managing at Auckland theatre’s Hackman awards. 

Her first job after Unitec was stage managing for the Fringe Festival at the Basement Theatre, which she says has been a great place to network over the years. The Basement community love her back and she’s a well-respected face at the central city theatre. Playwright and Basement regular Sam Brooks says he has a clear memory of seeing Ruby sitting behind the lighting desk of a play he went to last year. Clearly sick, with a bucket in close reach, Ruby “continued operating like it wasn’t a damn thing”.   

Ruby just likes to keep busy. It’s an attitude instilled in her from a young age; fearing Ruby would grow up with self-esteem issues her mum was always enrolling her in extra-curricular activities. It started with piano when Ruby was eight, which started a life-time love of playing music. Then there was dancing, rock band classes and modelling. “Mum was like, ‘you’re skinny and you look weird. You can be a model’.”

Not being able to stand up for long periods of time meant modelling didn’t work out.  Acting classes did though. And not only were they great for her confidence but she met people she is still working with today. She went to classes for five years and only gave up her dream of becoming an actress when her tremor got so bad it became noticeable on stage. “Thanks mum for forcing me into stuff,” she laughs. 

As one of a few working female theatre technicians in Auckland, Ruby says the secret to getting work is talking. “I get heaps of work. I always get offers for work and I am really grateful for that but I am not the best technician. For one, I am weak as hell. I think it’s only because I know people and I talk to people.”

Having to ask for help from cast members to lift lights and do the heavy work her body won’t let her do has helped Ruby to bridge the communication gap between actor and technician. She never reads scripts before she sees the first run of a show and loves hanging out at rehearsals to get a feel for the show and the people working on it. She says her job is to support the feelings of the show with lights and sound. It’s important to her she knows what the audience should be feeling. 

It’s her ability to empathise with her work which, Natalie says, stands Ruby out from other technicians. “Lots of techies come in, they are quite disconnected from the work, and they just do the job. But Ruby actually invests in the content of the show; she actually gets genuinely excited about what you’re doing as a choreographer or a theatre-maker.”  

Whether she ends up in a wheelchair by 30 or not, Ruby says the thought of giving up her life as a technician is heart-breaking. 

But then again she says, who knows. Technology might mean she can get robot legs. Or get someone else to do all the hard labour for her. She wants to get more into lighting design and is thinking about heading to London to check out the theatre scene there.

“Shit’s going to change. Whatever, I’ll deal with that at the time. I’ll just keep doing theatre at the moment – it’s pretty great.”