Transit peripheries

The theme of this year's Transit is peripheries - of all kinds, geographic, artistic, cultural, etc. in my presentation i talked about my own peripherical work, on the edge of theatre & also on the edge of digital art. i also talked about peripherals - things you attach to your computer to expand its capabilities such as a printer, web cam, external hard-drive, etc. periphical things have important roles to play in relationship to the centre(s) as well as to each other.

this morning it's raining & i've missed everything (cristina castrillo's training and the presentation of a workshop led by deborah hunt & parvati baul) in order to go to the doctor & discover that what has been irritating my right eye on & off for the last few months is in fact a scratch on my pupil. (happily it can be treated with ointment & i don't have to spend the next few days with a patch over my eye!). so while waiting to go & coming back from the hospital i've been listening in to some of the peripherical activity around the festival.

in valhalla (the storage building where we have all our meals) there was a meeting of The Open Page editorial board; in the CTLS room a paper-flower-making factory has been running for some days now - this is in preparation for the traditional closing feast tomorrow, organised by brigitte & marianne of Voix Polyphoniques with decorations organised by deb hunt & volunteers. a huge pile of food arrived in the upstairs kitchen yesterday, & today beautiful smells and french singing are wafting out into the hallway. there's been a lot of cooking going on this week, as the entrepreneurial natalia marcet has been baking cakes daily & selling them by the slice at the bar in the evenings.

Outside, Teatro Nascosto arrived while we were cleaning up after breakfast, shows are packing in & out of the red room, pushpa is walking around restocking essential things like coffee & biscuits, & the volunteers are arriving to set up our lunch. i'm not sure how many of them they are, but a fabulous team of local holstebro people has been serving up our lunches & dinners (cooked by a local cafe & very delicious!) every day of the festival. roberto freitas & parvati have made beautiful thank-you pictures for them which everyone is secretly signing - quite a mission to do without the volunteers noticing, when there are about 150 artists & participants here.

now that my eye is calming down from the doctor's probing, i will drift from this periphery back into the festival centre for margaret cameron's performance at 12 noon ...