performance marathons
packed festival days continue! after giving my own presentation yesterday, as well as helping with projection for gabi's show earlier in the day & eva's show the night before, i'm having a quiet day today to upload & offload rather than try to take more in.
wednesday was a huge day with 5 performances; after cristina castrillo's magical solo-in-progress, we boarded two buses for the Teatro Natura performance "Danzo Danzo" which involved a 3-hour trek through forest & sand-dunes - quite an adventure, with beautiful images (but less than ideal weather). our instructions were to walk single file, half a metre apart, in silence. behind me were madeline (pictured), suitably dressed in a rubbish bag for the rain, then meg, & the string of people carried on behind & in front as far as i could see. it was very meditative. we saw the final image of the six performers by the edge of the sea, from the top of the windswept sand-dunes (see maria's photos).
when we returned i had to run to the white room to assist eva balzer's performance with the projections (i seem to have some kind of magic ability to make misbehaving projectors behave - but please don't tell anyone or else i'm never going to get to do anything else except be a beamer-whisperer). after supper, the evening continued with jill greenhalgh's "the acts" (which i'd seen in cuba, but there with a single performer - here there were 8) & gilla cremer's "why the child is cooked in the polenta" (the tragic but true story of a young romanian circus artist, & featuring gipsy the dog).
last night there was to have been a performance by Exile Theatre from afghanistan, with Bond St theatre from new york; but Exile didn't come, having been on tour in the USA for 7 weeks & needing time at home. joanna sherman, the director from Bond St Theatre, showed a video of the performance instead - not quite the same but still very interesting - & i've just remembered that she is speaking at 2pm about the process of collaborating between the two companies - argh - it's 2pm now!!!
Teatro Natura's performance in forest & beach is not the only one to take us out of the Odin to other spaces: Trickster Teatro's delightful installation "h.g." is set up at a nearby school; "para dores femininas", presented to one person at a time, takes place inside a small black box which has been set up inside the marquee for storing sets; and Voix Polyphonique performed in a church in the town.
today we have seen geddy aniksdal's solo "my life as a man" & this evening there are 3 performances. there have been a number of works-in-progress presented, by dawn albinger, elizabeth de roza, & some of the participants - all at different stages of the process. kordula lobek talked about her work with male prisoners; and there have been presentations from all of the workshops that were held last week.
this is just a list of what's been happening, i will try to come back & embellish it with some profound thoughts but right now i want to run & hear joanna talk about bond st's work ... there is never enough time!!!!!!!