far left: the audience watches in the dark bike closet the video on the roof that jasmine filmed
I'm having a cup of pickwick's green tee. A beverage my friends would consider rather rare to find silently boiling in front of me. I'm a coffee addict. Something my doctor keeps complaining about and my former director would have called 'a good boy'. Trying to be healthy, that is. With so many dancers around me being all flexible, in shape, eating healthy and sh... (should work on my language – sorry). This weekend will acquire a lot of work, effort and awakeness to accomplish our goal of shooting Jasmine's movie, putting the furniture into Merryn's closet (which would be Jasmine), putting the final finesse in Allison's piece and getting my untrained, out of shape old bum up on the roof. Caffeine needed, for sure! So green tea seemed to be the right choice.
We don't need to worry, though, 'cause today Jolanda brought over a cricket. I assume it is a lucky one, even though I did not run across the highway holding the cricket to prove my assumption. That wouldn't have proven much, anyways, concerning the dutch acceleration temperament. Still, it's a lucky one, although it has a temper. It is … complaining ... much. Standing on the cupboard, doing knee bends, stretching it's head up high, shouting … one gets the impression it must be of Canadian decent.
Shshsh-BOOM!
Just now, three shoes were thrown in my general direction. Canadians^^! Sis is eksaktly se riesson wai ai schuud noot wörk in ä kommuunitii in wwitsch ai äm ä minorätii. Just kidding. The girls are lovely, working hard and highly understanding ... me being an artistically uneducated, second language speaking, not used to creating beautiful art all day, German-man in Delft. But I think I need to get going, 'cause the girls seem to be indecisive whether or not they should put me in a not big enough box. If I want to have a say in this, as well, I should maybe be part of the deciding process. So, fare thee well, eat drink and be merry(n)!
hihi
by henning
FRIDAY henning and i had a really nice late-night chat when he arrived unexpectedly after midnight the night before. so i awoke somewhat too early and groggily this morning, and made a cup of tea before class. allison and i had a big day planned, like many of our other days that last week. we made a trip to the foto place, where we printed photographs that hope had taken, to display as an installation on her behalf; our headshots and an artist shot each; a few pages of photo collages, which we put together in a little thank-you booklet to present to our gracious project organizers, rolina & paul. we held a rehearsal for allison's piece, and we cried over the lack of internet (which had shut down that morning).
allison setting up the installation & doing some repairs on the house / me painting the walls over from the first showing... thanks to our couch surfers for the spraypaint!
DINNER ON A BOAT (almost) to reward ourselves for our week of hard work (and to satisfy a little tradition me and allison sort of have) we went out for a special dinner that night - our only meal out in the whole trip. we wanted dinner on a boat on one of the canals, but we remembered too late that it was friday night, and the boats were packed. we found a spot beside a boat: a table in the setting sun, right along the algae-covered canal with a brass band playing down the street. mmm and the food was delicious! the setting was perfect (save that we weren't necessarily on the boat).
jasmine arrived later that night, and we spent the evening drinking wine and singing songs – literally, kids songs. we saved the rest of the work for the following day, and stayed up way past bedtime, like we were teenagers again.
SATURDAY: CRUNCH TIME we woke for class at the usual time, followed immediately by rehearsal with allison. after lunch we rehearsed jasmine's piece, got some insight from allison, and put it on the camera. she had the video edited & credited before the day was through. (it'll be on the blog as soon as she sends me the final copy!) her rehearsal / filming lasted much of the day, and we got to my rehearsal around 9 that night. it was really quite okay, though. henning and jasmine were still awake and ready to work with me, and were very cooperative and helpful in the process of putting the last threads together! we dealt with costumes, discussed the technicalities for the projection. and they dealt beautifully with my stress and anxiety level that sort of started to creep up throughout the evening. we were in bed not long after midnight...
THEN THE BIG DAY ARRIVED!
SUNDAY was sunday ever a whirlwind of a day. i can hardly even think how to recount it to you! we spent the morning putting the final touches on everything. a crew came by with beer, wine, chips & nuts for the "drink" afterwards (for which we volunteered our house, being the most appropriate one for hosting). we joined the other presenting artists at the cultural centre a half hour before the talk, just to make sure everything was going to work with the projector.
the talk itself went well: it was pretty short. i gave an overview of our living situation in the house together, a little background info, and the setup of our showing-to-be. we then each covered the inspirations for our individual explorations. most of the other artists showed some of their previous work on the projector, but ours was, of course, live, so it seemed a bit redundant to show anything ahead of time.
