impro tasks and a dedication to chenoah ellis

after jasmine left yesterday, i took my notebook up to the bedroom to sit at my newly-placed desk. a big wooden chair (one of three that we found in a garbage pile on the other side of the bridge) was put in front of the desk when we set up the work corner. so i sat on it for the first time! ... and it broke from underneath me. turns out it was in the garbage for a reason. go figure.

sitting on the lopsided seat and doing most of the work with my own feet, i looked up at the wall in front of me. nailed in a line were five folded letters, each with a date and "to merryn" written on the front - one for each day jasmine is gone. i took the first, labeled "july 12 209 to merryn". inside it explained that each letter had a note and an impro task that i was to take on.

you can imagine what the next few days of blogging will be about ...

but first: more pictures! at dear chenoah's request, i will go on the hunt for shots of me & jasmine dancing.

groene thee met ginseng / a glimpse into my piece

jasmine left for groningen this afternoon. she'll be gone until thursday, which leaves me three full days of solitude (before hope joins me here) to work on the bulk of my choreography. jasmine and i have it scheduled that i show my piece to her and henning this saturday, so henning can work on the music for it and i can teach jasmine material. but, in honour of the work we've been doing, and in honour of the rain and the grossness of the rain outside, i decided to take a weekend day. it's actually my first day off since i got here. the day off will really relate only to dancing, since i will still work conceptually on my piece and maybe try to edit some of our videos to upload for your viewing.

i am attempting to create a work that involves three mediums: live music, live dancing, live video feed. (and perhaps pre-recorded video feed, but that isn't for sure yet... nor does it sound so good with the three others in the "live" theme...) i am using one of our spare bedrooms: the space nicknamed, quite appropriately & in honour of some improvisations jasmine and i did in there, the "closet room". the piece will explore social boundaries and reservations, our insecurities and social awkwardnesses. there are so many ways we sensor ourselves - bodies, language, phrasing, what parts of our personalities we deem appropriate to share and what aspects of ourselves we decide are unfit for social interactions. i will be looking at where the roots of these decisions are; when it is the individual who decides they should look and act a certain way, and when the media or our upbringing places these restrictions in our minds, affecting our habits and choices.

however, on a grey and rainy day like this, all i want to do is curl up by my [non-existent] fireplace and read a good [not that i have one] book and drink tea. well, i managed the tea part! today is just for groene thee met ginseng.

this one's for henning

we dedicate this one to henning.

(if you don't know him, he's the guy downstage right.)

jasmine's film, in the making

choreographing the scene in the kitchen

mosquitos and a new member!

we're getting eaten alive here. i wake up every morning with a new red, itchy splotch from a mosquito. this morning's lucky winner is my thumb! yesterday it was my earlobe and my eyelid. they know how to pick the awkward spots, eh?

the pressing matter at hand is jasmine leaving tomorrow for groningen. she will be away on the weekdays, to return each friday evening. with this time line, and having mapped out how many days we'll have together to shoot, we've been focusing on her film. i think we've made really good progress on the choreography. we are having fun improvising in the kitchen, and have choreographed the first half of the piece in the upstairs /on the staircase.

lastly in the news, we have a new addition to our house! from this wednesday until 25 july, hope davis will be joining us. she is a beautiful dancer and photographer i met while she was at the springboard project in montreal this summer, and we hit it off right away. i proposed that she join us to document some of our process (seeing as jasmine and i are not actually photographers - could you tell?) and we settled it in three emails back & forth. you'll find a link to her site at the bottom of the page.

and so ... from this sunday until wednesday, i will have the opportunity to work - just squashed a mosquito! - uninterrupted on my piece. solo time. you'll be hearing from me a lot then.

a few shots

my first sighting in delft