Nathan is on a date with Tom Dickins, so I have taken a few moments to bless myself with two lunches, chai and a blog post.
God on a WHEEL it has been ages since I have posted. Life has just run all over me (and I over it) these last few months.
I am in a very tangled, happy, extravagant, content and nervous place right now. I am also sitting, quite appropriately in a cafe called Jeremy’s on the very European Hardware Lane in Melbourne.
I think that is enough with the opening lines.
No reason except that Regina Spektor is amazing.
My To Do List is shortening by the minute. I just have to do some last-minute shopping tomorrow, see Mel, go see John’s Band.
Oh, and and finish my application for JUMP. I think my proposal is pretty solid. It’s just that I have left it all a bit late, and am waiting on some final supporting documents. Then I am going to post it at the LAST MINUTE from Daejeon. Look, the application says postmarked by the 26th February. They don’t know yet that I am in Korea. I get to email in the body of the application, so at least they will be expecting the hard stuff.
Ahigo…
Rehearsed Sketches today. I suffer slightly from motivational issues when I am left to my own devices in a room with a working computer (especially when it is my own). I put in a good 2 and a half hours. Pretty sure I could do the show in my sleep (lucky it’s Butoh). At least now, after a couple of weeks of revision I am no longer relying on my Body Memory (which gets a bit fuzzy, let’s be honest). And 6 months of performing as a singing, dancing, cybernetic robot has left its toll on my Body Material Of Wave.
And I will soon once again be on the Roman Road.
Here was some good and fortunate things that happened today:
And finally…
So, I have missed out on a ‘One Month In’ post by one day, but it only just occurred to me to write one. I won’t recap. If you’re interested, you can read for yourself.
But these are the things that are on my mind:
I have slowly been working through the essay I am writing on my own Butoh practice. I just dug out the book I brought with me about Sun Mu (Zen Dance) practice (this reveiw of the author’s work sounds amazing). I actually stole the book from the communal bookshelf in Oldfield Castle when I lived here two years ago and lugged it back to Oz. I cracked it open a couple of times last year when we were first talking about how we would approach Sketches Of Blood. It includes some interesting concepts that I want to incorporate into the way I feel about dance. I am also very interested in picking up a few more Salpuri classes, because it is such a beautiful form…
I am very excited.
I had my first Pansori class today with Oh Min Ah, of the National Changgeuk Theater Of Korea. I met her for the first time this morning at The National Theatre on the slopes of green Namsan Mountain. She is probably one of the most adorable Korean women I have met. And I have met quite a few adorable Korean women.
We have quite an interesting language barrier. I think her English skills match my Korean ones. With maybe one or two points in my favour, so very basic communication is possible, but we did struggle a little. Not in the actual teaching, but in the small issues, like how much I was to pay her, when we would meet, what exactly I was doing in Korea. That sort of thing. Long periods on the electronic dictionary did help. And we got by.
The words ‘Highway Robbery’ came up when we were discussing her fee. I think the gist of it is that Pansori teachers can be very expensive, but she does not want to charge me any where near the full price, and even the money I have to give her (thanks to the Australia-Korea Foundation) she thinks is too much. But we have organised 16 lessons over the next three months (she will be out of town for a month doing a show in Ansan) so everything worked out in the end…
I have had a massive week. Not much time to be a real person.
I entertained Ellen for most of it, did some writing (of music) did website for Autumn Sun, both jobs which I have to finish this week.
I really miss Nathan – it’s manifesting itself in strange, and not really helpful ways.
This week Ellen and Polly and I planned our lives for the next few… well, years actually. We have two shows in production with pretty-much confirmed seasons. I am going to Korea in a few weeks to learn Pansori and work on a peice of theatre which will hopefully see the light of day as part of Gaudete.
I am starting to journal my experiences so that I can have an effective reflective practice.
My next post will be one of these.
