One Down(ish), Four To Go.

Strike is tonight... It's interesting to think that just two weeks ago I first arrived at Canterbury, being dropped off by Michael and his husband, Jon.  Hell, three weeks ago I was in Belgrade, Serbia!  This summer will be a roller coaster of new experiences, challenges, friends, and, hopefully, a little fun too.  We just peaked the first dropped and plummeted down the other side.  Wrong Turn at Lungfish closes tonight.  We strike after this final performance and begin the load in for Romance, Romance.

I'm a little excited and a little scared.  Romance, Romance opens Wednesday... my first realized lighting design.  It's interesting that's professional work...even more so because I didn't realize I was lighting designer for four shows this summer until I arrived on June 6th.  I knew there was a possibility of me designing some, depending on what skills other employees had.  But I didn't expect to design almost the entire season.  But I'm not complaining.  It's a good thing.  It's a great opportunity, actually.  I likely would have talked myself out of similar opportunities in the future, but now I know (okay, well I assume at this point...but whatever) that I can do this, I am capable of making this my future.

I desire to teach at a collegiate and/or post-graduate level - eventually.  I want to get real world experience, and this is a great start to that.  Graduate school is in the picture - where I'm not sure, when I'm not sure.  I pretty sure I want focus on Technical Direction.  Secondary skills I would like to develop beyond that are Sound Design and Lighting Design...Scenic would be interesting, but I'll need a bet--

There I go again.  "I need a better teacher before I can do..." X.  Fuck that shit.  If my sound design experiences have taught me anything, experience is the best teacher.  What I need is to develop skills - conceptualization, drawing, sketching, painting, drafting, verbal picturization.  Beyond that, I just have to create, get constructive criticism and feedback, and learn form my experiences.  Look - commercialization is good for something!  I just need to follow Nike's slogan: "Just do it!" 

It even matches the theme of this blog, how about that...

Prayer of the Woods

Just found this while searching around the internet...It's simple, it's easy, it's a prayer we can all share.  Unfortunately there is no author provided.  The original image is provided below.  Here goes:


PRAYER OF THE WOODS

I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights,
the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun,
and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.

I am the beam that holds your house,
the board of your table,
the bed on which you lie,
and the timber that builds your boat.

I am the handle of your hoe,
the door of your homestead,
the wood of your cradle,
and the shell of your coffin.

I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty.

Ye who pass by,
listen to my prayer.

Harm me not.

Wisps of Air Over Belgrade

01-6-11 @ 22:48

LOT Polish Airlines, In-Flight somewhere over Belgrade

It’s funny

                . . . how small everything seems up here.

Old haunts that once loomed so large,

                fade like dreams gone by.

And ethereal wisps float into view,

                obscuring memories of days gone

                                and friends now far away.

It’s funny

                . . . how we miss that we barely knew.

Yet new horizons near as we chase the setting sun,

                New friends . . .

                                New cities . . .

                                                New fun . . .

And new opportunities in a brave new world,

                colored by the joy and love of a people

                                who have suffered more than we can ever know.

It’s funny

                . . . how sad I am to go.

Our Final Day in Belgrade, Serbia

31-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

This morning we were finally able to go visit the Cathedral of Saint Sava.  The Cathedral will be a spectacular sight once it is finished.  Even in the state it is in UNESCO has already declared it a European Cultural Heritage site.  UNESCO, and other groups, have offered to help pay many of the expenses to finish the process of building the Cathedral, but the Serbian Orthodox Church keeps refusing – and I entirely respect their reasoning.  They want the church to be the people’s church.  Not UNESCO’s.  Not some corporation’s.  The people’s church.  As such, they only accept donations from members and visitors to the church.

After the visit to Saint Sava’s, we set out to find the Mali Prinz Pekara (Small Prince Bakery).  During The Nastasijevića Code, Sam had been served some vanilla cookies she absolutely adored.  I still owed her cookies and Dijana had recommended Mali Prinz as the best in town…though she may be slightly biased, it’s her sister’s shop.

After some issues finding the bakery, came to understand that there were multiple locations – we had been getting directions to two different places!  Anyways, our struggle paid off and we found the bakery, the cookies, and we spilt some wonderfully delicious sweets – one of which I need to learn how to make.  They called “The Wheat”.  It was basically water, mashed wheat, and a bit of sugar.  A dollop of whipped cream on top and you had a quite healthy, but delicious, desert.

We then when back to the market one final time before we left.  I ended up finding a Zippo with an Eagle embossed on it.  The man originally wanted 500 Dinar, but talked himself down to 150 as I kept trying to walk away.  I’ll need to polish it and purchase a new wick, but the piece is otherwise in great condition.  A fantastic buy, if you ask me.

That evening we saw Crossing the Line at Theatre DAH before going back to the bar with most of the members of the troupe.  The owner had prepared us a wonderful homemade stew complete with homemade bread that was still warm from the oven…it was awesome!  After the meal, a bunch of us ducked out…which is a shame, but I wanted to go back to Kalemegdan to do some night photography.

We got back to the Hotel and I grabbed my camera and some beer.  A group of five or six of us went to the park, but I was left quickly behind taking photos…which I was okay with.   At one point, while I was taking photos near the church, a security guard came over and began talking to me.  His English was poor, but he mentioned something about needing papers to shoot photos…which is bullshit according to Katie because Kalemegdan is public property.  Anyways, decided to just keep moving.  When I got to the base of the fortress, I took a couple more photos before noticing another security guard honing in on me…I kept moving.  Only once did I stop to briefly pantomime setting up a photo – at which point the guard sped up in his approach – so I packed up and walked back up to the top of the Fortress and toward Hotel Royal.

Our Final Day with the DAH Workshop

30-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

On our final day of the DAH workshops, we spent our time with Sanja in what used to be her dance studio – the main space was being ready for The Nastasijevića Code performance that evening, Crossing the Line for the next evening, and their 20^th Anniversary Festival which began around the time we were leaving Serbia.

Again with Sanja we did quite a bit of Drum work…I would say she worked us harder than anyone else – we kept going and going and going….and going.  She would periodically switch us over to different pieces of music before going back to the drum.   For the second half of the session we were given a dance bar for our set and told to create a scene utilizing it.  She gave everyone a prompt, mine was “Who are you?”   After we finished our individual scenes, Sanja worked them into different montages – similar to how DAH performances are created.  It was really cool!

In the afternoon, Dijana gave her lecture entitled, “The Role of the Artists in the Dark Times” which discusses DAH’s history, mission, and why it is imperative that artists speak out when no one else will.

That evening, we returned to DAH to watch their newest work The Nastasijevića Code.  The Nastasijevića Code is a unique piece of audience immersion theatre.  Patrons of the theatre, or Guests, are invited and led into the space.  It is supposed to evoke a sort of artistic soirée evening.   The Nastasijevićs were a group of three sisters and four brothers who lived together all their lives.  Only the youngest brother ever married and for that the rest of the family practically ostracized him.  Each member of the family was creatively gifted in some form or another.  You can probably find more information on Wikipedia or something if you’re interested.

After the performance, we went out the bar that Jugi recommened nearby.  After some struggles to find it, Jugi just decided to join us and show us in.  It was a great little spot with a nice patio out back.  A little after midnight, we decided to leave – the bar technically should have closed by then, but they hadn’t (If you had walked by the front entrance, you never would have known they were open).  As we were leaving, the owner of the establishment offered us food for the next evening in exchange for us coming back and drinking more…we weren’t about to deny free food and so we quickly agreed to return after Crossing the Line.

After leaving the bar, we returned to Rif for a second time and spent a good little while there, though only drinking a beer or two.  We decided to leave about an hour or so after we arrived.  Lucas, Liz, Britt, and I chose to walk back to the hotel since the busses were no longer running.  It was a fun walk, though a little longer than I expected.  No biggie – plus, on the way back I saw a poster advertising the dance party Lucas, Keegan, and I had attended the night before…so I grabbed one for each of us to have a souvenir.

A Day Trip to Novi Sad

29-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

We got up fairly early this morning…probably only four hours of sleep, but it was damn worth it.  We walked to the train station where we met up with Katie again.  We got on the train to Novi Sad and I promptly fell asleep for the two-hour train ride.   When we got there, we travelled near to the Theatre and a large Catholic Church.  We had some coffee there while we waited around to head to Petrovardin for lunch.

We got on a bus and travelled about eight blocks to a bridge, crossed it, and got off.  We climbed up hill towards the fortress on top.   Our restaurant was located on a beautiful terrace overlooking part of the river and the city proper.  It was a nice Italianesque restaurant – a sort of Serbo-Italian crossover.  It was good.

After Lunch we climbed up about another twenty or thirty feet to the top of the fortress.  We enquired about tours through the catacombs and were told it was three-hundred dinar a person.  A little under half the group decided they didn’t want to go…so we left them there.    We had about a twenty minute wait until the tours, so we briefly explored the museum attached.  It’s a shame they didn’t have a map of the fortress for sale – I would have loved to give that to Peter, in addition to Kalemegdan, for DnD inspiration.

I young guide came and met us soon enough and led us in our descent to the tunnels of Petrovardin.   The guard reached his arm through a barred iron door and unlocked it from the inside.  We walked in and found…drum-roll please…a full scale map of the fortress….  It’s annoying how easy that would be to reproduce and sell.  Anyways, he asked if anyone was claustrophobic before we went down – there was no exit before the end of the tour a kilometer away.   We weren’t, he led, he talked – we listened.  He showed us various aspects of life underground include sleeping areas, provision chutes, the entrances to mine holes – throughout the fortress were trenches to prevent front assaults, they were guarded by rifle holes, canon holes, and little crawlspaces to rooms below the trenches which were filled with gunpowder, ready to be exploded if too many enemies penetrated to that point in the trench – a number of openings for weapons to slide through, traps throughout the walls – soldiers would hide in these rooms and shoot through rifle-holes if the enemy breached the tunnels – and other similar places.  It was really an interesting experience, though I wish I could have explored more.  It looked like previous the space had been open to the public to just browse through – there were plaques on the walls explaining everything in Serbian, German, and English – but after some tunnels collapsed I believe they moved to only allowing tours to be in the tunnels.

As we exited the tunnels, the guide informed us that this was where the Exit Festival – which starts just days after we leave – was held in the trenches of the fortress.

We began the descent of the fortress.  When we had reached the level of houses again, we saw a group of men standing around what looking to be a professional film camera.  We inquired as to what was going on – apparently they were filming a commercial for Exit Festival!  The guy we asked, who also seemed to be in charge, asked us if we would like to help them.  We didn’t have any time constraints, so we did.  It was a lot of fun, though also a laborious process – I now know why people complain about film taking quite a bit of time.   After about four or five takes, we finished up and continued back towards the other side of the bridge and the theatre.

We were seeing Barbelo by Biljana Srbljanović – the same lady who also wrote Locusts. The first you notice as the play begins that the characters are speaking French while Serbian “subtitles” projected above the stage.   The set was very interesting.  It had two main components – a vertical turntable, two stories in height.  The center of the turntable had been cut out to allow actors to utilize the space.  From out edge to inner edge, the wheel was probably about five feet wide.   Additionally, there was a long box, probably 6’ x 6’ x 20’, on smart casters which allowed it to be used for a variety of purposes including as a table, ramp, runway, or platform.

While the scenic design was very strong, the lighting and sound lagged behind.  Both were riddled with some poor choices, in my opinion.  Often the gobos or choices of what lights to use made it very difficult to see the actors face, which in turn made it difficult to observe any facial expressions – an especially poor choice considering Barbelo was a Serbian play being performed in the French language to an audience of Serbians with subtitles forty feet in the air….  There needed to be some way to follow the arc of the story and the primary way left to the audience facial expressions, which the lighting took away.  Doesn’t work out so well.  On the other hand, the sound clips were often louder than they needed to be, and would fade in and out quite abruptly.  It was jarring and took me out of the moment. 

That being said, there were some very nice effects in the show.  The most impressive to me was when it rained.  Half of the turntable was rigged with a hole-poked hose of some sort which they pumped water through to make it rain.  The coolest part about it though was it only rain inside the circle – no where outside had water.  In addition to the falling water, the designers utilized a nice lighting effect – a high white light, angled just slightly to stage left – that made the rain glisten and sparkle as it fell upon the woman.  A fantastic composition.

After Barbelo, waited for awhile at a bar until it was about time to catch our bus back to Belgrade and sweet, sweet sleep.

Theatre DAH, Sound, TopFM/Hedkandi Party

28-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

Today we spent our time at DAH working with Dijana.  We spent the vast majority of our time doing drum work.  Dijana focused on what she calls “layers of attention.”  On stage, an actor must be aware of many things while not letting any of that interfere with the perfect execution of their performance.  In order to train this, we did drum work while Djana continued to add more and more things to what we needed to remember and perform such as, “Be like a giant,” “Be like a butterfly,” “Be like cold molasses,” and so forth.  Sometime she would remove or replace layers, but more often than not she would just add more layers.

In the afternoon we did some vocal work.  Dijana had us imagine the sounds of different animals or personae, such as dogs, cats, roosters, or operatic baritones.  What sounds do they make, what’s their tempo, what’s their tone?  She then had us speak our dialogue as if we were the animal/personae and slowly refine it to intelligible speech.  We repeated the exercise for each animal/personae with the same piece of dialogue and observed the different changes we noticed.

That afternoon Jugi talked us through DAH’s history of performances, from their debut performance of This Babylonian Confusion in the fountain of Republic Square up through the process of creating their newest piece, The Nastasijevića Code.

After we returned to the hotel, I had planned to get some food and head to Kalemegdan to take some more photos and then head back to Mikser but the weather decided it didn’t want to comply.  It was a deluge.  Keegan, Lucas, and I found some food instead.   After some time, decided the rain was lightening so we should figure out something to do.  We decided to find a club, maybe Freestyler again, and have a good night before the trip to Novi Sad in the morning.  We decided to attempt to find Tube, which was supposedly just a couple blocks away. 

Sam and Lynnette decided to join us on our trip – Sam especially because she had decided against Freestyler with us two nights before planning to “wait for the people not doing the DAH workshops…so that we can stay out later.”  We find Tube, a sign on the door says the club doesn’t open until 11:30p.  We’re right next to a rakija bar we’ve been meaning to try, so we decided to go there and wait until the club opened. 

The first thing I noticed is that the bar appeared even smaller from the inside than it did from the outside. There were no open tables, but there were two two-person ledges available that we decided to grab.    The bartender came over to take our orders and we were all impressed by his firm, fluent control of the English language.  He described the varieties of rakija available – I just told him to bring me his favorite.  He ended up bringing a glass of pear-flavored rakija that was superb – as good as what we had at Znak Pitanja, though very much a different brand.   With your order, they also provided a glass of water and a small set of hor d’ourves that consisted of a couple olives, a bit of tomato, some cheese, and a piece of smoked meat.  Fantastic.  I would highly recommend the bar to any interested parties in Belgrade.

Around 11:45 or midnight, we left the Bar and headed towards the Tube.  It was still closed.  Lucas remembered hearing or reading somewhere that it was under renovations, though we thought it wouldn’t be recommended if it were…we were wrong.  C’est la vie.  We decided to check Club Anderground again before heading towards Freestyler.  We walked to Anderground and this time actually ended up finding the entrance, however there was a major load-in going on and the club wasn’t going to be open that night…or any other that week.  Dammit.  Eh, ah well. We continued our trek towards down towards the Sava riverside, following it to a bridge to New Belgrade. 

As we were crossing the bridge, we started seeing flashing yellow lights coming from what we had thought was a riverboat soccer field.  As we got about a fourth of the way across the bridge, we started hearing a heavy base beat too…  Once we came abreast with the boat, we saw swarms of people inside dancing while more and more kept streaming in.  We walked down the steps to the riverside terrace and briefly discussed what we wanted to do: This or Freestyler?  We figured we probably couldn’t get into Freestyler, but Lucas was still determined to try. 

We headed south along the river towards Freestyler and soon enough the bass beat dropped off and Freestyler and Sound’s competing sound systems drifted towards our ears.  There was a small line outside of Freestyler, but nothing large.  Lucas sauntered up to the security crew to try and get in.  They asked if he had a reservation tonight. Upon learning that he did not, they turned him away.  Apparently tonight was reservations only.  Damn. 

So we went next door to Sound.  As we walked into the bar, a pink glimmer of light caught my eye and caused me to look ceilingward. Suspended twenty or more feet in the air was a giant chandelier made of empty bottles of Absolut Vodka lit from above with a hot pink.  Across the rest of the room was green and pink lighting with some laser shows and a few rotating gobos – nothing nearly as awesome as Freestyler was.  The music was softer and had a much smaller base beat.  People weren’t really dancing and the bar wasn’t very crowded either.  Freestyler also employed a live DJ – I’m pretty sure that Sound did not, though I couldn’t guarantee it without going more than that one night.

We ordered one round and before me and Lucas were even halfway done Sam and Lynnette decided they didn’t like the club and were heading back to Hotel Royal.  We left after we finished our round – our table was apparently reserved anyway, though they didn’t bother to tell us until the other party showed up…lame.   We walked out and headed north back along the riverside, away Freestyler and Sound. 

We got back to the riverside soccer field and the party was still bumping.  Hell, it was going stronger than it had been before, though people were no longer streaming in.  We went up to the “security” – basically two guys standing at the entrance – and asked them if they knew English and could tell us what was going down inside.  We were told it was a house concert and the cover charge was a thousand dinar.   We walked away – Keegan didn’t have the dinar on her to cover it – while Lucas continued to bemoan his desire to dance all night and his frustration that he couldn’t get into Freestyler.  When we got to the terrace area, stopped walking and told Lucas it was his choice if we spent the night dancing here or we could go back to the hotel.  He wouldn’t make up his mind.  He kept looking north, under the bridge, towards Kalemegdan and back at the boat.  Kalemegdan.  The boat.  Kalemegdan.  The boat.  Kalemegdan.  The Boat.  Kalem – I got fed up and pushed him towards the entrance, all the while telling Keegan I could cover her tonight if she pay me tomorrow and loan me a thousand dinar until we got back to the States.

We get up there, pay our fees, and walk in to a decent DJ.  We grabbed a couple beers and headed out to the dance floor.  While we started movin’ and groovin’ – just a little bit ‘cause we had drinks – the DJ stopped his set and announced the next band coming onstage – Access, I believe, was their name.  At some point during their show they asked if anyone could speak Romanian.  A couple hand shot up, and they had some basic dialogue before breaking into…Ma-di-ya-hee, ma-di-ya-hoo, ma-di-ya-ha, ma-di-ya-ahh-ahh!  The Numa Numa song as it’s generally known to Americans.   Everyone in the crowd started dancing and jumping and singing along.  When they completed the finale, the only thing the lead said was, “Tonight….You all speak Romanian!”  It was hilarious.   

After the band left, I headed towards the John…probably bad choice – it was packed.  I managed to get in line for the first stall, but attempted to keep the doorway open (there was a guy in front of me on the other side of the door).  As soon as he went in, two young girls slipped into his place… Whatever, I can wait.  He took forever, and when he got out they slipped in together.  I stepped quickly to the other side of the door so that I wouldn’t lose my spot.  A man standing in line for the next stall leaned in and said something quickly in Serbian.  I stopped him and said I didn’t speak Serbian, asking if he spoke English.  He did.  He leaned over again and said, “Is there anything worse than two girls in a stall together?”  Quick on my toes, I responded, “Yeah, three!”  He laughed as he pulled away.

About that time an event employee laid a hand on my shoulder and asked if I could let another lady go ahead of me…I didn’t hear fully what he said, he was a little ways away.  Like any old sucker I said yes…I didn’t want to get kicked our or anything.  When the other girls were done, she went in and quickly walked back out.  As she walked by, she mentioned that there wasn’t any more toilet paper.  Luckily I didn’t need any.

I get back to Lucas and Keegan about the time the next DJ walks on stage.  Lo-and-behold, guess who?  The escorted lady from the Bathroom.   She started spinning discs and pumping beats – it was great!  She started around 1:30a and kept on playing straight through when we left around 3:30a.  Around that time, the party was starting to die – though the hardcore guys and gals were still going strong.  By the time we got back to the hotel, we all wanted to go back to the party.   Keegan and Lucas laid down before me – out instantly.  I followed soon after to the same speedy results.

Theatre DAH, Maja, and a Mikser

27-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

This morning was an early one for us – we had the Theatre DAH workshops starting this morning.  Our first day was spent working with Maja.  We did a lot of drum work and ended the session with props work – creating scenes derived from and involving our assigned prop. 

In the afternoon, we watched a documentary at DAH about their Cultural Bus Project.  They travelled around Serbia and performed on bus routes.  For the performances, they choose routes that travelled along and through historical areas in each city and expounded upon the rich local history found throughout the Balkans.

We left DAH around four or so and went to the hotel to take a nap before heading out to the Mikser Festival that evening.  Mikser started out as a small art and design exposition but has since grown into a five-day art, design, and music exposition.  It was awesome.   The art work there was absolutely beautiful.   The site for the festival was especially interesting – it’s located in an old factory area.  Within the huge silos were the various exhibitions of artwork so that at almost all times you are forced to juxtapose the harsh, gritty insides of silos with the beautiful works of art people have created.  Some artists used the grittiness to their advantage, while others sought to remove it entirely from the picture.  It was most interesting when you would forget what kind of building actually housed these exhibits and just lose yourself in the surroundings…it was great.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I will comment on some of my favorite works.   The first one was an exhibition of 10 red chairs that had bare light bulbs hung above them at various heights.  On each chair was the word for Truth, I believe, in the various Balkan languages and dialects.  The second piece was a desk, assumed to be one Tito used at some point, with a pad of paper and a pen lain across it and a desk lamp as the sole point of illumination.  Upon the pad was scribbled a letter from Tito to a friend wherein he discussed his fascination that a person could put all their hopes, dreams, and aspirations upon the shoulders of a man they had never met (Tito).  It’s an interesting observation to be sure.

Around 9p we left the exhibits to go watch a band that Katie’s friend performs in.  We went, we listened…we left.   They were alright…90s punk basically.  The musicianship was great….the vocals were not so hot.  We went back through the exhibits and out the other side where we ended up walking into a documentary about Dancehall dancing in Jamaica.   It was interesting.  The film showed the recent progression of Dancehall from showing who can enjoy the music the most toward who can look like they’re having the most outrageous sex…  It was hard to decipher exactly where the personal and cultural opinions on the matter differed.  You would see a group of people dancing, and the women would seem to be enjoying it but then a guy would do something she didn’t seem thrilled about and she would get upset or angry, but the guy would just keep going… I didn’t know what to make of it.  I’d like to talk to people who are from the culture and get their opinions…anyways, after the documentary we caught back up with those still there and headed back to the Hotel.