(no subject)
I was pretty depressed last week, but then I had a great weekend and everything was lovely again. One of those times when you find yourself getting all wound up and stressed and down cause you don't think you're getting to where you wanna be but then you just let go wind up somewhere else and feel pretty elated about the whole thing.
I went to see a Japanese guest company doing a Noh production of A Doll's House on friday. I used to have a big thing for Noh when I was at university, indeed for my end of year assesment thingy tried to teach myself how to do a whole scene of a Noh play, I got a first for it but I think that was based more on ambition than anything else cause frankly it was a pretty rubbish attempt.
Anyway Fridays performance was a dual performance. It was done on a Noh stage with chorus and musicians but half the actors were naturalistic and half were Noh. They intertwined the two styles of performance - there were two Noras who were for the most part were on the stage at the same time mirroring one another but only one Torvald. It worked really well, the contrast was fairly unsettling. I thought Lola might get completely lost, seeing as she didn't know the play and it was all in Japanese but she managed it and enjoyed it which is more than could be said for the woman to my right who was trying to (not so) subtly demonstate how increadibly bored she was.
It was also Metropolis' final ever evening on friday. Which was being billed as a "very big deal". I couldn't be bothered though, I knew it'd be full of idiots and I knew they'd all be drunk and emotional and I knew that there'd be a queue that'd stretch across half of Stockholm. Noone saw these as valid excuses not to go, so i said I'd come and just didn't turn up. People's love for that club is out of all proportion. It's fun and all but....in any case now it's closed everyone'll be starting up indie clubs on friday night and for once Stockholm might start exhibiting a bit of variety.
In any case instead I went to a French restaurant ate very expensive crepes and drank absinthe. I'd just got paid, so such mindless luxuries felt less damaging than they perhaps were. Earlier in the evening an aquaintance had called me a walking cliche. I tried to argue it but the guy was right. I can't help it, a lack of imagination and too many books.
The rest of the weekend was mostly dedicated to Polly but I managed to offload her onto Lola for a few hours on Saturday evening, so that I could run (I did literally run) to Vitabergsparken in order to see NIgel Charnock performing. The man's a bit of a hero of mine. He was my first exposure to DV8, which is an important development in my life. I remember being shown an extract from Strange Fish in a drama lesson, it was the scene wher Charnock's desperately lonely character is chasing the other dancers round a bar, and then running out and buying as much of their stuff on video as I could. He's always great, and the first fifteen minutes of saturday was some of the best dance I've seen. Thing is after fifteen minutes he stopped dancing and explained that he was gonna spend the next hour talking. I thought he was joking but for the next hour he did just that (give or take a short sketch here and there). Which was alright, he's funny and clever and confronational in a way that for the most part feels confrontational but (and I feel very boring for saying this) I like the dancing, I kinda would have liked to see a bit more, but there you go. Mostly he was slagging off the swedish and I did think at one point he might seriousley injure someone as he started throwing hard bread out at the audience. He was trying to demonstrate how lethal they were. Thing is they are lethal, they're basicaly discs of concrete like thin bread, you could have someone's head off. Still he got a standing ovation so noone can have minded that much. Oh year, after the Swedish he started laying into the Finnish, he's been living there five years, whilst been artistic director of the Helsinki Dance company. He explained that due to living in Finland he's not had sex in five years and then tied to persuade someone, anyone (cats, dogs, primeministers, anyone) to comeback to his hotel room later that evening. I wonder if anyone did. I would have - Columbus Hotel room 108, but I had to pick up Polly and it's have felt strange taking her along.
She did come with me to see The Helsinki dance company the next day, hoever, but spent the whole time trying to disapear amongst the people in the audience. So I didn't see much of it as I was chasing her. Then I had to leave early cause she got really upset when I tried to stop her climbing up the lighting rig. Still I wasn't That impressed with what I saw. He can do better.
Now back at work again and bored but yesterday I found a copy of Lu Hsun's short stories in a second hand book shop. I've been looking for them for ages so the week should be Ok anyway. Or something approaching OK.
I went to see a Japanese guest company doing a Noh production of A Doll's House on friday. I used to have a big thing for Noh when I was at university, indeed for my end of year assesment thingy tried to teach myself how to do a whole scene of a Noh play, I got a first for it but I think that was based more on ambition than anything else cause frankly it was a pretty rubbish attempt.
Anyway Fridays performance was a dual performance. It was done on a Noh stage with chorus and musicians but half the actors were naturalistic and half were Noh. They intertwined the two styles of performance - there were two Noras who were for the most part were on the stage at the same time mirroring one another but only one Torvald. It worked really well, the contrast was fairly unsettling. I thought Lola might get completely lost, seeing as she didn't know the play and it was all in Japanese but she managed it and enjoyed it which is more than could be said for the woman to my right who was trying to (not so) subtly demonstate how increadibly bored she was.
It was also Metropolis' final ever evening on friday. Which was being billed as a "very big deal". I couldn't be bothered though, I knew it'd be full of idiots and I knew they'd all be drunk and emotional and I knew that there'd be a queue that'd stretch across half of Stockholm. Noone saw these as valid excuses not to go, so i said I'd come and just didn't turn up. People's love for that club is out of all proportion. It's fun and all but....in any case now it's closed everyone'll be starting up indie clubs on friday night and for once Stockholm might start exhibiting a bit of variety.
In any case instead I went to a French restaurant ate very expensive crepes and drank absinthe. I'd just got paid, so such mindless luxuries felt less damaging than they perhaps were. Earlier in the evening an aquaintance had called me a walking cliche. I tried to argue it but the guy was right. I can't help it, a lack of imagination and too many books.
The rest of the weekend was mostly dedicated to Polly but I managed to offload her onto Lola for a few hours on Saturday evening, so that I could run (I did literally run) to Vitabergsparken in order to see NIgel Charnock performing. The man's a bit of a hero of mine. He was my first exposure to DV8, which is an important development in my life. I remember being shown an extract from Strange Fish in a drama lesson, it was the scene wher Charnock's desperately lonely character is chasing the other dancers round a bar, and then running out and buying as much of their stuff on video as I could. He's always great, and the first fifteen minutes of saturday was some of the best dance I've seen. Thing is after fifteen minutes he stopped dancing and explained that he was gonna spend the next hour talking. I thought he was joking but for the next hour he did just that (give or take a short sketch here and there). Which was alright, he's funny and clever and confronational in a way that for the most part feels confrontational but (and I feel very boring for saying this) I like the dancing, I kinda would have liked to see a bit more, but there you go. Mostly he was slagging off the swedish and I did think at one point he might seriousley injure someone as he started throwing hard bread out at the audience. He was trying to demonstrate how lethal they were. Thing is they are lethal, they're basicaly discs of concrete like thin bread, you could have someone's head off. Still he got a standing ovation so noone can have minded that much. Oh year, after the Swedish he started laying into the Finnish, he's been living there five years, whilst been artistic director of the Helsinki Dance company. He explained that due to living in Finland he's not had sex in five years and then tied to persuade someone, anyone (cats, dogs, primeministers, anyone) to comeback to his hotel room later that evening. I wonder if anyone did. I would have - Columbus Hotel room 108, but I had to pick up Polly and it's have felt strange taking her along.
She did come with me to see The Helsinki dance company the next day, hoever, but spent the whole time trying to disapear amongst the people in the audience. So I didn't see much of it as I was chasing her. Then I had to leave early cause she got really upset when I tried to stop her climbing up the lighting rig. Still I wasn't That impressed with what I saw. He can do better.
Now back at work again and bored but yesterday I found a copy of Lu Hsun's short stories in a second hand book shop. I've been looking for them for ages so the week should be Ok anyway. Or something approaching OK.