Saturday 30 January 2010

i was powerful lazy and comfortable



Image: E.W. Kemble

SIGNS

And Jim said you musn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a bee-hive, and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me.

Chapter VIII | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 1885

Wednesday 27 January 2010

holocaust memorial day




The End and the Beginning
 
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.
 
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
 
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
 
Someone has to lug the post 
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
 
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
 
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
 
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
 
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.
 
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
 
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.
 
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.


Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh


Sunday 24 January 2010

live



Photo: Manuel Ulls-Coules

London International Mime Festival
Queen Elizabeth Hall


Saturday 23 January 2010

a pole | a chair | a stone




London International Mime Festival
Lindbury Studio Theatre | Royal Opera House
O Ultimo Momento (Portugal/France)
Contigo (with you)

Performer: Joao Paulo Dos Santos
Direction: Rui Horta | Joao Paulo Dos Santos
Choreography | Lighitng: Rui Horta
Music: Tiago Cerquiera | Victor Joaquim
Costume: Pedro Pereira Dos Santos

the adrenalin rush as you watched the man upside down perhaps plummet to his death was real | it was hypnotic | it was dance | it was witty | he was strong | there were squares of light | there was a stone | a chair | the chinese pole | it is six metres up | and six metres down | he climbed | he swung | he rolled | he sat | he played | there was incredible | unbearable | tension | at times | he plummeted | we sweated | he saluted | there was a time last year when we considered peter pan doing the chinese pole thing to fly | it could work | joao paulo dos santos held us | captured us | for a timeless forty-five minutes

Q: What makes you want to go up there?
A: So that I can come down here...

my five



National Portrait Gallery | London


Meta Scheltes | To Love | September 2008


Sean Raggett | Queen's Woods | April 2009


Spencer Murphy | Dawn, Bewl Water | January 2009


Paul Floyd Blake | Rosie Bancroft 2008 | October 2008 | First Prize



Reinier Gerritsen | Wall Street Subway #22 | June 2009

sunday sunday | galileo | ground control


David Bowie | by David Bebbington | 1969

Memories of the 70's: aged 4-13 yrs...

Sunday afternoons: DAD
  • David Bowie
  • T-Rex
  • Fleetwood Mac
  • Led Zeppelin
  • Pink Floyd
  • The Kinks
  • The Moody Blues
Saturday afternoons: MUM
  • Cilla Black
  • Petula Clark
  • Marianne Faithfull
  • Mary Hopkin
  • Cliff Richard
  • Sandie Shaw
  • Dusty Springfield
But no (memories of) Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Jagger or Who...


again: just in time...
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON

Friday 22 January 2010

fireworks & shooting stars


Photo: Philippe Cibille

London International Mime Festival
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Collectif Petit Travers (France)
Pan-Pot

by and with:
Nicolas Mathis, Julien Clément, Denis Fargeton
Pianist: Aline Piboule

Music by: Bach, Beethoven, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Liszt, Mozart...
Lighting Design: Arno Veyrat
Graphics | Visuals: Aude Poirot
Technical: Julien Durat
  • balletic
  • hypnotic
  • graceful
  • harmonious
  • precise
  • gallactic
  • the shooting stars !
  • the firework display !
  • playful
  • witty
  • mannequined
  • suited
  • spectacular
  • fast
Perhaps one of the most peaceful pieces of theatre...




Tuesday 19 January 2010

free time radical: multi-coloured (insects)



"think about the things that weren't right before"



"was the spray coming up or the rain coming down"



"we have got to do the silence"



"this insect: it was multi-coloured"



"you know my story: am I doing it right"



"the landscape is changing"

The Frequency D'ici
Free Time Radical
Jersey Arts Centre: St. James
Friday 15 January 2010

  • the rules
  • being the best
  • winning
  • what is the game
  • doing it right
  • to congratulate
  • to punish
  • remembering
  • the loss
  • the irrational
  • the chaos
  • is it real
  • is the flood real

Free Time Radical is a domestic story of epic proportions. Two guys share a flat in a converted church in a big metropolis. They are from different parts of the world, united by a shared passion for the extreme sport of surfing. Outside the flat, the world is flooding dramatically. Whole continents are disappearing under water, populations are being wiped out, society is drowning, and riots are breaking out. In the midst of the chaos we see two men change and survive.

Tom Frankland, Sébastien Lawson and Jamie Wood: thank you...

Monday 18 January 2010

pick up the kids | feed the cat




TODAY

05.45 réveille
06.15 breakfast: juice, tea and cereal
06.41 bus to train station
07.34 train to airport
09.00 check in for flight #1
09.05 passport control #1
09.15 tea and e-mails #1
10.50 flight due to depart
11.50 flight due to land
12.30 told to sit in any seat
- like being back in India
12.50 flight departs #1
- plane circles island for 3 hours: fog
- a lot of huffing and puffing by passengers
- great drama for 3 hours
15.50 flight lands back at Gatwick
16.00 overheard phone conversations:
- "pick up the kids can you feed the cat I really love you"
16.15 escorted back landside #1
16.30 check in for flight #2
- offer-up walnut whip to passenger to raise blood sugar levels
16.45 check-in for flight #2
17.00 tea and salad (better for the heart) and e-mails #2
17.30 passport control #2
- flight due to depart at: 19.35
18.00 flight cancelled: fog
18.05 escorted back landside #2
18.30 booked onto second flight for tomorrow
- given hotel voucher
19.00 check-in to hotel
19.15 planned to head into London to party
19.30 abort plan
21.00 blog



TOMORROW

05.30 réveille
06.00 breakfast: hotel breakfast
07.00 check-in for flight #3
07.15 passport control #3
08.45 fight due to depart
09.45 flight due to land

but it was a great weekend (see posts below) and today was good for re-reading huck finn...

Sunday 17 January 2010

secret mice | blind weapons



Neil Andrew as The German Soldier
Francesca Duncan as Lulu
Secret Weapons 2005
Liberation 60 Theatre-in-Education Project
Jersey Arts Centre


Amidst three exhibitions, two films, Huckleberry Finn adventures, free time radicals, and planes, trains and automobiles this weekend - and it has only been 48 hours - by far the most poignant experience, and after 57/58 years in the making, was a glimpse at Agatha Christie's THE MOUSETRAP to see Neil Andrew as Giles Ralston.



I now know why plays have to change...
I now know why theatre changes...


Lian Furness as Samuel
Sara Kewly as The Teacher


I know why Neil Andrew is a performer you would
Wish in your company:
he can make you believe it is snowing
he did this last night and

he did this five years ago...



"It's like Occupation jam our Dad says: it's the Occupation malady!"
Lulu | Secret Weapons | by Daniel Austin | 2005

Photography: Bruce Liron

what will you do if I die











Images: © 2010 Dimension Films


GO SEE IT

RA - some galileo inspirations...




Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt
Black Rain | 2009
HD video
Data courtesy of the Heliospheric Imager, STEREO, RAL


Antti Laitinen
It's My Island I | 2007
Diasec mounted c-type print
Nettie Horn, London



Mona Hatoum
Hot Spot | 2006
Stainless steel and neon tube
David Roberts Collection, London


Yao Lu
Spring in the City | 2009
C-type print
Red Mansion Foundation



Tracey Moffatt
Doomed | 2007
DVD | Edited by Gary Hillberg
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

Saturday 16 January 2010

RA - just in time...




HENRI GAUDIER-BRZESKA (1891-1915)

Self-portrait | 1913
Pastel | 51.7 x 36.5 cm
Southampton City Art Gallery


Redstone Dancer | c.1913
Red Mansfield stone | 60 x 35 x 40 cm
Tate


Crouching Fawn | 1913
Bath stone | 30.4 x 25.3 cm
Ivor Braka Ltd. London


JACOB EPSTEIN (1880-1959)

Rock Drill | 1913-15
Polyester resin, metal, wood | 205 x 141.5 cm
Birmingham  Museums and Art Gallery
(reconstruction by Ken Cook and Ann Christopher RA,
after the dismantled original, 1973-74)


The unfinished Rock Drill in Epstein's studio | c.1913


Portrait of Iris Beerbohm Tree | 1915
Bronze | 34.8 x 29 x 22.8 cm
Tate

ERIC GILL (1882-1940)

Ecstasy | 1910-11
Portland stone | 137.2 x 45.7 x 22.8 cm
Tate

I think an artist is not a person who makes things beautiful, but simply one who deliberately makes things as well as he can -- whether he is a clock-maker or picture-painter; because machine-made things are very much better when no "designer" has had anything to do with them -- when they are just plain serviceable things. I think that if you look after goodness and truth, beauty will take care of itself. ERIC GILL

Sunday 3 January 2010

thank you, shadows




PETER PAN audience over 59 performances: 15,238

Saturday 2 January 2010

thank you, acorns




Not to hurt his feelings she gives him her thimble...

PETER: Now shall I give you a kiss?

WENDY: (primly) If you please.

He pulls an acorn button off his person and bestows it on her. 
She is shocked but considerate...

WENDY: I shall wear it upon a chain around my neck.

Friday 1 January 2010

Nina Galileo Galilei Simone


barbarella galileo galilei



BARBARELLA | France/Italy | 1968 | Paramount Pictures

Director: Roger Vadim
Producer: Dino De Laurentiis
Screenplay: Terry Southern
Comic: Jean-Claude Forest & Claude Brulé
Cinematography: Claude Renoir
Editor: Victoria Mercanton
Score: Michael Magne & James Campbell
Songs: Bob Crewe & Charles Fox

With: Jane Fonda, David Hemmings, Milo O'Shea,
Marcel Marceau, Anita Pallenberg, John Phillip Law,
Claude Dauphin, Ugo Tognazzi

happy new 2010






PETER PAN by J.M. Barrie
South Hill Park, Bracknell
Designer: Victoria Spearing
Lighting: Alan Valentine