a day in the life

6.20 Wake up with Ada. Toby gets up with her. Back to sleep.
7.00 Get up. Toby goes for a jog. Breakfast. Shower while Ada entertains herself throwing plastic cups at my feet. Get us both dressed. Dance a bit on the designated dance carpet. Horsey rides. Do up and undo the stroller straps.
9.30 Ride to the studio on my new bike. Coffee on the way.
10.05 Warm up. Do some writing. Talk, talk, talk, talk with Wendy. Watch some stuff on youtube. Talk some more. Have Lunch. Re-learn a rhythm talking thing. Do some improvisations. Get the giggles.
16.20 Ride home.
16.45 Ada naked on balcony, splashing water in buckets. Have a quick discussion with Toby about how best to spend the sunny evening.
17.05 Ride round the corner to buy Haloumi/Felafel rolls and beer.
17.25 Ride to Volkspark. Look at the statue of Friedrich Jahn. Ride round the park to choose a picnic spot.
18.02 Eat dinner. Drink beer. Kick ball. Chase Ada. More horsey rides. Watch the germans stripped down to their underwear.
19.08 Ride to Fraulein Frost, the icecream shop round the corner from our flat. Give Ada her first taste of ice cream. Watch her run off with my entire cone. Tantrum as I negotiate it out of her hand. Toby manages to eat his in peace.
19.42 Home. Toby bathes Ada. Wash up.
19.56 Put Ada to bed. Fall asleep next to her.
21.00 Wake up. Toby makes me a cup of tea. Continue work on Australia Council application.
23.00 Begin online application filling in. Get disheartened.
23.30 Send draft to Rosalind
23.46 Bed
1.00 Ada wakes. Gets into bed with us.
4.26 Ada wakes and sleeps. Wakes and sleeps. Wakes and sleeps until...
6.26 When she is awake and the new day starts.

gymnastic father

It was with much excitement that I learnt from Toby (who is mapping/jogging what seems to be every street in Berlin) that just up the road from where we live is the 'turnplatz' where the 'turnvater' invented 'turnverein'. The excitement was mine. And is probably mine alone. Friedrich Jahn is the creator of mass gymnastics, which happens to be the subject (or one of them) of my solo work Opening and Closing Ceremony and I can't quite believe I'm living almost round the corner from such historical events. Berlin, huh? Its impossible to escape history here.

post minimal

©Anja Beutler

Last night I saw 2: Dialogue with Lucinda by Nicole Beutler/NB and oh my did I love it. It was a kind of cover version of two of Lucinda Childs' works/scores from the seventies with all the intense structure but with humanism and theatre too, and a tiny bit of dry humour. I think Nicole Beutler might be totally up my alley. It got me thinking about minimalism in dance, and though I know no one could ever accuse The Fondue Set of being minimal, it made me remember the tightness of the concept of The Hoofer. A kind of messy minimalism. Post minimal theatrical or something like that. And it got me excited about the possibilities of my scoring project with Gail. And made me think much harder about structures for my current solo work. And meant that Wendy and I spent pretty much all day today devising and trying to fulfill tricky word scores. So it was good in all kinds of ways.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with me also finally finding good coffee near the studio this morning, but that was good as well.

are you working too much?

I'll admit that though this is only my fifth post, I am already a bit perplexed about what belongs here. Or more that I feel like I have to get a blog practice going.

This past week has been full. An open space, open studio with Wendy which at times has seemed too open (what is it that I want from this?); dance shows; meeting people; not seeing Ada (and feeling guilty as well as feeling I'm missing out); and much much conversation and thinking. I want to write the thoughts down but keep missing them. Thats why I have to start the blog practice.

But for now, no thoughts -  just some pictures of the spectacular saturday we had. Breakfast at the cafe across the street. Browsing for bicycles. A bicycle ride and dinner picnic in Treptow Park. (Thats what we did. The photos are of the sun about to set).

The title of this post and the last are me paraphrasing some of Wendy's concerns. Clearly I am not accusing myself here.

Also Wendy laughed at the idea of me writing a blog and said she had tried to write one during the development of her latest show and failed. You can read her efforts here

if there's a past, there must be a future

Last night I missed seeing Dance by Lucinda Childs. I had a ticket specially arranged for me because it was sold out, and I was excited about seeing it, having seen a video of the original at the Whitney in New York,   and this, and Sol Le Witt's design drawings, being the inspiration for the walk on floor pattern/back drop for Folk Dancing! that the wonderful Agatha Gothe Snape made with me. A truly great thing if I do say so myself. But alas, I misread the show time and left it too late and missed out.

Then this morning as I made the coffee and complicatedly conveyed it from the stove, a wasp stung me. I began to think things weren't going my way and perhaps the trip was botched from the beginning. (And googling 'wasp sting berlin' didn't help when the first article that came up was about the increase of wasp sting deaths.)

So convinced that I would probably die and with ice strapped to my hand, I struggled out to Tanz Fabrik to begin the first day of the first project of this big undertaking. And what a good day it turned out to be. First of all was the minor joy of enacting a scene from my year 8 german textbook: A visit to the Apotheke.  Second of all was remembering all over again why it was I wanted to work with Wendy Houstoun. She is so full of ideas, full of conversation and is so very funny. It is such a privilege to have this time with her, and in such an open ended way. Third of all was coming home to find Toby had bought Ada the most excellent second hand wooden trike we had seen in a shop on the weekend. And finally of all was Toby getting me a scoop of rhubarb ice cream from Fraulein Frost for dessert. Rhubarb icecream!

(The wasp sting still hurts though.)

we are here

We have arrived in Berlin. In Paul and Nadia's beautiful and light filled flat, which as far as I can tell is situated on Berlin's Sesame Street. Or is every Berlin street like this? There is a playground every 30 metres and yesterday it was a rare sighting to see an adult without a child (and the child without a bandana or scarf round its neck). I'm not sure it was like this five years ago but maybe I wasn't looking. 

We had a morning straight out of a farce comedy. The hot water wasn't working and required many phone calls and languages and an electrician with a moustache and a fantastic pair of green overalls. I was excited to speak some german as this man was the first german I have met whose english is worse than my german.

After so much thinking and preparation, we are here. I can't quite believe it.

The view from our balcony at half past eight last night.