Running away to the circus...

As per usual, I must follow the call of the circus boys. Or, rather, boy. Or, rather, Peter. Well, technically, he didn't call me, he has no time for that, I found out he was performing in England while on a Skype call to Anandamayi in California where he has been staying...yes yes, hush. The circus calls!

You may remember Peter from my frequent FB posts about his new show in development, BOOM! (which is a collaboration with another beloved circus boy, David). Or you might remember that Peter is one third of the circus boys from my Parisienne blogging weekend in early December, while they were all studying Wutao and developing BOOM! in their off-hours. The show just closed a killer kickstarter so keep an eye out for them. It's going to be incredible, I'm sure.

Anyway, Peter is performing his internationally beloved solo show at Showzam in Blackpool, I am on a train, zipping north across the English plains, and I'll be there for the first show of his run tomorrow.

!!!

I feel strangely vindicated

I was about twenty feet from Tom Stoppard, when he was asked why, as Britains greatest living playwright, he waited nine years to write and premier his most recent play. His answer was long, smart, hilarious, and charming, and in the end he said "I didn't wait. I procrastinated." 

He was wearing burgundy and cream striped socks, he fessed up to procrastinating, and he wrote Arcadia. 

I'm done.

No, really, I'm not done. I'm on the bus now, en route to see Theatre de la Ville-Paris' touring production of Six Characters in Search of an Author. T'will be me first time seeing Pirandello staged, and a free ticket to boot. Le score.

Of course, I've only just left the Stoppard talk at the National, where I had a front-row-dead-center seat listening to Tom-motherloving-Stoppard, plus the endlessly delightful company of Alona Bach, with whom I shared a delicious post-talk Punschrulle and a pretty decent Plentille. Just sayin': the Frenchies will definitely have to pull out all the stops if they want to snag the "highlight of my evening" title. 

But, I mean, word on the street is they are badasses, so who knows.

Go Frenchies go.

Oy

Well, good thing I didn't get too carried away. FA's Othello was visually stunning, full of exciting choreographic moments, and, as soon as they started talking, it was like :-(

Boring.

Granted, I am an unabashed Shakespeare nerd, so my bar is high and all, but when  people are speaking Shakespeare's text and I find myself longing for them to stop talking and go back to dancing, there may be a problem.

Still, a really exciting night of Shakespeare-inspired dance, with the unexpectedly GLORIOUS boon of running into the lovely director M. Graham Smith. He's on a brief hiatus from teaching in Barcelona and will return home to SF in February. We had a delightful drink trading stories and then took the tube together most of the way home. Serendipity never ceases to amaze me. 

Flash forward to this morning, Niall (my flatmate) made crazy Mexican-Benedict-Burrito-Bizarre Deliciousness and ran off to the football game (the one with the round ball) and I'm off to the Clapton library to whip my research paper into shape. I'm armed with a latte and a bear hat. Necessity of Co-Bodily Presence here I come. Watch out.

Not pictured: Swedish marzipan roll.
...
It's serious homework, people. Desperate times and all that.

Differences

I'm sitting in the Lyric Hammersmith, waiting for the show to start. Frantic Assembly's adaptation of Othello. For all you San Franciscans, the Lyric is like an intimate version of ACT. Still pretty epic tho. Check it:

The word on the street is that most of the show takes place on that billiard table. No joke.

Yes yes my photos are awful. but you get what I'm driving at.

So here's the thing:

It's a sold out house, packed with HS and College kids. On Friday night. 

They are abuzz with anticipation. 

To see Othello.

Sexy Othello. But still.

I got the absolute last seat available in the orchestra and spent £30, the most I've spent yet on a ticket here, but still less than half what I would spend to see a comparable cast, with comparable production values, in a comparable venue in the Bay Area.

I think London may know a thing or two we don't.

Here we go. Let's see how they do...

Paris je flipping t'aime, quand je suis tres malade aussi.

So I managed to catch the flu, presumably just before I came to Paris, such that it hit me hard on the second afternoon of my three day stay.

No matter! The Peter and I took a picnic to the edge of the Canal and we had a breakfast of fourteen-year-old-reserve oolong (good god, when tea is good it's good), warm croissants, salami and an assortment of fruit, after which Bernbaum escorted me to Centre Pompidou (Marcel Duchamp is a badass, btw) and we had street crepes for lunch, then I changed into a dress and met Peter, Jeanine and Catherine for Blues Dancing at the L'horloge, went home with Peter where Poznanter had made THREE giant pans of quiche and was painting masks for show he and Peter are currently developing. Which turned into lounging about a watching some masterful mask improvisation. I can't wait to see their show, guys. It's going to be amazing.

Woke up today actually really sick, but couldn't bear to spend my last day in Paris in bed, so I decide to make a pilgrimage to Les Enfants Perdus. I walk through the Gare de l'est Christmas faire and the Jardin mersomething, and arrive at the restaurant for brunch, where they look baffled that I think I can get in without a reservation, but I hold up my pointer finger and with my pitiful French and best puppy eyes I say "pour une personne?". They roll their eyes and smile and tell me (in English) to come back in ten minutes. I am now writing this post from a tiny table curled next to an old timey French radiator, in a beautiful Parisienne restaurant, drinking cafe au lait and fresh orange juice, eating a tiny croissant and a fresh salmon salad. This is the only way to be sick, guys. Perhaps the most French way to suffer possible.

Things I love about the waiters here:

They are constantly cracking jokes, yelling at each other good naturedly and then taking breaks out front in the rain with a glass of red wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Their hair is either a giant tousled mess, in a tiny ponytail on the very top of their head, unless they are the maitre de, who is wearing a hat that for all the world looks like a calmed down version of Crocodile Dundee. They all wear tiny tight polo shirts or button downs that are open at least halfway down the front with a tiny vest. Oh yeah, no lady waiters here for some reason. Just smokey Paris-boys.

Okay, and now the ponytailed bartender (who looks like Miyaka Cochranes long lost brother) has sent me two shots of sipping tequila, and invited me out dancing tonight. Hilarious. If I were not deliriously flu-ridden I would so go. 

Next time, Paris. Next time.

I followed the circus boys to Paris yesterday...

And oh Lordy its already the best.

For those who don't know, three circus boys closest to my heart (David, David, and Peter) are in Paris for a month studying at Centre Wutao. They are advanced (circus boys all are, I think, at least physically)but in this case they've all been studying the discipline for some time as well, and the month long intensive course they are doing is meant to be a teacher training situation. I've been intrigued by Wutao for some time, and was crossing my fingers I could pick up a pamphlet and watch some masters. After breakfast this morning I walked Peter to class and in doing so met several resident Wutao-ers. Including the co-founder Pol Charoy who immediately, nonchalantly, benevolently (in a manner that can only be discribed as utterly French) invited me to participate for the day at no charge.

!!!

Basically it was freaking amazing. Wutao has been called many things, most of the Internet describes it as a sort of dance meditation practice. Like so many movement disciplines, trying to translate it into spoken language can be very frustrating and leave the most central and unique principles unexpressed.

Peter describing Wutao says "take Chen's Tai Chi, unfold it every direction, and add bio-energetic breath techniques" which still only really makes sense if you were there. But bottom line is it is cool stuff, that has many practical applications as a theatre performer.

I had three hours of it today (short day) and I am plotting ways to get more training in it.

To be continued...

Fire at will

You may remember me saying that I have decided to do all of the things. In the case of the past three weeks doing "all the things" has meant not writing blog posts.

Sorry about that.

So let me try, as quickly as possible, to catch you up on all the things.

For starters, of course, I have been taking many classes, from many really cool cats: Niamh Dowling (Movement, Alexander Technique), Bea Pemberton (Neutral Mask, Mime, Physical Games), Rebecca Pollack & Luis Campos (Theatrical Research & Writing), Irina Brown (Narrative Structures & Script Analysis), Gabriel Gawin (I dunno, cool ensemble theatre movement shit. Probably my fave, if I'm honest).

I spent a weekend in Bristol, with my classmate Charlotte, in order to see a Kneehigh show, and you know, be a tourist in Bristol, cause it's cool. 

I stayed with my classmate Lowenna's mum, awesome lady.
Here we have Minxy, her awesome-but-dubious-of-visitors cat.

Had dinner next to an actual Banksy. No biggie.

Hello, Bristol Cathedral...

As always, Cathedrals contain some interesting things.
May I direct your attention to the inscription here?

Okay, I'll give you a closer look:

Yeesh. I'm exhausted just reading about it.

Yeah, and this is just a hinge on the fracking DOOR. Overacheivers.

St. Nicholas Market!

Awesome Market food. Awesome owl glare included at no charge.

Successful haggling for new bear hat = Sweet!

Obligatory Bristol Parrot Pic. Hi Mom.

Cagigal, this one's for you, obvi. Out front of random candy store. WTF?

And all that was just Bristol.

I've also seen buckets of Brit theatre, including Sheridan's The Rivals at The Arcola (I was two feet from Gemma Jones. I die.), The Dog, The Night, and The Knife at the Arcola (Snoozefest. Oh well.), Kneehigh's Dead Dog in a Suitcase at the Bristol Old Vic (Post apocalyptic electric violin puppet finale! Yes!), Belvoir's touring production of Wild Duck at the Barbican (Badass. Wow.), My Beautiful Black Dog and Am I Dead Yet in Bush Theatre's RADAR Fest (Am I Dead Yet was incredible), Our Town at the Almeida (with the ever-glorious Paul Cello, who also basically coerced me into seeing the last two hours of Interstellar at Screen on the Green. So swanky. Very fun.), Hunter and Johnny at Camden People's Theatre, Class Act by Harry Giles at Ovalhouse, Are You Lonesome Tonight? at Ovalhouse, and Engineer Theatre Collective's RUN at New Diorama Theatre. 

So yeah, I've seen some shows. Many of them were really awfully good, too.

I've also attended (so far) four full-day theatre conferences.

That's James Wheale on the left, explaining a dining-meets-installation-art-meets video-game experience in which you eat rare chocolates to gain magical powers.
Yes, James, I am listening...

Swankiest conference schwag thus far. It comes with fruit!

I've also (selflessly) explored several amazing weekly London Markets, but Broadway Market is one of the best I've seen so far, food-wise. I humbly submit for your consideration:

Scotch-Egg-apalooza. Nuff said.

Toffee Apple Kouign Amann. Chocolate croissant loaves. Shut UP.

Wait, what? Duck confit burger with blue cheese, truffle honey, homemade chutney and arugula on a brioche bun? 
Holy mother of Claude.

What? I had to.

Rockin' flowers at the Columbia Road Market, but the accents rock even harder.

Yet another side benefit of doing all the things? Seeing still more great street art. 

What else has happened that you should know? Well…

After weeks of pounding the pavement and the online housing ads, I finally found a place to live in Bethnal Green that I liked. Then I lived there for a month, and discovered I liked it less than I thought, so did some more searching and just moved to Lower Clapton. So, since the last time I posted on the blog I have moved twice. Pics and info on new place will come later. But so far its a keeper :-)

A few more tidbits for ya:

Guys. GUYS. This place is DANGEROUS. Believe me.

English cold is no joke. I mostly sleep in an actual fleece onesie these days. 

Sunday Roast, y'all. That's a proper yorkshire pudding on my beef there.






I also highly approve of how seriously many London cafes take their baked goods.



That's all I've got for now. More soon though, I promise. Really.

Happy Thanksgiving!