Pictures of the Concert

All pictures by Claudia Mel.


Waiting for the public in "La Marmita Space"

Robert Glassburner playing Kagel

Aldo Salvetti playing Berio

Gergely Suto playing Reich

Música Contemporânea e Mostra de Vídeo

No espaço La Marmita

Concerto de Musica Contemporânea e Mostra de Vídeo Arte
Sábado 1 e Domingo 2 de Abril às 16.30H
Rua de França 6 – Perto do Sandemans em Vila Nova de Gaia

Atem
Coreografia de teatro-musical para um fagotista

Coreografia: Andrea Gabilondo , baseada na partitura de “Atem” de Maurício Kagel
Interpretação: Robert Glassburner

Gravação em estudo: Robert Glassburner e Tilike Coelho

Mauricio Kagel escreveu para a estreia de Atem no Curso Internacional de Nova Música em Darmstad em 26 de Agosto de 1970: “ Um dos meus vizinhos é um instrumentista de sopros aposentado. A sua actividade principal nestes dias é a de preparar palhetas para os colegas. Para verificar a qualidade das palhetas, ele sempre toca a mesma curta sequência de notas ( floreado/ rápido/ floreado/ pausa/ floreado).
O filho do velhote também mora na mesma casa, é trinta anos mais jovem e também é músico. Toca o trombone.”
A partir de aqui Kagel cria Atem, uma composição para um instrumentista de sopros a solo e gravação de efeitos de som na qual se desenvolve uma cena: um músico entra, senta-se e toca. As notas que tenta tocar, poucas vezes saem limpas provocando um monólogo interior onde o texto consiste em sons em vez de palavras. Nesta evocação da visão do teatro de Samuel Becket, o músico envelhece, e ao final incapaz de tocar sem distorção, morre...

A coreografia baseia-se nesta partitura, tomando liberdades teatrais e de movimento; todos os elementos da peça musical estão presentes mas elaborados de outra forma, sendo explorados através da linguagem de Dança-Teatro e restrito cenicamente a um mundo geométrico ao nível da luz.

Robert Glassburner

Natural dos Estados Unidos, estudou na Wichita State University com Michael Dicker e Dennis Michel, com Harold Goltzer da Filarmónica de Nova Iorque e com Arthur Weisberg na Yale School of Music.

Foi fagotista solista na Connecticut Philarmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Maracaibo, Venezuela, Ópera do Teatro de Bellas Artes-Cidade do México, no Teatro S. Carlos-Lisboa, e foi associado com a Limburgs Symphonie Orkest- Maastricht, o Ensemble Ad Libitum-Maastricht, a Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, e a Radio Filharmonisch Orkest-Hilversum. Foi artista convidado no Orlando Festival (Holanda), 1992.

Foi premiado na National Collegiate Solo Competition e no Concours International de l’UFAM ( Paris).

Desde 1995 é professor de fagote e música de câmara no Conservatório de Música do Porto e na Escola Profissional de Espinho.

Em 1993 ingressa na Orquestra Nacional do Porto onde toca actualmente como
solista A

Sequenza VII para Oboé

Música: Luciano Berio

Aldo Salvetti, Oboé

Notas do compositor:

“O teu perfil é a minha paisagem frenética, segurada à distância
É um fogo de amor falso, que é insignificante: é morto”

Sequenza VII é habitada duma espécie de conflito permanente – para mim muito expressivo e as vezes dramático – entre a velocidade extrema da articulação instrumental e a lentidão do processo musical que sustenta o percurso da obra: por exemplo ter uma certa imobilidade dos registros, uma prolongada ausência de algumas notas e a gradual invasão de certos intervalos, (como a quinta perfeita, por exemplo, que faz lembrar o famoso solo de corno inglês da ópera “Tristan e Isolde” de Wagner).
Com a Sequenza VII (como com as Sequenzas para flauta, tromba, clarinete, trombone e fagote) prossegue-se a minha pesquisa duma polifonia virtual. Nesta Sequenza, a parte solista é colocado em perspectiva, se fosse analisado pela presencia constante de uma “tónica”, um Si natural, que podia ser tocado em pianíssimo por qualquer instrumento fora do palco.
Sequenza VII foi escrito em 1969 para o oboista Heinz Holliger.


Aldo Salvetti

Nasceu em Veneza, onde aos 20 anos començou o estudo do oboé con Giorgio Trentin.
Em 1987 diplomou-se no Conservatório de Música "Giuseppe Verdi" de Milão, na classe de Giacomo Calderoni.
Concluiu o Curso de Licenciatura em Basileia e em Zurique, com Emanuel Abbhül e Thomas Indermühle.
Integrou a Orquestra Nacional da Academia de Santa Cecilia em Roma, e colaborou regularmente com a Symphonisches Orchester Zürich e a Basel Sinfonietta.
Foi Primeiro Oboé da Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana e Chefe de Naipe dos Oboés da Vogtland Philharmonie Greiz-Reichenbach.
Desde 1996 reside em Portugal, onde foi Primeiro Oboé da Orquestra Clássica do Porto e, actualmente, è Chefe de Naipe da Orquestra Nacional do Porto.
Colabora regularmente, desde a sua criação em 2001, com a OrchestrUtópica.
Desde 1997 è professor de Oboé e Música de Conjunto na Escola Profissional de Música de Espinho.
È docente da Licenciatura em Música da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, no Porto, e do Istituto Piaget, Campus Universitário de Almada.

New York Counterpoint
Concerto para clarinete de música minimalista

Música: Steve Reich

Gergely Süto, clarinete solo e clarinetes pré-gravados

Notas do compositor:

“New York Counterpoint” foi escrito em 1985, como encomenda da Fundação Fromm para o clarinetista Richard Stoltzman.
A obra segue uma ideia já utilizada em Vermont Counterpoint (1982) onde um solista interage com uma gravação previamente feita pelo mesmo intérprete. No caso de New York Counterpoint, a gravação consiste de dez vozes de clarinete e clarinete baixo com a décima primeira voz tocada ao vivo em cima da gravação.
A peça tem três andamentos: rápido, lento, rápido, que se tocam seguidamente e sem pausa. O compasso da peça é 3/2 = 6/4 (=12/8), com as mudanças de tempo em relações proporcionais simples. Especialmente no terceiro andamento Reich aproveita as ambiguidades rítmicas desta batuta, juntando três grupos de quatro ou quatro grupos de três notas, marcando a diferença só pela mudança da
acentuação.

Gergely Süto

Gergely Süto nasceu em Budapeste, Hungria, em 1972. Começou a estudar clarinete aos dez anos de idade. Em 1992, obteve o diploma de solista na classe de Robert Kemblinsky, no Conservatoire de Lausanne, Suiça. Posteriormente, especializou-se em clarinete baixo com Jean-Marc Volta, em Paris. Recebeu vários prémios em concursos nacionais suíços e em 1992 ganhou o 2° prémio no Concours International de Sonates de Vierzon (França), com o pianista Cédric Pescia. A partir de 1993, foi instrumentista convidado da Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne e durante a temporada 1995-96, foi convidado para o lugar de 1° clarinete na Orchestre Symphonique de Bienne, Suiça. Em 1997, numa primeira incursão em Portugal, colaborou como segundo clarinete na Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lisboa. Entre 1998 e 2000, actuou com a Filarmonia Nacional da Hungria. Desde 2000, é músico da Orquestra Nacional do Porto. Para além da carreira de música clássica, Gergely Süto tem desenvolvido actividades musicais paralelas no âmbito da composição, improvisação e música electrónica.

Vídeo

Noelle Greorg, Carlos Carrilho e Antje Feger/Benjamin Florian Stumpf

Organização: Claudia Mel

"Em quantas coisas que me emprestaram eu sigo no mundo. Quantas coisas que me emprestaram guio como minhas!" Álvaro de Campos

Ocupar um espaço, na cidade, na cultura.
Encontrar um lugar e fazê-lo próprio, pátilhar-lo com os outros... produzir, criar. Os recursos estão à volta. Deixar marcas.


Noelle Greorg
La rue est a nous

A rua e nossa e um film sobre a occupacao do espaco publico. E o latin squat
mini dv, cores, som 2min46, 2005

Carlos Carrilho
I Belong

video, p/b, som, 07'50", 2005

Esperrei tanto tempo. Foi isto que vim, de tao longe, procurar? Sinto que algo me observa, aguardando por mim. Mas não fugirei. Que engraçado! Tudo isto é tão feio e no entanto tão confortavel! Nunca, nunca mais quero sair de aqui.


Antje Feger/Benjamin Florian Stumpf

Video, cor, 04'59'', 2005

trafic-time-space/us in between/non stop-stop

Este evento está inserido dentro da programação, "Gaia ConVida", uma iniciativa da Câmara Municipal de Gaia.

Apoios:

Câmara Municipal de Gaia
Dois Pontos- Associação Cultural
Pé de Vento
Teatro Helena Sá e Costa

Produção: La Marmita

Heaven- Rehearsals 2

Rich in imagery and symbolism, the characters of the dance-theatre piece Heaven, are caught in a timeless, absurd and ecstatic world.

The characters are unaware who invited them to this elegant dinner and for what motive. We see at first confident business men preparing for an important meeting that will slowly transform itself into the site of existential enquiry as they drop their self-assured masks.

There is an overall extreme austerity that envelops the choreography broken by moments of colourful irony.
Video projections, mostly in black and white, using the techniques of close-up and fragmentation of the performer’s image on stage, give the chilling effect of an uninvited ghost.

The choreography makes use of elements of the Expressionist Theatre, blending sharp contrasting movements with motionless continence.
The voice is used sparingly, often as a dehumanized sound, as a portrayal of the mood and mental state of the characters, providing scenes of grotesque beauty.

Heaven is an ironic meditation on death and about our absurd conventions that hold us as slaves to our inner selves.

Heaven-Rehearsals

Photo by Claudia Mel
Originally uploaded by tangaloa.

Our first period of rehearsals is over. In two weeks it was possible to create the whole frame of a one hour piece, the kind of work I call "choreographic theatre".

The team is fantastic on stage and out of stage, it is a big luxury to be surrounded by wonderful human beings, to all of you, thank you so much!

The Team

Performers:

Elsa Pierry-Grammare, Freddy Trinidad, Martin Muhlenweg, Nardo Vogt and Viriato Morais

Behind the stage:

Video Artist: Luis Miguel Pereira- Light Designer: Rui Damas- Costumes and Propos: Susanne Rosler- Producers: Claudia Wolf and Christina Zimermann- Photograher: Claudia Mel-

The Creator and writer of this blog: Andrea Gabilondo

This is a co-production between Arena and La Marmita

La Marmita no Contagiarte

LA MARMITA no CONTAGIARTE 16 e 17 de Fevereiro ás 23.30
Rua Alvarez Cabral 372- Porto

Atem
Coreografia de teatro-musical para um fagotista

Coreografia: Andrea Gabilondo , baseada na partitura de “Atem” de Maurício Kagel

Interpretação: Robert Glassburner

Gravação em estudo: Robert Glassburner e Tilike Coelho

Mauricio Kagel escreveu para a estreia de Atem no Curso Internacional de Nova Música em Darmstad em 26 de Agosto de 1970: “ Um dos meus vizinhos é um instrumentista de sopros aposentado. A sua actividade principal nestes dias é a de preparar palhetas para os colegas. Para verificar a qualidade das palhetas, ele sempre toca a mesma curta sequência de notas ( floreado/ rápido/ floreado/ pausa/ floreado).
O filho do velhote também mora na mesma casa, é trinta anos mais jovem e também é músico. Toca o trombone.”
A partir de aqui Kagel cria Atem, uma composição para um instrumentista de sopros a solo e gravação de efeitos de som na qual se desenvolve uma cena: um músico entra, senta-se e toca. As notas que tenta tocar, poucas vezes saem limpas provocando um monólogo interior onde o texto consiste em sons em vez de palavras. Nesta evocação da visão do teatro de Samuel Becket, o músico envelhece, e ao final incapaz de tocar sem distorção, morre...

A coreografia baseia-se nesta partitura, tomando liberdades teatrais e de movimento; todos os elementos da peça musical estão presentes mas elaborados de outra forma, sendo explorados através da linguagem de Dança-Teatro e restrito cenicamente a um mundo geométrico ao nível da luz.

New York Counterpoint
Concerto para clarinete de música minimalista

Música: Steve Reich

Gergely Süto, clarinete solo e clarinetes pré-gravados

Notas do compositor:

“New York Counterpoint” foi escrito em 1985, como encomenda da Fundação Fromm para o clarinetista Richard Stoltzman.
A obra segue uma ideia já utilizada em Vermont Counterpoint (1982) onde um solista interage com uma gravação previamente feita pelo mesmo intérprete. No caso de New York Counterpoint, a gravação consiste de dez vozes de clarinete e clarinete baixo com a décima primeira voz tocada ao vivo em cima da gravação.
A peça tem três andamentos: rápido, lento, rápido, que se tocam seguidamente e sem pausa. O compasso da peça é 3/2 = 6/4 (=12/8), com as mudanças de tempo em relações proporcionais simples. Especialmente no terceiro andamento Reich aproveita as ambiguidades rítmicas desta batuta, juntando três grupos de quatro ou quatro grupos de três notas, marcando a diferença só pela mudança da
acentuação.

Night and Day

Siegfried Kracauer is the sort of man who can’t say “It’s a lovely day” without first establishing that it is a day, that the term “day” is meaningless without the dialectical concept of “night”, that both these terms have no meaning unless there is a world in which day and night alternate, and so forth. By the time he has established an epistemological system to support his right to observe that it’s a lovely day, our day has been spoiled

(Kael 1965:269)

Thanks KB

She reminded me I haven’t posted here for a long time!

I got distracted.

Distracted writing an essay about Semiology and Phenomenology
Distracted creating nine choreographies
Distracted looking for a performance and rehearsal space
Distracted procrastinating when I felt it was just too much work, what I call “Frozen on Time” or “If you Panic Just Stare at the Wall”

The Sneezing Stage, the name of a Duo to be performed in Holland, part of my Masters assignments. Funny I choreograph all the time, but because I know this Duo will be graded, I am again watching at the wall, looking more at my sneezing toe.

I should make a special Blog for my space to announce the activities….I know, one more thing to do in case I don’t have enough.

Hi all!! And thanks KB

Verbal Abstraction

1- The cow known to science ultimately consists of atoms, electrons etc.. according to present-day scientific inference…….

2- The cow we perceive is not the word but the object of experience, that which our nervous system abstracts (selects)……

3- The word “Bessie” (cow) is the name we give to the object of perception of level 2. The name is not the object; it merely stands for the object and omits reference to many characteristics of the object.

4- The word “cow” stands for the characteristics we have abstracted as common to cow, cow, cow. Characteristics peculiar to particular cows are left out.

5- When Bessie is referred to as “livestock” only those characteristics she has in common with pigs, chickens, goats, etc. are referred to.

6- When Bessie is included among “farm assets” reference is made only to what she has in common with all other saleable items in the farm.

7- When Bessie is referred to as an “asset” still more of her characteristics are left out.

8- The word “wealth” is an extremely high level of abstraction, omitting almost all reference to the characteristics of Bessie.

(McKim 1972, 128)

p.s. Poor Bessie :-(

Therefore I don’t eat meat.

So much for becoming an academic LOL

Aesthetic Experience

Photo by Tiburcio Gabilondo



The face of the water, in time,became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to theuneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve,delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it utteredthem with a voice………In truth, the passengerwho could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of prettypictures in it painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds,whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all,but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter.
Now when I had mastered the language of this water….I had made a valuable acquisition.But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could neverbe restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetryhad gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certainwonderful sunset which I witnessed when steam boating was new to me.A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distancethe red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling uponthe water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings,that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest,was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines,ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded,and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one placeby a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forestwall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowedlike a flame in the unobstructed splendour that was flowing from the sun.There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances;and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights driftedsteadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of colouring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture.The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the gloriesand the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought uponthe river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them.Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked uponit without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, afterthis fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow;that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it;that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is goingto kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretchingout like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changingchannel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonderare a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously;that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag,and he has located himself in the very best place he could have foundto fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch,is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get throughthis blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.

From Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain (1883)

A Cloud of Milk in a Cup of Tea

Photo of a Nebula probably by Hubbel


Just as in music or in painting there is no such thing as an "ugly" sound or outward "dissonance", so too in dance the inner value of every movement will soon be felt and the inner beauty will replace outward beauty.
From unbeautiful movements issues and unrecognized force and living power. From this moment on, the dance of the furture begins.

Hugo Ball 1917

No Conclusions

Picture by Tiburcio Gabilondo

In the theatre the small experiment and the big show both can have quality and meaning. All that matters is that they should aim at capturing truth in life. Captivity kills fast. For this reason there are no conclusions. The method must always change.

Peter Brook

Theatre and Tall Men

Picture by Armastaja

In the theatre, tall people should be forbidden to sit in front of shorter humans, especially if they have a fluffy, extended hairdo.
Or perhaps the theatre management could graciously offer cushions for the individuals whose height doesn’t reach more than 1.61 meters, as a preventive measure.

Anyone would think I am crazy. Here I am at a jazz concert and although I could just close my eyes and hear the music, I would also like to see what is going on stage, at the end I also paid a ticket.

Great! The guy in front of me just moved to his left and I can glimpse for a short time to a collection of marvellous Brazilian percussions.
It seems that the musicians are entering on stage; I know it because people applaud.
I don’t applaud, I can just assume that the applause is for the musicians, although it could be for anything that is going on stage. So I don’t know if they are already there, although the music I begin to hear I doubt is just playback.
…………………………………………
New music now.
My spine is hurting; I have been bending to the right and to the left, with no success. So I continue writing on the dark. People at my side stare at me with offensive looks. Well, I ask myself, isn’t this a free theatre? I can write while I listen to the music, don’t I?

I am tired of staring at this man’s hairdo. Actually, I am beginning to hate him. The music seems just too loud and by the way, the synthesiser sound has a too high pitch, why he just plays does uncomfortable high notes? I want to scream.

The volume seems louder now.
I want to go home!! But I am stuck in the middle of this crowded row.
I want to go home and listen to the ocean.

………………………………..

Hey, the star of the show moved from centre stage to his right, I can see him!! He looks like Santa Claus!!!. It is Christmas yet?
He has long white beard, long white hair and a hat. ………….Hermeto!!!!!
Well yes, I forgot that it was his concert that I came to “watch” and hear. My memory got lost between the fluffy expanded grey hair of this tall man sited in front of me.

Circus- A Dada Poem

If you scroll down, there is a post where there are instructions on how to write a dada poem. I was curious and did it. This is the result.
The compilation of random words was taken from an interview with Salman Rushdie about his latest book. But because I cut the article, the name of his new book and the person that wrote the article were lost into the dissection.

Circus

Last clown remains
Last sigh beneath her feet
Falling Indian born beauties
When peace share a common language

Myth blending with grace,
into magic realism

Piles of junk for the grace of a lost God
Rusting worn metals,
preaching resistance to time

Veil
Harbouring

Grinding paradise fallen in love with a supermodel
Preposterous kind in a modern world
Poorly plotted, splitting wood and sound

Tightrope walker,
cooking while trying to return full of phoney outrage

Wanting to be Interested

"Soap Opera" by Andrea Gabilondo. Photo , Teresa Couto

An audience may sit waiting for a performance to begin, wanting to be interested, persuading itself that it ought to be interested. It will only be irresistibly interested if the very first words, sounds or action of performance release deep within each spectator a first murmur related to hidden themes that gradually appear.

Peter Brook

Arts

Picture by Armastaja

All arts are siblings
kindling one another,
jointly giving everlasting glow

Voltaire

Watching at a Tree

Picture by Armastaja

When I look at a tree

It gives me feelings of belonging
Being part of the vast Universe
Majesty, admiration, ancient security

Grandiose beauty
Its leaves already changing
Eternal maturity, cycle of life

I get closer
The perspective of its branches
Envelope me with a fatherly embrace
Far away, I can see the sky

Green multiple fingers moving with the wind
Designing shadows on the grass

Rough skin, hard and wrinkled
Like an elephant
Like a God of wisdom

Myth and life
Represented into a single tree

If I could stay under its shadow
If I could climb and sleep between its arms
If I could become a tree
And stay like that

Forever….

Image for a Choreography

Collage by Andrea for her next dance-theatre piece "Heaven"

Give me an image!!

We need an image!!!

Ok. I said

But…- I thought- it is still a couple of months before I begin to rehearse……so I can’t take pictures. Mhhhhhh…………………..I am not a visual artist………now what????

Ok. Gabi, I told myself, you will have to become an instant visual artist, let your intuition guide you....don't worry, make a collage, so this was the result for my next piece.

Mhhh...................I still can later take those pictures :-)

Flashes of the Moon

Picture by Armastaja

Flashes of the Moon

Take the body of my lover,
No, the cheeks of my nights awake.
And spin a broad, rough
Roof against the sky

In the high tone, Your tingling arms
In the process of transformation,
Trail in the Shadow

Take flashes of the moon
And through all, your arm
To avoid every ireful will.
You throw of speech.
And swelling now
In concentration

Some dance to be understood.
Some dance the moment.

Not you, yet still to move
The unborn thought.
To make us understand.
Avoid the obvious.

Peel the gold of your reflection.
No. its careful constructed box.
And the taut fleshy
Bellies of an asset.

Untoss the pillows of your dream.
And step through the veil of beyond.

Sondra Fraleigh

Moment of Rasa

Where the hand goes
the eye goes:

Where the eye goes
the mind goes:

Where the mind goes
aesthetic pleasure is created.

Parul Shah, Baroda, India, 1997

Somewhere I read that truly creative minds such as Grotowsky, Brecht or Brook, acknowledge their debt to the past. Such men build on what they find. We cannot escape our debt to the past even when it is necessary to break from it.

A sense of history creates a sense of humour and a sense of humility

To Make a Dadaist Poem

If the members of the Zurich Dada group aimed at negation/destruction in the social and cultural sphere, they gave it symbolic form in their graphic and literary work through techniques of structural and semantic breakdown. One of their main techniques was systematically to exploit random pictorial and literary effects. Its most usual form was a collage-based arrangement of materials, material that were often taken from sources not conventionally associated with the fine arts.

In Tzara’s “To make a Dadaist Poem”, he offered the following instruction:

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from the paper an article of the length you want to make a poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you

(Tzara, Seven Manifestos and Lampisteries, p. 39)

I will definitely give it a try

Elephants

In the beginning of time, the skies were filled with flying elephants. Too heavy for their wings, they sometimes crashed through the trees and frightened other animals.

All the flying grey elephants migrated to the source of the Ganges. They agreed to renounce their wings and settle on the earth. When they moulted millions of wings fell to the earth, the snow covered them, and the Himalayas were born.

The blue elephants landed in the sea and their wings became fins. They are whales, the trunkless elephants of the oceans. Their cousins are the manatees, the trunkless elephants of the rivers.

The chameleon elephants kept their wings but agreed never again to land on the earth. When they go to sleep, the elephant always lie down in the same place in the sky and dream with one eye open. The stars you see at night are the unblinking eyes of sleeping elephants, who sleep with one eye open to best keep watch over us.


From the book “Ashes and Snow” nº 3 from Gregory Colbert

GREAT photographs, full of imagination and poetry!!!

http://www.ashesandsnow.com/

Mind your Step

Seis Caras, drawing by Yvette Boulet

Mi, Mi, Do……….pause
Mi, Mi, Do……….pause

The two notes began slowly to enter into my brain….until I had to stop……..Mi, Mi, Do…………..and ask……………Mi, Mi, Do……………”What is that sound?” and someone replied: “It is a voice, it says: Mind your Step”. Oh…I get it now, it is not Mi, Mi, Do, but Mind your Step, a warning to the absent minded travellers in Schiphol Airport, a warning at the end of the rolling floor that connects the different wings of the building and again and again: “mind your step”.
An hypnotic sound that seemed to do nothing to avoid tripping and falling.

Mind your step…….pause
Mind your step……CLASH
Mind your step……BOOM

A cartoon sketch.

Then another voice soft and polite came from the loudspeaker “Mr X please proceed to gate 26”

A couple of minutes later: “Mr. X you are delaying the plane proceed to gate 26”

Pause

Suddenly a less than polite voice says: “Mr X you are delaying the plane your luggage will be off loaded”

Where was Mr. X? I thought there were many possibilities:

1- He is a terrorist
2- He fell asleep on a chair due to the hours difference
3- He got lost ion the Airport
4- He is sick and can’t leave the bathroom
5- He fell in love instantly and can’t strop kissing the girl

Funny for me, but I am sure not funny at all for Mr. X that for sure will miss his plane.

Then I wandered thinking about the choreographic possibilities of “mind your step”

I was interrupted by a voice:

“Ms. Gabilondo please proceed to gate 26”...............the voice was soft and polite.

Eclipse- Author unknown

I leave tomorrow.
I go on vacation yes and no
Part work, part family and part vacations

Important list:

1- Notebook on ideas
2- Book for the airplane
3- Digital camera
4- Tootbrush
5- Pen
6- Toothbrush 2 in case a lose toothbrush 1

And don't forget the suitcase!!

Synthesis

"Bramacharya" painted by M.Coffey


Once, Peter Brook was criticized of not being “original”. He was criticized of making synthesis of Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotovski and Oriental Theatre.

Aren’t we all a result of synthesis in our own art work???

Bach compositions were a synthesis of Italian, French and German music. He “copied” Vivaldi in a way of learning. (As I do when I write poetry LOL)

Telemann is another good example or Mozart who was a product of a masterful synthesis of all styles.

So well yes, my work is no different I have been influenced by Peter Brook, Reinhild Hoffmannn, Butoh and the many books I read.

We influence each other.

There are no original ideas. They can come out as something new, but at the end they are a synthesis of knowledge and experience.

The difference is the language we use to give them a voice of its own

Involuntary Thoughts

Thoughts

Time of involuntary thoughts
Building slowly from the cellar of a tired feminine breath
Humid, prolonged, heavy, vibrating….the source of a feeling
Ghostly shadows of the feminine mind
Invented geometry of emotions
Concave and convex reactions touched by the lethal venom of passion
Mysteries of a soul
Conflicts of gestures
Magic trance of involuntary thoughts

History of the Night by Borges

"Mujer" de Maria A. Sanchez

Her website: http://www.sandiafria.com/

History of the Night

Throughout the course of th generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
thev sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhuastible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.

And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.

Jorge Luis Borges

Your Breathing Bothers Me

Os Convidados


I have always seen a performance as team work.
No one is a star without the other, everybody is important in their own specific function.
Individualism is blended into the objective of the people involved, to give life to an idea.
What interests me more, is the creation of what has been inside my mind. It takes me months to give it a shape and to decide the expressive language it needs. I tend to do it with care and love.
Once in a rehearsal room, I am open to the comments and ideas of others, this idea that has been worked and reworked to create the heart of the piece, is not just something for what I should, alone, as the creator, get benefit. Around me, there is the team, with their suggestions and critics, a team that works together not just through the process, but through the different performances in different venues.

The team is made of people as involved as the creator- or so it should be- not because of ego or stardom but because they want to be as professional as possible.

We just need one person, to disrupt what should be the absolute pleasure of performing and setting the piece.
We just need someone disrupting the spirituality of people around, with personal and egotistical manifestations to make an event that should be happy…….sad.

For some people, they are the only ones existing in this universe, any little thing that is not adapted to them, becomes a problem.

If someone tells you: “Your breathing bothers me”, as the conclusion of successful performances, is like crossing the personal space of another, to whom just individuality is important and nothing else.

Arena Festival

Erlangen


Wonderful experience in the Arena Festival.
We met wonderful people, we saw good performances and I got invited to make a co-production for next year with the Festival.
So many creative projects for the future!
It is exciting.

So many possible themes inside my head

Creative process at work.

Algunos Pensamientos de Artaud

Light and Shadows

El diálogo- cosa escrita y hablada- no pertenece específicamente a la escena, sino al libro, como puede verse en todos los manuales de historia literaria, donde el teatro es una rama subordinada de la historia del lenguaje hablado.
Afirmo que la escena es un lugar físico que exige ser ocupado, y que se le permita hablar su propio lenguaje concreto.
Afirmo que ese lenguaje concreto destinado a los sentidos, independiente de la palabra, debe satisfacer todos los sentidos como hay una poesía del lenguaje, y que ese lenguaje físico y concreto no es verdaderamente teatral sino en cuanto expresa pensamientos que escapan al dominio del lenguaje hablado.

Mientras más sobria y restringida es la expresión más honda y pesada es la respiración, más sustancial y plena de resonancias.
Y a una expresión arrebatada, amplia y exterior, corresponde una respiración en ondas breves y bajas.
Es indiscutible que todo sentimiento, todo movimiento del espíritu, todo salto de la emoción humana tienen su respiración propia

Antonin Artaud

Reflection 

Aphorism

Painting by Armastaja


Poetry is like wine, a habit that develops with time, like most habits, like most art forms.
The more we read poetry, the more we appreciate it, just like jazz.
Until it becomes an addiction.

But now that I write this on my agenda full of scrabbles, during a short break before a performance, I take notice of the shadows.
The sun is low; swallows are brushing the sky with a breathtaking speed.
The sun is melting into the tree.

Is then that my mind changed to painting, then dance, then again poetry.

All is one

A painting that moves our spirit is a poetry made by light and shadows, like the landscape I am drinking with my eyes. At the same time it is dance it moves on space through perspective, just like poetry moves through images and rhythm.

Musicality of words…………….. The staccato or legato of colours……………….. The energy or suspension of a movement……………expression, feeling……..life.

The swallows are still flying, the sun still melting.

The wind on my face...............................