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...............................

Afternoon Soap/Hoje à Tarde

Foto de Humberto Almendra
Originally uploaded by tangaloa.

Next performances

Arena Festival. Erlangen, Germany

Experimentiertheater

8th of July at 6pm and 8 pm

9th of July at 8pm

Afternoon Soap explores in an ironic way the world of soap-operas: the daily afternoon drama.

The structure of the choreography follows free narrative sequence and inconclusive ending of each episode as in television soap-operas. The interruptions of climatic moments by commercials are always present, returning abruptly to completely new circumstances and settings.Dramas are built as if the characters live through cycles of never ending catastrophic events. It follows a familiar narrative: infidelity, secrets, pain, secrets and an excess of intrigue. The characters are one dimensional- for example, "the good wife" and "the evil seducer".This work is conceived for an actor and a dancer.

The two disciplines are interwoven, dance and theatre become unified aspects of a unique performance language. Exploring the possibilities of human expression though telling the story of daily domestic drama, it is a portrait of the romantic imagination and fantasies of men and women.

Conception and Choreography Andrea Gabilondo

Music Elena Katz-Chernin-Ray Brown-Nicola Piovani-Permendes Hernández-TNX

Performers Andrea Gabilondo andLuciano Amarelo

Video Artists Hélder Dias and Susana Jacques

Light designer Rui Damas

Stage Design and Costumes Susanne Rösler

ProductionLa Marmita

Sponsors M/C Ministério de Cultura-IA Instituto das Artes-Pé de Vento

Foto: Humberto Almendra

Pensamiento Matinal sobre Arte

La creación artística tiene la necesidad de perfeccionar los órganos de los sentidos, la curiosidad de envolverse en la complicación de las características psicológicas del ser humano y la necesidad de afirmar la imaginación en todos los niveles, desde la coordinación armónica y dinámica del movimiento hasta el desarrollo sutil del tacto y la palabra.

La mayoría de la crítica de la obra de arte, desde mi punto de vista, no ayuda a comprender su contenido expresivo, ni la actitud del artista frente a la vida.

Se tiende a encerrar la obra artística en pequeños cajones, como archivos de una oficina, con nítidas etiquetas dándole un nombre, pero en realidad, el único nombre y estilo que puede ser definido es el del propio creador. Un producto único e individual, surgido de una experiencia de vida y pasiones personales.

O así debería de ser.



Image sent by a friend- Author unknown

Clown Ingredients part 2

I was talking about timing and surprise. I think I left out a very important element: expectation.
Here is the description of the process of making caramel. This was actually a description of the real struggle of this friend of mine, written while it was actually happening. While reading it I can almost smell the kitchen. Its amazing how our minds fill the gaps.

As I will do it around what he wrote.

No I decided otherwise. It would lose its original effect. I think all of us can fill the gaps. It’s better to leave it simple. It's a whole sketch by itself.

Yes, this is the best decision.

Making Caramel

Let’s say Today at 11pm

1- Goes from blonde to BURNT very quickly!
2-And even after you take it off the heat I might add!

I love the smell of burnt sugar in the morning.


11:15pm

3rd try...
OH MY GOD HOW I HATE CARAMEL!

11:18pm

Geez my apartment really stinks now.

11:26pm

If I have to go out at this hour to get more sugar, I'll be one POd baker!

11.27pm

Geez, and the cake isn't even in the oven yet.

Sleep? I LAUGH at sleep!

11:34pm

OK, it's a little on the dark side, but I think the 3rd
time was a charm!

11:35pm

Can you buy caramel candies and melt them in a double boiler?

11:50pm

It's finally in the oven!
I have a double boiler, but recipe said dissolve 1 cup
sugar in 1/4 cup water. Cook until amber color. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream.

Let's see...it's 11:50. Cooks for 50 minutes. That'll bring me to 12:40. Then another hour to cool. Hmmm...1:40.

So the question becomes...

What time do I take an Ambien?


11:32pm

Well, at least it smells good!

12:40am

Wow! That was the first cheesecake I made that didn't crack!
Wow! I can't believe how tired I am!
Wow! I can't believe I can still type!
Ow! I cut my little finger!
How now brown cow?!

I need some sleep.

Next day at 2:42pm

Well, I know people appreciated it,
BUT...
Even though everyone said it was good, I didn't think it
was that good. I think I overcooked it. Not so creamy.

Oh well! I certainly TRIED!

3:55pm


______
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/

Enjoy!

Wow....the above looked good!

How's this:

\_/

?

Three weeks later 4:41pm

Going through the fridge at work today...there was still
a piece in there! Eeeek!

Work, Train and Flyinhorse

Flying
Originally uploaded by tangaloa.

So there I go to another small working trip.
It is an extra work I accepted with a theatre group, not as a creator or a performer, but as a stage manager and I have been travelling all over the country.
Among my responsibilities are: taking care of the set, the props, the actors and the public. I get quiet nervous with these tasks, not because they are difficult, but because I am so absent minded.
I wouldn’t do this in regular bases, but is a nice way of making that extra money I need for my own performances.
Of course as any artist I have the dream that someday someone is going to be so thrilled about my work that I would be offered a subsidy and a theatre. Why not? If I dream is better to dream big.

But anyway, I was not going to talk about the economic difficulties of free-lance artists, but about landscape.

The place I went to is called Castelo Branco (White Castle) and yes, it has a marvellous castle that glows at night on the top of a hill.
The Company offered to pay the bus ticket not the train because is cheaper.
Mhh………I don’t like buses, I feel claustrophobic and I hate when they speed, besides that I can’t read, write or dream.
So, I decided to go by train and pay the difference. Wow I am a great business woman! LOL
But the magnificence of the trip is worthwhile.

For most of the trip from Entroncamento to Castelo Branco, the train travels on a one way track that follows most of the time the Tagus river bank surrounded by proud mountains.
The landscape tastes better if you listen to some flowing music just as water itself. But I chose this ongoing music, the kind made of sounds that seem to flow into infinity, like wind, it makes me see a flying horse

So there it was this amazing white horse running along the water of the never ending river, running along the lonely train, running with me.
I could see its/his/her, it is a she, definitely!
So, I could see her legs moving faster and faster…..run…..run……run……..the wind against her mane wild with joy – zoom to the horse’s head, zoom to her eyes where you can see reflected the window of the train, which reflects the river that at the same time reflects the horse. A perfect circle of reflections- run……run……run………..a suspended breath…………………………………………………………and softly, very softly there she goes to the sky. Circling the surprised proud mountains, coming down and up in loops with a grace never seen. There she comes diving down splashing the water with one wing and spreading drops of water that become like pearls under the sun. This makes me laugh, what a wonderful performance.
Magnificent view against the landscape.

Suddenly very far away I listen. “Proxima paragem Castelo Branco”. I wake up with a jump; the image of my Flyinghorse makes me so peaceful that eventually I always fall asleep.

And now while I write this in another train coming back from my trip, I see a field full of horses, eart horses.

Wind of music still in my ears.

Clown Ingredients part 1

A friend of mine posted this wonderful recipe.

Genuine Australian Camel Stew

NOTE: Recipe requires a quite large Dutch Oven,
Recommended for entertaining VIPs in Camp.

3 Medium sized Camels
1 ton salt
500 bushels Potatoes
1 ton pepper
200 bushels carrots
3000 sprigs parsley
2 small rabbits
1000 gallons of brown gravy

Cut camels into bite sized pieces, cube vegetables.
Place meat into pan and cover with 1000 gallons of brown
gravy. Simmer slowly for 4 weeks. Garnish with Parsley,
Should serve 3800 people. If more are expected add 2
rabbits.

He told me he couldn’t take credit for it because he found it while searching the Web for camels in Australia. He was curious about something he listened in the radio. He said this to me:

“I was listening to the radio, and someone mentioned camels were introduced to Australia and the population has exploded because they thrive in the arid environment and have no natural predators...I was curious”

I am glad for his curiosity.
This takes me back to a clown workshop I took a year ago.
Before that I was completely uninterested about clowns, those red noses and slapstick scenes didn’t move my heart. It was until I lived through the experience of creating my own clown character that my respect for this profession grew.
To become a clown you have to be able to laugh at yourself and to be able to laugh at yourself needs a lot of self-confidence as we know.

There is a special technique to wear the nose. You have to give your back to the audience in the rehearsal room, just like you do with a mask, because at the end a red nose is one of the simplest but most wonderful masks.
When we give our back to the public, many times it can be translated in stage language, as “I am not here”.
Then you have to decide the timing to appear (or turn to face the public). Are you going to face the audience, slow and shy, slow and mean, fast and nervous….all this will define your character from the beginning of the improvisation. Make a bad choice and you are stuck. So you have to be absolutely playful with yourself and be very aware where you are going with your situation..

There is nothing worse than trying to make laugh and face no reaction. To be able to make laugh others, we need to be absolutely serious about our character, the circumstances and the way we will react to the situations we create. But this is just one tiny part.

Timing and the surprise element, is another important part.

This friend of mine is very funny, he has timing. Although he honestly doesn’t credit himself with the “Camel Recipe”, he has a natural gift as a clown. He makes a “divertissement” of the recipe:

1- OK, I've got the camels, but had a few problems sneaking them in past my landlady and up my stairs.
They are loud, and smelly.

2-I also have the other ingredients, and all of a sudden...a thought came to me that one could probably halve this recipe for fewer people.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have some leftovers to freeze

3-I truly entertain myself.
And the camels think I'm a riot, as well.
(yes, I understand camel-speak)

And so on.

My friend has absolute credit to another recipe “Caramel”, it is a great example of timing and surprise. But this will have to be posted later. If not this one will be too long to read.

To be continued……

I want to be a dancer

Dancers arms

When I was a little girl, my mother used to play over and over again the Violin Concerto of Beethoven, I remember that my first improvised dance steps began there. It was Oistrakh playing, if I well remember.
As every child, I dreamed to become an astronaut or a fireman/woman or a dancer. My parents found this to be very cute.

The first dream to go away was about extinguishing fires, years later I gave up on being an astronaut, but the dream of becoming a dancer stayed. Not so cute anymore for my parents though.
Their argument was logical. They were artists themselves and they wanted for their daughter a more secure career, even becoming a musician was better than a dancer.
Dancers at the end had been at the bottom of the artistic list for ages. But I continued my dream. Yes I became a dancer. And I was proud of myself to have endured, competition and diets.

Working in a theatre is like living in another planet, because it IS another planet. I was proud of having a good job. At the end I could show to my parents that I could have a secure job, if I was careful enough not to break a knee.

But to the outside world, my profession was dubious. There were the people that asked me: “which is your profession?” or “what do you do?” (Funny I always feel like answering: I breathe). Of course I would proudly say: “I am a dancer”. So people would insist: “I mean what do you do for a living? “. “I am a dancer” I would gently repeat. “No, no, which is your career?”………they couldn’t understand that dancing was my profession. As many governments can’t understand this either.

Then I met the people that thought I worked in a cabaret, with feathers and high heels, entertaining the male eye. When I would try to explain, with my rehearsed patience that I was a “professional dancer” not a stripper. They used to change conversation, as if I was lying.

Today I am still a dancer, but I principally create dance-theatre pieces.. Today some people that ask me: “which is your profession” and I say: “I am a choreographer”,. react with a tiny pause and a lack of focus in their eyes especially if they are from the tax office. I realize they don’t know what a choreographer means, so they don’t ask.
Many times I imagine it has to sound to their ears something like “Photographer” or “Cartographer”

When at last my mother accepted the choice of my profession, she was happy that I was a ballet dancer. Many years later, when I had become a “Cartographer”, she was unhappy. “Daughter”- she would say with a sight- “Do people like your crazy choreographies?” She never could understand how I could have switched from Ballet to completely avant-garde. I stopped sending her videos of my work and also I stopped making money with my art.

But this doesn’t discourage me. I still think I made the right decision. I prefer to watch the astronauts in TV and I always feel that it would be too claustrophobic the trip for me anyway. And also impossible to dance.