rehearsals...so much fun

 

 

a bowl of coffee in rehearsal

I am in rehearsal, cooking.
cooking in the kitchen
what recipes do i follow
do i model finding the recipes and then creative changes?
i can fit 14 people in my kitchen
we will cook together as we tell stories.
how will this work?

a record of our conversations saturday, at eumundi

...and I talk to my colleagues, Nikki and Brian, and our facilitator Dan. We are in Eumundi for the  weekend, having an experience to challenge our way of thinking...as well we  talk about how we work.

Brian: i will watch people, i will shuffle my ipod, i will listen to music. i will stare out the windown. i will let my mind go travelling. i will walk around in circles. i will allow myself to imagine, reflect, travel rather than reflect on my body movement. i make work as a way of understanding the world, and me as well. i am morally obliged to attempt to understand why i perform.  everytime you start you start with nothing.  there are no answers just the questions for them.  as soon as you don't have to do it, it starts to happen.

Nikki: i will listen to music. i will be alone. i will free my imagination..Music becomes like wallpaper. i like the space to attend to it...different every time. maybe on the studio floor or then follow something, like a scent.  i will lie for half an hour. i will walk for half an hour. i will read for half an hour. i will write for half an hour. i  make sense of work. if i really understood what i was doing...i know what i have, now. intention is movement.

Dan: i am in trance from the music
i need someone to listen
i articulate waht i am imagining.
my draft 1 is draft 8. its already been edited.

Margi: i need people to work. sand inbetween people can be a light.  we need to get out of our own way so that we can work

we then talk about improvisation, and one suggestion is:
Improvisation: can you remember the first meal you ever cooked? what was it? who was it for?
i cooked for my family. patty cakes. butter and sugar, flour, milk, patty cake tins...
Brian remembers anzac biscuits. Metal tray, quite heavy, rectangular tray squishing dough on the fork. whne hot and soft scoop them off...tea towel to let them cool.  the smell of anzac biscuits.
Nikki remembers sausage rolls and puff pastry.
Dan remembers chocolate dipped strawberries.

I wonder if our first cooking experience influences where we end up in relation to food?

We then go to dinner in Eumundi at the Fig Tree. we have tapas. very nice.
the things that emerged from this weekend include
1. preparation and prepping
2. hosting: quote from the cards:

At C and A. morning tea is at our big red table everyday at 11. Anyone who is around, customers included, join us. The conversation centres on the cake and biscuit plate (often made by one of us), what's for dinner, and the lateset taste sensation.  food is always an important topic although of course we also rise to loftier topics  (Amanda Blair)

And i am reminded of pumpkin scones, something that i may cook in the show:

250 gms of Queensland Blue
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
75gms pure icing sugar sifted
40 gms butter
1 egg yolk
milk for brushing.

steam pumpkin.
15 minutes
bake 10 minutes
sieve when cool. and now this is different to regular scone recipes.

Flo Bjelke-Peterson says cook the pumpkin the night before and chill it in the fridge. Ring Kingaroy 0741627046 for more information

beat the icing sugar and the butter and then add the eggs. stir in the pumpkin. and flour or half of the flour. use rest of the flour on the board. 2cms thick. don't twist!

did you know that the scone originates from Scotland? the earliest reference to the bread was in a scottish poem called Aeneid, in 1513.

cooking...cooking a world...cooking the word...here we are...cooking the world.

I reach for the New Yorker, its in this little B and B in Eumundi. and i read about Marina Abramovic's Performance Art:

the body is her subject, time is her medium, and birthdays mark the moment that the performance of living officially begins

 this broke my heart:

on March 30, 1988, they embarked on their last performance. she started walking the Great Wall of China from the east, where it rises in the mountains, and Ulay set off from the West, where it ends in the desert. After three months, and thousands of miles, they met in the middle, and said goodby (pg 25-26 of The New Yorker. Mar 8 2010)

 She did an exhibition called "The Artist is Present"...

The sense of purpose I feel to do something heroic, legendary and transformative; to elevate viewer's spirits and give them courage. if i can go through the door of pain to embrace life or the other side, they can to (p 24 in The New Yorker)

Rituals of Practice:
how do i protect myself
what are my performative rituals
very private thing.
between me and myself
private rituals nurture
we cannot stop the cycle
all we can do is disrupt it.
transitions...no endings
meetings and transition points.....

and we host.
we have 14 ingredients (the 14 chairs representing the body of Osiris)
we give them something that they can take away.
the ritual of food

brian was saying that this weekend was a reflection of the last one we experienced together: the landscape of families sitting around  picnicing...we walked around the lake.
and this week, there was a lake and the whole of the restaurant situated itself around the lake.

i will finish on a haiku
the theatre of home, bright colours
sunshine green bamboo shoots

well not quite
relating and growing
moving from bounded to relational
reaching for pork ribs and coriander.

if we were to perform at pullenvale
we enter the Egyptian room (lounge room)
then into kitchen
then into bedroom
then into garden

excitement in the kitchen

Two days ago, i decided it was time to step up to the plate so to speak. having spent the previous weekend at The Spirit House as part of this Process Project, I think two days ago: well if Mohammad wont come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammad!
And I add another Self to my relational being: i am now a gourmet cook. No longer do i go by the label of 'comfort food' cook, or basic cook. i have stepped into the world of the gourmet. This world is full of people, of that i am very much aware...and every time you turn on a commercial channel there is another cookery competition. that does not phase me, no, not in the least. Always i could not be bothered with recipes. i would just create whatever. i may look at the recipe but that was all...the last two days has seen my table strewn with recipe books. i have purchased a beautiful Maggie Beer book with embroidery on the cover. it is a work of art, and the recipes are easy and delicious. a recipe such as fig and rocket salad (wash your greens (rocket, spinach and kale); cut your figs (ripe and beautiful...this is the autumn or winter fruit) loads of them; grate a fabulous cheese (like parmesan but nicer); mix balsamic vinegar and oil; and top it with Prosciutto...and it is a salad to die for. Tomato soup? onions galore, garlic, white wine, red tomatoes, pinch of sugar (to bring out the flavour of the tomatoes), salt, pepper, stock, and i added some balsamic vinegar, topped with grated parmesan. squeeze of lemon...herbs parsley, thyme, mint, basil...i added a couple more. love a lot of herbs...and zucchini fritters...grated zucchini, onions, cheese (I used goat fetta because of Bill's dairy allergy), gluten free flour, garlic...fabulous. And today i tried, for the first time Mushroom Risotto.  Never have i cooked risotto but i did, and it was delicious: rice, stock, white wine, mushrooms, onions, grated cheese (Romano? like a parmesan)...topped with hard Italian cheese and a squeeze of lemon. Delicious.  As i cook i am thinking which dishes can i cook in my show. so far i think the tomato soup is good...will try a few recipes, and also the risotto is good...it is easy (i was so surprised) just labour intensive, and that is probably good for theatre.  so i may make my guests, my audience of 14 a tomato soup and risotto...and so now i have to practice making bread, scones, anzac biscuits, and apple/berry pie?  mmmm i am in training  and instead of hitting the road, i am hitting the mixing bowl. thank goodness my stove is fixed!!!! wish the dishwasher worked!

and what else am I to glean?

We are working with very different people over these three experiential weekends. The first being the landscape architect, the second being a manager of The Spirit House, a place where food and atmosphere are the selling points. 

The fact that The Spirit House has adjusted the way they serve food to increase revenue and to increase the punter's experience is innovative, and i think worth stealing...how do we create a show that brings in revenue so the artists can get paid, and at the same time create an experience that is optimal experience for our audience?

and i am thinking of Home, the project i am working on presently (that could very well be my last, because I have decided it has a five year time line)...how do i glean from the Spirit House, creating an experience for my audience that is unforgettable and still viable as an economic commodity? That is a big question, and one i am not sure how to answer.

I think there is a change in our community, and it is a good one. I think younger artists have to be producers at the same time as artists, something that we were never expected to be. As a consequence the younger artists seem very aware of their material, what they can and can't do...i so admire this.

I shall continue thinking, and when Nikki and Brian enter the conversation we can build some more. Over and out.

Images of our experimental day at Spirit House

Daniel loyally journeys with us, drinking a thimble full of Reisling to complement the food

the lake is beautiful, all of the tables are situated around the lake with a little water feature...

another image of an eating pavilion and the lake

Images of the weekend

largest stock pot i have ever seen. this has in it a stock that has been going for many years...

these prawns were astonishing...flavours going everywhere

another wondrous experience, and how beautifully presented

A huge verandah in our Eumundi B and B

Dan, our administrator, and Eklen, the manager/owner of spirit house, and Brian contemplating the lake

Beautiful statues guide us as we journey on the path to the restaurant

some dreamings from eumundi, spirit house and pj party, first weekend of April, 2011

i still pinch myself that i have this amazing opportunity to do ordinary things with two of Australia's finest artists, and i wonder how that happened, and what it is that i am to glean from this unique and exquisite experience. Is it just to absorb their process? Or is there a deeper reason that I am yet to unfold? We talked about how we work, and Brian and Nikki have unique ways of being in the studio. What I remember are things like the following (passed through my own imagination):

I can stay for hours in a studio, lying on the floor; walking around and around; going out for  coffee and returning; reading articles and then lying on the floor; walking around and around; finally around 3pm i may be ready to move something on the floor...but it is a culmination of the day. i have built up to this...reading, resting, thinking, moving, thinking, reading, resting...

It is cyclical, and so i dream this on more:

the creative cycle after talking with Brian and Nikki when working solo, and dreaming it on:

•Checking in: where am I on a scale of 1-10? 10 being “My Perfect Rehearsal”…Lying on the floor absorbing the space saying hello to the world of the studio; walking around and around in the studio allowing the body to find answers to questions that I don't even know I am asking

 

•Reading a relevant article or book, or looking at images, or doing a collage, or making an artists book, or…some physical activity that awakens the artist: multimodal depiction

 

•Coffee break and absorbing the environment and finding links between the world outside and the world within

 

•Selecting music that motivates, stimulates and moves me forward.  Gently physical warming into the kinesthetic channel…ImpulseTraining. Every cell is alive. Moving for ½ hour before moving onto the material that has been brewing…

 

•Integrating reading, art making, moving, sensing, intuiting, by presenting idea on the floor to self and other

 

•Check out, time to re enter the world

Our Weekend in Eumundi

Overnight pajama parties are a source of deep exchange of ideas, a hoot, and the dreaming keeps evolving...
We worked Saturday at The Spirit House, a place of meditation, connection and food. It took a while to find the place, and we had a few hilarious wrong turns, finally ending up in the right place at the right time...kitchen talk: watching Ben cut with lightning fingers, seeing the largest vat of stock I have ever seen, the dance of the kitchen, where many people worked in the smallest of spaces. The sweet cook was 'banished' to the back room, where he made the desserts free from garlic and coriander. We sat on small benches and were fed several taste plates: I remember the multiple flavours exploding...glorious..."And what wine would you drink with this"... Reisling! Voila!
We wandered the gardens, bamboo thick, small lake with ducks, all the seating is outdoors, with tin roof, no walls...very Balinese. Peaceful.
We talked for a long time with the manager of the house.  His parents began the project in the early 90's. We learned the history of the place, how it has developed and what were the dreams...if only they could.
So are dreams possible? Apparently not now, due to council regulations. Is this a little like theatre these days, with workplace health and safety?
As we watched this family create an astonishing environment, with a restaurant and a cooking school, i think about how we create theatre companies.  Because theatre is not usually a money spinner, any investment is for love, and we do not have luscious environments within which to create our work but more often little black boxes and over used studios.  We love them just the same. I sometimes feel more at home standing in a black box than at home standing in the garden.  It brings back the years of work before I moved to Brisbane, where not a week went by that I was not standing in some black box somewhere in the world.
Is our black box possibility? A way of dreaming with open eyes? Is our black box freedom from the everyday relentless rhythm of what we have created? 
Perhaps.