14.08.2009

new worlds

Up very early in the morning to grab my place at a dinosaur computer. I am at Transit VI with Aphids and Care Instructions. (The touring party of Care Instructions is Margaret Cameron: Director, Cynthia Troup: Writer, Jane Bayly, Liz Jones, Caroline Lee: Performers.) Transit VI is an international festival and conference which is a product of the Magdalena Project, and has been curated and organised by Julia Varley. The theme is Women - On The Periphery. It is being held at the Odin Theatre in Holstebro in Denmark and it is truly incredible.

Cynthia, Jane and I arrived in Denmark early on Monday morning after the 29 hour journey from Melbourne. I did something I've never done before and had a massage at Bangkok airport which was totally wonderful, not the least because I had to take off my tired plane clothes and get into some clean pajamas and lie on a bed IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION. And then came the massage...It was so great and I returned to the next leg of the flight feeling much more prepared for it. We got a taxi to our hotel and spent the rest of the day walking the streets of Copenhagen. The furniture and homewares were amazing, as were some of the clothes. We also went to an area of the city area called Christiania which was completely fascinating. It was originally some kind of abandoned military land and was taken over by hippies and students in the 70s and they lived there and built new houses and vegetable gardens and there is a market there and all sorts of different areas, and they lived there for years. A few years ago the government tried to force them out but were unsuccessful and so now they are still there and it is really wild. It's large, and free and chaotic and beautiful and there were signs everywhere saying not to take photos and people just hanging out and drinking and then round the next corner people drumming and round the next corner someone doing their laundry. Bikes everywhere. It was extraordinary to find such a place in the middle of ordered, clean, quiet Copenhagen.

On Tuesday, after a second breakfast of coffee and cake from the organic bakery down the road, we drove to Holstebro with Liz and Lloyd (Liz's husband) who had arrived in Copenhagen the night before. It was an eventful and hilarious journey, with a few wrong turns and a few scary moments negotiating the verge of the road and the correct side of the road. We arrived in Holstebro safe and sound about 6.30pm with sore stomachs and glad hearts. And then the real madness began.

Every day there is breakfast from 8 to 9am. Then there is a training with a different person every day, from 9 to 10am. Then from 10.30 to lunch there are one or two demonstrations of work and lectures. After lunch the performances begin. Usually two or three before dinner and two after dinner. In between there are other shorter performances running concurrently that you fit in around these times. Also there are chores to fit in everyday, which is great because it means that it is very clean here and also there is a great sense of working collectively, even on that level.

So there has, already, been the most intense, wonderful, incredible amount of input and ideas and thoughts and contact and dialogue. I will write more detail about this, probably next week, but in brief it feels like a great privilege to be here in this world, both the world of the Odin Theatre, which is steeped in the most incredible theatrical history, knowledge and experience, and the world of the Magdalena Project. It is a wonderful world and I am delighted and inspired to have discovered it and be floating in it for this brief moment.

Today we prepare to perform Care Instructions in this world. Luckily we can take most of the day in the theatre...and so we shall see what we can make and what will happen. I hope, and it seems possible, that we can re-form the work and perform it in a way that will speak to this wonderful collection of minds and hearts.

Dry clean only. Do not wash, wring, spin or tumble dry. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!