You can't kid around with inspiration. Its either there, kicking your ass and reaching so far down, touching places you thought impossible to reach.... or its not. That's the nature of the beast.
Dry months were March and April 2011, when nothing came by, not a thought and I was hard put to dream. And then I saw Wim Wender's PINA in 3 D.
Pina Bausch in Cafe Muller
Me, I'm crazy in pursuit of what works on stage. Observer, no purveyor of magic. Witness to the make or break of a moment. And die hard groupie of those who dare to be so naked and true that ones heart is larger from the transcendence of what they care, these the absolute royalty of performers, to reveal. Craft is all very ok, but without the added blueness of revelation, I'm just all yaaawwwn. I am willing to experience anything, from school plays to rock concerts, just to witness that moment of liminality, of transparency.
Pina
Pina
Pina
There's no going back. And yes, we must kill every Buddha on the path.
In the words of the artist who made the film about Pina Bausch...
"No, there was no hurricane that swept across the stage,
there were just … people performing
who moved differently then I knew
and who moved me as I had never been moved before.
After only a few moments I had a lump in my throat,
and after a few minutes of unbelieving amazement
I simply let go of my feelings
and cried unrestrainedly.
This had never happened to me before…
maybe in life, sometimes in the cinema,
but not when watching a rehearsed production,
let alone choreography.
This was not theatre, nor pantomime,
nor ballet and not at all opera.
Pina is, as you know,
the creator of a new art.
Dance theatre."
Cafe Muller - First performed in 1978
Indelible Image # 1: Black and white footage from an early "Carnations" of Pina playing the accordion, topless, in men's underwear.
Carnations - First performed in 1982
Indelible Image # 50: Pina telling dancer: "You have to get more crazy" and the dancer "trust" falling onto grass, then onto concrete. Rescued from hurt/pain/damage mere seconds before she hits concrete, by able hands.
From Wim Wender's Pina
Indelible Image # 100: Dancers giving way: Young, fresh, smiling to old, wizened, smiling. Ironic, but funny. As girl turns into woman in the centre of the line, in the shocking pink dress
Le Sacre du Printemps (Rite of Spring) 1975
It needed an artist who truly loves rock to make this film because it totally valorizes rebellion. And is simultaneously so tender and empathetic to difference, vulnerability, failure. Ah! What a good thing, that.
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I returned to this page many days later. May 25th 2011.
Two big events in the past month stirred things up.
1. Kuki and I were at the Beatles camp at Infinite Souls. The kids in rehearsal - all wigs, guitars, hats and sun glasses. Zui, at home studying.
Joan was quizzical, studying metaphysical science...
A Sunday morning call:
"Muma, the bedroom roof has come down. I can see some workers peering in through the hole and I can see the sky."
A parapet wall from the neighbouring school fell on our bedroom roof crashing right through it and effectively destroying both bed and bathroom.
Bang, Bang Maxwell's Silver hammer....
But no one is hurt or dead. Kiara normally sleeps and purrs on the ironing board that is now on the floor beneath slabs of concrete. Big, pregnant Prudence was in the studio with Zui, as was Kiara.
PC 31 said "We caught a dirty one..."
Rush back into town. Rubble and dust everywhere. Kurzweil keyboard, SCSI drive, RAIDS, Logic Pro, Acid loop CDs, computers, Hugo Boss, silver bangles my grandmother made for me, little boxes filled with beads, nose rings, the arched rosewood mirror my uncle gave me after he and my aunt were divorced. And the sky for a roof. God forbid it rains (before they put a tarp on) and makes for me some Rubble Soup served up in bed.
Bang, Bang Maxwell's Silver hammer...
2.In the midst of the carnage, 3 days after the roof crashed down, Prudence littered. 6 gorgeous Basset-dor puppies. Bamboo's puppies :) Life has a maniacal and self obsessed way of carrying bloody well on.
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play
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And so....despite the hole in the roof and lactating Basset Hound, the marvellous KVK Murthy and I read Kat & Pet from Taming of the Shrew.
And I'm working on a new play :)
Two smiles in almost as many lines is a good thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
