Mixed Marriages

Europe is soccer crazy right now.



Wednesday night Germany plays Turkey in the semi-finals of the European Championships. Turkey has staged three stunning comebacks - winning in the last minute against Switzerland, scoring three goals in the last fifteen minutes to beat Czech Republic 3-2, and scoring in the 120th minute after going behind in the 119th minute against in the quarterfinals against Croatia, then winning in penalty kicks. Needless to say, there were shots fired in our neighborhood after that one.


The only down side is that we'll miss all the local color since we'll be in Italy. The upside is that pretty much the entire tournament has been fantastic. I recommend checking out Russia-Spain in the other semi-final as well.

Schnitzel Curry!?!

Yesterday Michiko and Taka



hosted a going away lunch for Mai and Mark



who are returning to Bangkok since Mark finished his doctoral thesis.

The big surprise for us was Japanese schnitzel curry



Nothing beats sitting with three couples whose native languages are Japanese, Thai and English, carrying on a conversation in German. Good times.

CHOREOGRAFISCHE WERKSTATT

Yesterday was lighting and technical rehearsal for the Choreografische Werkstatt - a two-evening run of new work by the dancers...



Lighting for Lily and my piece was saved by Jon and Isadora, because Lily wasn't there and I know less than nothing about lighting. Also, because the Tif (the small black-box theater where the CW is running) has all manual lighting, things take awhile.

At the General Rehearsal last night, I snapped a few pictures...


Here are Brea, Pin-Cheih, Mats and Ekat in a piece choreographed by Jason.




Here are Lily and Mats in our duet



Here are Ben and his box in Ben's solo.






here are Lily, Ben and Leyla in a work by Evangelos.

Tonight is the opening. With a bit of luck, we will be able to post video of the dance Lily and I collaborated on (before you run screaming, just to let you know, I didn't dance).

After this weekend, it's OFF TO ITALY!

Full Moon

From Wednesday night... thought you in the Transylvania set might like this.

The Americans are coming!

Today dancers from Johannes' American company rolled into Kassel for Tuesday night's performance.



Isadora, Jon and Monica



And Eva, who has decided to stick around Kassel for the next year with the Tanzensemble.

Flashback: Portugal

After months of wrangling, I finally got the movies and pictures Manuel shot at our training camp in Portugal. Manuel was injured, so he was able to take plenty of pictures of sheep and runners. Nothing too deep. Just a bunch of people running around in the sun. Which was a good way to spend half of February. Gimme some more.

the light of life

Meet Emmeline


Sebastian


and their intrepid parents.


Elizabeth and Quito came to Kassel last weekend, the first stop on their three-country European family vacation. Bold moves from parents of a 4 year old and 10 month old who are knee deep in Brooklyn Brownstone renovation hell.

Elizabeth and I have been friends for 15 years. We met at the ballet barre at the University of Utah when we were freshman. It went something like this: "You're tall!" "You're tall!" "Let's be friends!"

Until Fred and I moved to Germany, we lived 10 blocks away from each other in Park Slope Brooklyn, where were eating dinner or brunch, or having a picnic in the park with the Zubas almost every other week. Having the whole family here for 4 days made me feel like I was home again.

We started off at the studio, where we all danced a bit.



Then, off to the beer garden.


Post-marathon (fred was 3rd of the non-africans, 11th overall) on sunday, we had a visit to a real garden where Sebastian played with some real German kinder


(this one's for you, Brian Engel & Amy Behm)

There was the Saturday morning ritual trip to the Markthalle


A little dose of German TV . But only after going old-school style with a gift from Uncle Fred...more on that later.




And a photo shoot by Sebastian.
First, a self-portrait:


Then, a lesson in framing the shot:




And lastly, an interview:

Wedding Day in Kassel

Today Elisabetta and Cesar were married at the Rathaus.







more after tonight's party.