Pen and Paper; Eye and Lens

At the Theaterfest last weekend, we did our daily training on the stage, open to the public. As we slowly began - stretching without music, breathing - cameras flashed all around us from the crowd that had gathered. I won't lie: there was something disorienting about it. Little kids with balloons tied to their wrists asked, "Was machen sie denn da, mama?" and the old ladies snoozed in the first row of the opera house. But by the time we got to standing exercises - plies and torso swings, crossing the floor and jumping - they were applauding at the end of the exercises with appreciation. 

Or maybe they were just relieved we were finally standing up.



In the audience were Chris and Fred. Chris with his camera, Fred with his notebook. As partners of dancers, they've been at our sides for this whole Kassel trip, and there they were on Sunday, taking notes, checking out the new dancers, getting inspired. Curious to know what they'd captured, I requested a sneak peek into the notebook and behind the lens.

Chris is an incredibly talented designer - you've seen the my other country typewriter bumper he made for the videos I post. He's also the go-to genius for all things computer related, and a great photographer. He used the open training Sunday to check out his camera, and said he was going for a more journalistic than artistic approach. But as you can see, the man has a great eye, and crafts everything he does with care.

Fred's notebooks are filled with sketches, impressions, fragments. They are merely the first written scribbles that later are carefully culled, edited, and drafted into poems, but they always amaze me. He jumps from precise perceptions of what's going on around him into other, more fantastical images and language. He plays. He rhymes. He combines lies with truth, fact with fiction. Occasionaly I find myself in the notes, but just as soon as I've recognized something, it morphs in another direction.



Dancing animals
watched from many angles
wooden animals
on wheels
say hello
after months
among others
I don't have a clear view



Did you really go
back to bed
after all that
applause for the opening
sequence:
Man Entering
Public Transport System

***

It makes me feel
like a horse
in line for bread



It comes back to you
things learned without
telling anyone - how
to roll over a shoulder
where branches stick
into our path
What a large hat

You jump from your neck
I am earthbound
capable of locomotion
in two directions
Getting back to touching