My Other Country

berlin summer people

2011-08-13T20:09:00.000+02:00

mystical summer of 2011 mixtape

2011-08-07T13:10:00.005+02:00

...for the summer the bats flew in the house, the summer you did kung fu in the yugoslavian hills, drove the new vw van to croatia, scaled the factory wall untethered. crowns were everywhere, graffitied on walls and tattooed on arms, on the heads of models and dangling from the mirror in your borrowed apartment next to the sticker that said OHNE FETT.
it was the summer Istanbul kept coming up. first your visit to the jail on your birthday to see if the revolutionaries would be freed, later the tales of tea shop back room mobster bosses. istanbul and therapists - and therapies, and the conditions that preempted them.
so when the results of the summer of 2011 roll in, here's your soundtrack. for when the needle's in the bone, when the high-resolution photos are interpreted, for peeing into cups and the five minutes it takes to move the IV from the crook of your elbow to the back of your hand. the soundtrack for when the grades are sent out and blood work comes in and more weights are added to the machine. for the exact hour, minute and second the doctor calls with results you've waited two years for and for what your heart does when you walk to the window and she rounds the corner.

beastie boyes feat. santigold - don't play no game that i don't win
jamie xx - far nearer
robyn - hang with me
hayes carll - beaumont
elite gymnastics - so close to paradise
ghostnotez - FACT
mount kimbie - would know
domain - bright lights
bonobo - we could forever
deerhunter - he would have laughed
gil scott heron + jamie XX - NY is killin me
chemical brothers - container park (hanna soundtrack)

throwbacks:
st etinne - only love can break your heart
baby d - i need your lovin
lewis taylor - send me an angel

whole albums:
james blake
bon iver
thom yorke / burial / fourtet

Recurring Structures

2011-08-02T11:43:00.003+02:00

On Sunday Roland gave me a coffee bonbon which he cleaned up on an art handling job from an exhibit of a Felix Gonzalez-Torres work...

last night I moved apartments, to a place with a great view...

and a lot of books...

including a FG-T catalog with two candies atop...

and this Gordon Matta-Clark catalog...

today the sun returned to Berlin after a long absence. Time to get out into it.

walls and the sky

2011-07-27T22:44:00.003+02:00

swimming pool on the spree

tempelhof airport

olafur eliasson's studio

remains of berlin wall @ bernauerstrasse

poetry reading at SIN

jens komossa's studio

park by the spree behind the reichstag

humboldt university lecture hall

mica moca gallery

back at the park, sunset

Family

2011-07-21T08:57:00.012+02:00

theater muss sein

2011-07-10T18:38:00.001+02:00

theater muss sein. raps and operas. beats and violins. a dead girl and seven devils to blame. gypsies and whores, lunatics contortionists and fire-throwers roam the place, then disappear into the forest.

trees full of leaves. ground muddy from rain. rain and sun alternating, scattered poppies. nature must exist. but theater?

the music studio has been frozen in a layer of ice. the break-up story is sordid. the divorce proceedings have once again been rescheduled. there is anger to swallow, test results to celebrate, a wedding next week. everyone is leaving for good or on vacation with the one and only, the new, the other, or the just for the summer. to an island. to the south of the country. to a cabin in the woods.

quick! it is all about to coalesce before your eyes! the curtains will open to reveal the woods, and behind the wings you'll find your very own kitchen! the light change will be quick enough for you to glimpse your lover's smile contort into a grimace! all of it's here for the taking: this beach, this field, this room made of fabric, the steps of this museum where you sit drinking a glass of wine listening to the he-said she-said and wondering if a breakup or a death is more difficult to bear, as if there were a ranking of the tragedies, or the comedies for that matter.

what appears to be an elaborate construction can come apart at the seams and be reassembled at will, just ask the technicians. they have all the tools you'll need to build a stage: screwdrivers, hammers. planks of wood, electricity and swaths of fabric. a stage is just a frame. the drama's already there.

engel tragen mundschütze

2011-06-16T12:40:00.003+02:00

Engel dürfen die Luft dieser Welt nicht atmen. Sie dürfen nichts anfassen, müssen Handschuhe tragen. Engel halten abstand. Sie ertragen Cheim schlect. Engel kommen und gehen und du weisst nie, wann du der nächste erwarten kannst.

Zeit läuft und nichts passiert. Dann kommt einer. Dann zwei auf einmal. Zeit läuft und sie gehen und du denkst, ich müss etwas tun, um die Engel zurückzuholen. Du denkst, wenn ich nichts erledige, nichts mache, nichts schaffe, aufbaue, pflanze oder pflucke, wenn ich kein Sex habe, wenn ich nicht laufen kann, wenn ich die Wasserflasche nicht zu meinem Mund bringen kann, dann werden sie nie wieder kommen. Du denkst, es wird nichts weiteres passieren können, wenn ich nichts tue. Aber du kannst nichts, und so machst du halt nichts. Du bist im Krankenhaus und das Isolierten Zimmer im Krankenhaus ist eine Lücke.

Einstein hatte unrecht, sagt Stephen Hawking, wenn er sagte, "Gott würfelt nicht." Black Holes mal abgesehen, sagte Hawkins, "Gott wirft die Würfel sogar machmal dorthin, wo man sie nicht sehen kann" und meinte damit, sagt Rüdiger Vaas, "dass Schwarze Löcher eine noch viel alarmierende Dimension des Zufalls ins Universum bringen - wenn sie nämlich Infomationen unwiderruflich verschlingen. Neue Erkentnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass Schwarze Löcher die Würfel eines Tages wieder in die Arena des Alls rollen lassen. Die Naturgesetze spielen also keineswegs verrückt."

Eine stunde, zwei. Einen tag, zwei. Dann sind sie wieder da, aus dem Nichts, die beschützenden Beschützer, von dorthin, wo Gott die Würfel geworfen hat.

ain't no happiness. ain't no sadness.

2011-06-15T17:01:00.000+02:00

may mashup

2011-06-04T18:55:00.000+02:00

Sunshine. Music. Food.

Premieres: Medea. Traffic. Choreographische Werkstatt.

Hipster Photo Shoot

Goodbyes.

Rehearsals outdoors with a live band.

Hosting.

Riding Tandem.

Wir wollen alle fröhlich sein

2011-04-25T21:22:00.004+02:00

Just back from a long Easter weekend in Berlin. There was ice cream and karaoke in the Mauerpark, chocolate cake with prosecco in the afternoon and at the dinner party the germans cooked spargel because it's that time of year. There was hopping up and down at the club with the 19 year olds and a performance by clowns from three countries inside a former squat and buying a ring with a sheep on it at a sidewalk sale from two 8 year old girls and there was lots of music at the cathedral on Easter Sunday. "Wir wollen alle fröhlich sein" (We all want to be joyful) even got sung twice, which seemed fitting. More than anything there was time on the balcony, in the park, lying on the grass, grafitti hunting on the streets. The sun didn't stop shining, and that was really all anyone could ask for.

Opera House

2011-04-09T15:25:00.001+02:00

Here is a glimpse of our recent premiere of Scheherezade. In the first half, it rains. Recorded loops of Rimsky-Korsakov's score play on miked turntables. In the second half, the curtain rises to reveal an enormous sand pile dominating the back corner, and the sound of the orchestra fills the opera house. We dance in front of, behind, around, and through it all.

Chalk Ladder

2011-03-29T20:35:00.002+02:00

Fred and I were having lunch one Sunday when we noticed some kids lying on the pavement just up the street. It's the street that runs directly out from the front of our house to the hills, one mile away. A car drove by. The kids scattered but then returned, crouching down in the middle of the street. What do you think they're doing? I asked Fred. They're drawing a ladder, he said, and it starts waaay up there.

So after lunch we headed out to see just how long this chalk ladder was. We talked to the kids. Turns out the girls had started it and the boys had followed suit with a competing, parallel ladder. Manhole covers, cars, and cobblestones were the main obstacles. Occasionally they were forced to draw on the sidewalk. Sore knees was the only complaint. They'd been at it since 12:30. (They were out there till 7. At 8 it rained)

But the most important thing? Each square, regardless of its size, had to have a number. When we got there, they were at 1202. Did you start at 1? I asked. You'll hear me say this at the end of the video. And then her answer: Ja....Nein. Bei null. With zero.

ps the movie takes a moment to load...practice patience and reap the benefits....

Dr. Seuss, Jon Bon Jovi, three popes and

2011-03-10T07:36:00.000+01:00

Julia, all born on the second of March. All are well. Especially Karen.

Images from the former...

2011-03-07T21:53:00.001+01:00

...East Germany as it looked today in the sun before catching the train back West. I like you, says the sign below. I like you too, you can tear off and pocket.

They don't want to be amazing

2011-03-01T08:33:00.005+01:00

I once overheard a dancer say that while creating new solo material. I don't want to be amazing, he said. I want do something different.

Of course, he was (and still is) an extraordinary dancer. They all are. Amazing not only for their physical talent but also for that search for different ways to move. Check it out for yourselves in these two clips from recent rehearsals for Scheherazade. These run-throughs are like first drafts - the material is new, not yet refined and without a structure - and it's still pretty freaking amazing, right?

Before / during / after

2011-02-25T18:43:00.003+01:00

Tuesday 22 February, 10 a.m.

1:00 p.m. I meet up with Tamez at her new shop, Saved Tattoo...

I'm the first person in her new studio, her all tanned from a month in Costa Rica.

7:30 p.m. It's a long session, really two sessions with a lunch break. By the end, I'm squirming like a fish on a hook. And sweating. Lots of sweating.

February 23, 10 a.m.

Stephanie's a pro...

Single Feet

2011-02-25T17:44:00.005+01:00

Lobby of the Museum of Modern Art, Wednesday 16 February.

Reading (2) Blue Letters and spacemen

2011-02-25T16:02:00.004+01:00

Into the city and the first reading there since 2007. No nerves, this is Brooklyn. A day or two to settle. Strung on little sleep but feeling good. My friends started rolling in the door while I sat with the other readers eating a hearty (and free) meal in back of the restaurant. MP the painter, Frances the poet and art critic, Karl the source, Jen the dancer, Todd the poet and runner, Regis the travel writer, Chris and Mary the engaged poets...

Carley read first and started with some new work she was unsure about. Then into poems about raising a daughter. Sex education. Wry.

I followed, reading a bit short, but feeling comfortable and feeling like the whole thing came off. I mentioned the Tibor de Nagy show I had seen earlier in the day, which raised a chorus of "ooh, yeaaah"s from those who had seen it. Quoted O'Hara writing to Larry Rivers about art as theft.

Tracy wrapped up the night reading from her forthcoming book "Life on Mars" - where the poems ranged from her father's work on the Hubble telescope project to the dark sides of human nature we see in today's media (think: that guy in Austria who kept his daughter and their offspring in the basement). Super tight work.

Afterward we hung around until midnight, then Chris and I headed back to his place to sip whiskey and talk a mile a minute and listen to Ian Svenonious records until after three. I slept in my clothes, then rose to take a train out to Long Island to have a three hour long lunch with Carlen.

Revolution Playlist

2011-02-23T08:14:00.004+01:00

First, Egypt. Now Libya, Bahrain, Iran. Up here in Northern Europe you don't see much evidence on the daily from the revolutions underway. They're TV images, headlines, blog postings, running headlines at the bottom of the screen. Gaddafi getting out of a car under an umbrella. Mubarak's henchman in hallway, trying to look dignified under the bright glare of lights as he announces defeat. A limp corpse being carried out from behind a car in Libya.

A new world order is opening up. I am searching for its signs in orderly, methodical Deutschland, which requires creativity. My friend's father, who's a pastor, told her about John the Baptist wandering the desert, calling out "Repent!" to those he met. The pastor says "repent" is only one way to translate the word from the original Greek text, and a moralistic one. The word has an additional, more literal meaning: Revolve. Turn yourself around. Auf deutsch, sich umdrehen. Yourself aroundturn.

Crocuses are popping up, though it's 8 degrees out and webs of frost shade the office windows.
A favorite Kassel couple is heading out to Berlin, moving in together for the first time.
A dancer who's always had the next job lined up has decided not to take the next secure one when he's offered it, and instead to float, to wait, to see.
Instead of splitting immediately, they are trying to work it out. Neither of them has done this before.
Staying put instead of leaving. Not doing instead of doing.
A new tattoo.
New stem cells.
Marriage.
And all the babies born since 2011. Daniel, Emily, Meadow, Charlotte. Am I forgetting someone? The next one - the niece, or nephew - any day now.

James Blake: Wilhelm's Scream, Lindesfarne I, II
Nicolas Jaar: Stay in Love, I Got A Woman
Deerhunter: He Would Have Laughed, Helicopter
Radiohead: Codex, Feral
The Go Find: Igloo
Fünf Sterne Deluxe: Willst du mit mir geh'n?
Fat Freddy's Drop: The Raft, and all the remixes of it
Die Antwoord: She Makes me a Killer

Cord (brooklyn morning remix)

2011-02-20T16:57:00.002+01:00

Still with us, fortunately

Reading (1) "hauptprobe"

2011-02-13T18:15:00.005+01:00

This afternoon the locals came to our living room with cake.

to hear selections from the poems I'll be reading in Brooklyn this week.

to drink a lot of coffee...

special guests included...

It was a chance for me to read in front of an audience, in comfort, in my slippers.

Kassel. Last rehearsal before Brooklyn Wednesday. Before Brooklyn Sunday.

For those in my old country, note, Reading (2) and Reading (3) are happening this week:

Tracy K. Smith, Carley Moore, and Fred Schmalz!
Blue Letter Series at Watty & Meg 1
is free and open to the public:
Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 8 p.m. through 9:30 p.m. at Watty & Meg restaurant,
248 Court Street between Baltic and Kane, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY.
Nearest trains: F/G to Bergen Street or 4/5/R to Borough Hall.

Jen Hayashida, Fred Schmalz and Chris Hosea
stage a sit-in
at Unnameable Books
Sunday 20 February at 7 p.m.,
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Ave. (btw: Bergen and St. Marks), Brooklyn, NY.
Trains: Q to 7th Ave. or 2-3 to Bergen.

Presents

2011-02-09T08:23:00.000+01:00

First, the sun. It's been shining for days. And there's the stone in the tree, which hasn't dropped yet.

There's being and time.

And there's something delicious to eat.

Cooked by these hands.

Sumac makes its first appearance.

And best of all: drinks for everyone!

wall scrapings

2011-02-01T20:05:00.003+01:00

The dead of winter has allowed me to finally get around to making these books

out of the contents the old wall at 33 E-Z street which have been sitting in an envelope on the shelf at the new house.

Fun with images and text. Gifts for my friends in NYC.

Early returns

2011-02-01T19:16:00.010+01:00

Returning to planet Brooklyn in two weeks...

for a couple readings...

and time to chop it up with some of my favorite artists.

to make new books, one pile of paper at a time...

to crash with Oni...

to sit with Tamez...

to go see some art...

maybe shovel snow while I'm there.

Daily, Lately

2011-01-24T21:33:00.000+01:00

New dancers are in the room...

and are making the boss laugh.

Podium is still the post-performance spot.

An American flag has been spotted one block from home.

The movie theater is stating the obvious.

And something is definitely missing.

Feb 25, 2000 - Jan 21, 2011

2011-01-21T17:28:00.003+01:00

Had to put my baby down today after eleven years of lap dances and bad behavior toward houseguests. you were a good one, Juju.

Fire Extinguisher

2011-01-17T18:07:00.000+01:00

There are seventeen of us in the dance company for our next piece, which is an awesome amount of energy and talent in one room. Our small rehearsal studio is teeming. During these early stages of the process, we spend a lot of rehearsal time working individually on solos and duets, and most everything requires extensive discussion. That means seventeen dancers moving and talking simultaneously. It's quite a sight. If you were to walk into the studio during one of these rehearsals, here's what you might see: Johannes crouched in a corner coaching a solo or duet while the Slovakian throws the Spanish girl who then yells at him for tugging her arm too hard. Against the wall, the two Taiwanese chatter about their plans for a theatrical scene while the Italian lifts an American up from the floor, asking "Like zees?" The Polish girl asks the Colombian guy for tips on that backwards barrel turn jump thing, and an American tries to make the Finnish girl laugh. Someone else writes in a notebook, or mumbles text out loud, and there's always someone stretching, and at least two people improvising in the corner with headphones on. It's a madhouse of creativity. It's completely inspiring, at times deafeningly noisy, and always intensely chaotic.

Today was our day off, so I jumped at the chance to have the studio all to myself for a movement phrase I've been developing. The task is to use foreign looking movement to make a phrase where you're controling someone, but I like to think of mine as the "oriental arms meets break-dancer legs" phrase. I'm not sure how much of that you'll see from this clip, but what you will see is that even being alone in the studio doesn't mean you're free from interruptions and distractions....

Questions for 2011

2011-01-09T18:54:00.000+01:00

If 2010 was the year of frustration will 2011 be the year of change?

Can a story save your life?

Is Mrs. Beckham really pregnant again?

How long will the new washing machine last?

Would you like some more pudding?

What makes you think I can play chess?

Don't you think this has all gone on long enough?

Darf ich sie fragen, wer sie sind?

Are 1001 nights long enough to fall in love?

Is the stalker really over you or is she just back on her meds?

What is the difference between perception and thinking?

What is the difference between attention and concentration?

What is a model home?

How did the cats get fleas?

Is the tub full yet?

Is the house cursed?

Do I really have to do this all by myself?

Is there no one coming to save me?

How would you translate geborgenheit ?

At what age are we no longer too young to die?

Does this mean the worst is over?

Should we move to the Middle East?

Have you seen my keys?

What was I thinking?

Are there any more questions?

almost two

2011-01-05T09:12:00.000+01:00

The Drop-In

2010-12-31T08:31:00.001+01:00

singing in the tunnels

2010-12-29T14:42:00.002+01:00

Here's a covert glimpse into the famous boys' choir school in Regensburg on the day before Christmas. Somehow the front door was open and I got an impromptu tour of nearly everything. Even the basement, which is right through this door.

Down the long tunneled hallways pipes ran overhead and a humid laundry room soapiness wafted through the tight corridor. It was the last stop on the tour through the classrooms, practice rooms and dormitories of this boarding school that, for over 1000 years, has educated and housed one of the most famous boys choirs in the world. As I stepped down into the half-lit underground hallways, I had the unusual but indelible impression that I'd somehow been there before in a dream.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, which is when the choir sings their biggest concert of the year at midnight mass at the Cathedral. A group of boys were playing in the basement, maybe 10, 12 years old. They skittered in and out of visibility halfway down the hall. Shoes scuffling. Shoves and shouts. I stood still for a moment, trying to recall the dream, which had taken place in halls just like these - tunnels without ends, pipes radiating heat, moist stone walls closing in. They were singing. As soon as I stopped walking I realized the boys were singing. In the midst of the shouting and shuffling, fragments of sound carried down the hallway, portions of songs ringing out in unadulterated crystalline voices. They were just playing, messing around for a minute on the afternoon before the big day, out of sight of teachers and supervisors, and they were singing like angels in the underworld.

Christmas in Our Other Country

2010-12-28T04:42:00.000+01:00

LIGHT: NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL

MEAT...AND MORE MEAT

GIANT SNOWBANKS!!!!!!!!!!!

CROSS COUNTRY SKIING

CATS!!!!!!!

Winter

2010-12-20T20:39:00.001+01:00

Key Words : A Matching Game

2010-12-15T10:43:00.000+01:00

Match each English word with its German counterpart:

unity

perspective

perseverance

on the way

hover

reflection

gratitude

angel

christmas market

longing

transformation

cloudy

soccer

attention / similarity

********

unterwegs

wolkig

spiegelung

durchblick

schweben

vereinigen

engel

weihnachtsmarkt

ausdauer

sehnsucht

fussball

aufmerksamkeit / ähnlichkeit

verwandlung

dankbarkeit

Material (2)

2010-12-09T10:33:00.002+01:00

You stand there and I throw this ball at you as hard as I can. The two of you run face first into the mattress until you crash and no don’t block your face with your hands. Talk as fast as you can in Italian. Pull the balloons over your body like a dress. Swing the metal ball and smash the plates. Don't think just do. Don’t be too active. Don't resist. Keep going until I stay stop. We are not looking at you we are looking at the material.

The material is 50 black balloons, rubber pebbles, stacks of wooden pallets, old gym equipment, rolls of plastic tape, a javelin, an Olympic hammer and the material is us. Nine dancers making a new piece with a two meters tall mustachioed Slovakian choreographer trained in fighting and martial arts. He shouts directions from the front of the room. When he’s not laughing, that is. Mouth wide open, he’s checking to make sure we’re paying attention, grinning You know what will be great? with a long rolling R. His English is a mixture of command, conjecture and critique from which the present continuous tense has been eliminated. Have a look. Try. Bravo. Do until I say stop. That’s from a different opera. Let’s say the floor starts to smoke. You can’t get hurt. Stop philosophizing, just do. You were the best and now it looks like shit. Let's say you are a gangster, let's say you are a god. Here, have a look. We work on it. I don’t hurt you.

We spend weeks searching for material. Movement material, for starters. A sequence of judo grips and kicks morphed into danced duets. Twenty versions of swinging the arms on the beat. A way to punch the air and stomp the floor simultaneously. And we use actual materials –tape, rubber pieces, all of it – to create images, scenes, scenarios. The gravity-defying balloons are tugged down from above, a dancer’s hands are taped to the metal bar where she dangles, men throw the rubber pieces and let them shower down like rain. If you find the right material you don’t have to break yourself for the image to speak says the giant. He wants to smash the iron lid of the wooden box with the hammer, wants a dancer to crawl out of the mattress that’s been smacked over and over with another dancer’s body, wants to flood the stage with mud that seeps from a pile of wood. The material should speak and that includes the body, so we hit and punch and kick and tumble and crash. But the body breaks down more easily than most material. Synapse. Sensation. Pleasure. Pain.

A dancer gets hit in the head with a medicine ball thrown full force. Another’s foot is webbed with blood after stepping on broken china. MRI results from the shoulder of a third show that it’s not as serious as they’d thought - the ligaments aren’t torn. But after a bad fall she was out for a week, icing her shoulder, sitting on the side. What I do now? The choreographer asked. There is no time to find new material. Meaning the movement. Meaning the images. Meaning the dancer.

What all materials share is the element of time. The time it takes to break the material down, to break it open, to make it speak. And the time it takes for the material to heal. The injured dancer sits on the side of the studio at the feet of the choreographer watching him direct a scene where three male dancers throw rubber pieces into the air, then arch their backs and fall to the floor as the pieces rain down. An oblation. An ablution. A female dancer stands behind them. Over and over they toss and fall, scoop and release. Finally they begin to paw through the material quickly, tossing it horizontally toward the woman. The choreographer has placed her there. As the men improvise crawling and sliding through the rubber while flicking it in her direction, he shouts directions until the scene is finished. Faster! To her! To her! More!

The injured dancer shifts the ice on her shoulder as the music fades and the dancers rest in the pile. The choreographer approaches the pile, picks up a handful of rubber, lets it fall. He flicks a small amount toward the female dancer. Have a look, he says to the men. You have to be delicate with the material. Meaning the rubber. Meaning the woman.

***

for more on the choreography of J Frucek and E Kapetanea click here

flashing back

2010-12-03T23:01:00.000+01:00

martha's vineyard, summer 2007

kassel, fall 2008

san francisco, fall 2004

on the road in germany, 2007

nyc, winter 2006

indiana, summer 2004

nyc (marathon), fall 2006

brooklyn, summer 2009

kassel, 2007 - 2010

minneapolis, summer 2010

portugal, winter 2008

kassel, fall 2007

poland, summer 2007

kassel, winter 2008

rome, summer 2008

kassel thanksgiving, 2007

brooklyn, spring 2007

Karlsruhe Tour

2010-11-21T20:18:00.005+01:00

Just back from a tour to Karlsruhe, a cushy city in the south of Germany where we danced at the ZKM, a museum for art and new media. Inside the atrium is a huge wall lit in constantly changing designs and colors, and in the theater there's a better sound system than any movie theater I've ever been in. But more on that later.

I rolled in with these two on Friday afternoon, only 1.5 hours late after a slight detour in Stuttgart. I'd been , ahem, given the task of holding the tickets for the three of us, which anyone who knows me knows is a total mistake. Famous for getting on trains going in the wrong direction, showing up at the airport for a flight that's actually a week later, and many other errors of time and place, my very abstract sense what it means to get from point A to point B is how we missed our transfer in Mannheim and ended up on the local train back from Stuttgart to Karlsruhe. "You're fired as tour manager," Brea said. We arrived and headed to the theater, where that night Eva and Ryan tore up the stage with their duo Roadkill. The music sounded so overwhelmingly good that there were times I forgot to watch the dance...which is saying a lot, given how fierce the two of them are. But like I said, more on the sound system later.

We had visitors!! Evan was in town from Switzerland, Bernd up from Freiburg, and the mama of the boss in from Berlin for a surprise visit. Combined with James and Marijke in from NYC, it was like a family reunion.

Here's the theater entrance.....

and here's the inside of the theater. Imagine a theater with padded walls. Imagine a giant recording studio. Imagine 1 foot thick metal doors, blocking out external sound. Inside - quadrophonic surround sound!! This theater was built for sound and video. Dancing in it, we heard things in the music we'd never heard before. And just listening to the Ben Frost music while watching Roadkill was a physical experience - the bass palpable; the sound moving in and through us in the audience. Rich.

And we danced. The performing was the most difficult but also the most fulfilling part, as with every tour. It's the payoff for all the extra rehearsals and early morning trains, the part that leaves me with the strongest impressions and biggest surprises. Like the moment when I was standing in the wings getting ready to walk on, thinking not about focusing my energy or about getting into character but instead having the thought pop into my head: "I'm a professional entertainer." How strange, I thought. How beautiful. How many times I have walked onto stages. That's what we are, and that's what we did, and the good people of Karlsruhe seemed to like it.

Material (1)

2010-11-14T10:33:00.000+01:00

New Slang and a Postscript

2010-11-06T18:15:00.003+01:00

J was back in the heimat for a few days last week, in town from England / world tours. We hooked up for some marathon viewing and coffee drinking in Frankfurt, then moved on to Giessen for American style hamburgers and bird-watching on the river. He brought the Georgian princess and a handful of new British slang. I brought the rattles. And Fred, as you already heard, brought the speed.

And this just in from Brooklyn - a postscript to Latitude. In addition to the definitions I mentioned in the post, the word also means: of or pertaining to the stars; consisting of stars.

Postscript postscript / definition confusion...thanks K for the Klarification....

onikaaru said...

actually "of or pertaining to the stars; consisting of stars" was meant as a definition of "stellar." sorry if there was confusion caused on that one. i was just commenting on the talk of the dictionary in general

Here Comes Your Man

2010-10-31T23:24:00.000+01:00

Running a personal best at the Frankfurt marathon this Sunday. 2:39:20. RESPECT.

Latitude

2010-10-30T17:55:00.004+02:00

The root where life and death are equal...is where freedom really begins: the freedom that cannot be guaranteed by the death of somebody else. The point where you become free not to kill, not to exploit, not to destroy, not to compete, because you are no longer afraid of death or the devil or poverty or failure.

--Thomas Merton

The working title of our upcoming dance evening is Breitengrad, which in German means latitude. There are nine dancers in the company at the moment here in Kassel. Kassel has a latitude of 51; we came to Kassel from latitudes ranging from 64 (Finland) to 4 (Colombia).

When Fred and I moved to Kassel we brought a 20 pound English language dictionary with us. It lays open on a shelf at our new apartment, where it has become a point of fascination for Luca, our landlord's 9 year old. Luca misses no opportunity to come visit our apartment, and it was like that even before I brought the Silly Bandz back from New York. She's obsessed with the cats. And the dictionary. Who can blame her? It has color pictures.

According Webster's New International (unabridged, second edition, hella expensive to ship overseas) Dictionary, latitude is defined as the following:
1) the extent or distance side to side; breadth; width
2) extent; amplitude; scope; range
3) freedom from confinement or narrow limits
4) deviation; laxity; looseness of morals or conduct.

Celestial latitude - deserving of mention based solely on the way it rolls off the tongue - refers the angular distance of a celestial body from the ecliptic. And a latitudinarian is an individual who is broad and liberal in his standards of belief and conduct; one who indulges freedom in thinking. Which brings us back to the dance evening, the topic of which is personal freedom.

On Friday we had final rehearsals for Johannes' piece before the guest choreographers Linda and Josef come on Monday. The piece takes place at a border crossing, like those that existed in Berlin before the wall came down. A curved slide, like half of a half-pipe, rises up at the back of the stage, 6 meters high. Two guardhouses frame the front of the stage and are manned throughout the piece by two extras who, like all of us at the beginning of the piece, are dressed in clothes made out of the same wood grain as the floor and the houses.

Everyone, that is, except for two rock and roll figures with guitars. Popping off of moving stages like action figures, they at times catalyze and at times embody the illusive and slippery freedom driving all of us.

Over the course of 50 minutes - don't forget, this is a piece by Johannes Wieland - this world erodes and transforms. Costumes get peeled away. People slide down out of nowhere. A beautiful blond throws knives. Chocolate and whipped cream get smeared everywhere. Distorted guitar music alternates with music from the Balkans, driving the dancing forward. And backward. And sideways. The search for personal freedom drives us in 360 degrees.

A Visit to Glen

2010-10-24T21:38:00.000+02:00

Driving Away Again

2010-10-19T21:18:00.000+02:00

This time through the German countryside...

and villages....

to the Mosel Valley,

Where hills rise up on either side of the riverbed, lined with vineyards.

And in the valleys, towns filled with fachwerk houses and old churches and tourists. Like us.

On one hill, ruins of a castle...

In one valley, another being restored.

In the river and on the banks, swans.

And in the hotel room next door and across the dinner table, the dynamic duo in from the 55446...

It was a celebration. There was drinking in the afternoon. There was pumpkin gnocchi and forellen and pork tenderloin in chantrelle cream sauce and afternoon sauna time. There was a personal tour of vineyards (more on that later) and a group tour of an old castle. There was driving 140 on the autobahn and still getting passed and a night walk along the river listening to the swans squak at each other. It was a get-away. We were in good company.

Last Days

2010-10-13T07:54:00.002+02:00

So many last days this fall. Days when you think: this is it, the last beautiful day, and you drop everything and head to the woods or the cafe with the courtyard or stretch out the yoga mat on the balcony or stroll around a decrepit neighborhood and find it all so inspiring, darling, don't you think? You think it can never last, the ivy so red and the sky so blue. This must be the last dry and sunny day before the wet German winter sets in. There've been so many of them, and in every city we've been in over the past month - Berlin and Köln, Düsseldorf and Kassel and Magdeburg and Göttingen.

One of the best of them I got to share with my sister, cooking food from the Markthalle and eating on the balcony in the sun. We were missing our men - R was holding down the fort in Berlin, F was racing the half in Cologne - so we made them this guided tour to brunch in the village with the sisters.

Pflaumenkuchen

2010-10-11T16:32:00.000+02:00

happy 12th anniversary with schlagsahne on top

Special Delivery

2010-10-04T10:28:00.005+02:00

The upside to spending time a German hospital is German nurses. Efficient without being harried, perfunctory without haste, kind without superfluous sentiment, German nurses are maternal and caring and best of all they are funny. It's survival humor; make the best of a situation you'd rather avoid humor; looking at the bright side without cracking a smile. Humor comes straight-faced in German, so if you miss what they've said, it's easy to get the wrong idea. You'll think you’ve been given strict instructions when in fact the cute 25 year old nurse with a red streak in her brown ponytail has said, "Now you get to put on this gown and these compression stockings. They look stylish together, don't you think?" Even if the words themselves make sense, German can still sound like a reprimand. "You have to understand," I was recently told by a friend who comes from the south of Germany. "When I say 'Oh, you pig,' it's a good thing! I’m not being mean - that’s our sense of humor. It's a mixture of envy, spite and wonderment."

The hospital lies in the former East Germany, and that’s palpable, even to us Americans. The streetcars are a dismal green and creaky, filled with old men with canes, punks, and women with spiky hair. The same grocery store chain as the one by our house here in Kassel (former West Germany) is stocked just differently enough to make you look twice. Pickles in barrels, twenty kinds of TV guide magazines, and no comb when I look, just unfamiliar brands of soap. The Wall came down twenty years ago this month and because it hasn't been all that long, reunification and the history of division are still part of the collective memory of East Germans, particularly those my age and older.

I was wheeled into the surgery by two chattering nurses. Through my drugged haze I made out snippets of conversation. One was four months pregnant and was having trouble sleeping because of her swollen breasts. “She's pregnant,” the first one said to me. “Just pregnant in my chest,” said the second one, patting her white shirt gingerly. They rolled me down hallways and into elevators, and I kept my eyes closed as we waited outside the surgery wing while someone turned on lights. The non-pregnant nurse was about 40 and wore a little nurse dress, bare legs, and blonde hair pulled back in a clip. She flipped through my chart idly. “Ach so! Frau Schmalz, you came all the way from Kassel to us here in the East?” “Mmm hmmm,” I mumbled from under the duvet cover. “Because of Dr. C and Dr. K.”

She thought that was really nice, pushing me through the swinging doors into another hallway. Everyone who passed had scrubs on and green caps covering their hair. A second wheeled bed appeared beside mine. It was time to get into the other bed. How, I wanted to know. “Just scoot your little self over there, mein West Paket!” the nurse in the dress said. I was stalling, filled with dread - if I got into the other bed that would mean it was all really about to happen - but when she said that, I had to smile. “Do you know what the expression means?” she asked when I looked at her. I shook my head. “Well, back when the Wall was still up, we were always so happy when we had a relative over in the West who would send us packages. Good stuff - coffee, sweets, treats - a package from the west. That's you! You're our little package from the west!”

A few days later, my own little special delivery came from the East: Maddy in from Berlin. And the little package from the west spent the rest of the week being cared for by these two....

And the rest of you - you know who you are - from east and west, north and south. I felt it in 360 degrees.

In case you've never been here...Brooklyn Version

2010-10-01T22:09:00.001+02:00

Consider this NYC's answer to Kassel.

For all ya'll who've never been to our other home in our other country, we start in the kitchen moments after KW realized the dishwasher was bubbling over, and I realized I'd filled the it with the wrong kind of soap. Then we hit the road through the neighborhood - Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park West, 7th Ave, the movie theater on the corner, and eventually we leave town, Notorius B.I.G. playing as we cross that most lovely of bridges, the Verezanno Narrows.

homesweet homeness

2010-09-26T18:26:00.009+02:00

Many blessings coming our way over the last few months in the village.

Like bridge building. And hanging curtians.

And sacred food from the ladies' farm.

A Sardinian chef cooking...

A birthday dinner.

Days without clouds.

Reunions.

The beautiful wreckage of memorable nights.

Words water and flowers.

The buzzer ringing and it being you at the door.

And all of it set to music.

duet about exhaustion

2010-09-25T21:06:00.002+02:00

Here's a sneak peek into the rehearsal studio at the moment here in Kassel. The task was to make a duet about physically exhausting yourself in order to free your mind, and this is what GC and I came up with, set here to the beautiful music Herr Düchtel made me last spring. Shout out to BC for filming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJzyvnsbasI

Looking though windows in Kassel

2010-09-20T22:30:00.008+02:00

berlin people pictures

2010-09-18T08:21:00.013+02:00

mommy's not here right now

2010-09-16T20:18:00.021+02:00

she's driving with the dj. Autobahn out of Düsseldorf, country roads toward Kassel, and in the end, parking in Berlin. Two men and their three dogs look on, smoking a cigarette in front of Leathers, which sells lederhosen converted into modern s&m gear. Next to Leathers is a café with a baby gate blocking the front door, and the kids are running free while the parents drink coffee. The engine stalls. I restart, reverse, go back into first, and pull out gently from the parking spot, which is just in front of the apartment where we’ve been staying. Leafy Berlin side street. Mommy's not here right now, she’s driving for the first time in this country, and she's not a mommy in the way you’re thinking but in the way the spanish guys down on 4th avenue in Brooklyn mean it when they call it out. Hey Mami, you go Mami, lookin good Mami.

Because it is Germany the rules are important, and they come at me from the passenger’s seat as soon as we exchange keys. I am not a good driver, I mention, circling around the car to the driver’s seat. I have never driven in this country. I yank the Nissan through the gears and merge onto the autobahn. The dj cringes and driving lessons begin: Ok, jetzt pass mal auf. Slow down New York girl. Langsamer. Stay right, pass left. Bleib im fluss. Stay in the flow. Nicht bremsen nicht bremsen! Why are you breaking? Use the clutch. Stay under 120. Read the signs. You don’t need your windshield wipers. You can’t hang out in the middle lane. Ok, now gib gas. Now you’ve got to see it through.

I pass the truck in the construction site. I miss the exit. I stall on the entrance ramp. I speed through a small town screaming "Germany!” out the open windows. Dusk has laid a carpet over the countryside and there are horses in the fields – I cannot contain myself – but I am driving 80 in a 40. Du musst die schlider lesen. This is a quiet zone, the dj says. The signs are beautiful: the three parallel arrows and one shorter, curved one…the circle split by a diagonal equator…the figure of a man, lit up in neon. But because I don’t understand them my surprise is genuine when the lane ends, when traffic appears out of nowhere, when there’s no exit in sight. You read them and tell me what’s going to happen next, I tell him.

Which, for most of the week, he does. He drives; I ride. Legs on the dashboard, I dig for CDs, photograph graffiti, search for parking spots…which, according to the dj, is unnecessary. Es gibt ein parkplatz für mich, he tells me as I point to the open ones a few blocks away from where we’re going. There’s a parking spot for me. A good one. A closer one. The one we’re looking for. He says it without doubt, without concern, without rush or worry. We haven’t yet gotten to where we’re going, but when we do, it’ll be waiting for us.

Sexy speakers speaking

2010-09-01T08:25:00.006+02:00

in stereo

...the stateside shipment arrives and I am reunited with the sexy speakers my brother-in-law hand-made the year before we moved to Germany, which have been stored since. Also shipped were a couple boxes of records (and a rug on which to lie while listening to records). Been filling the new house with sound. So my playlist is somewhat throwback in nature (in contrast to lily's Hot97-ness). It is also full of full albums. The good includes:

Ladies First...
Dusty Springfield - Where am I going... turned up this gem at my secret squirrel spot in Kassel. She sings "Sunny." What more do you need to know?

Koko Taylor - I got what it takes... when I was 18, my late Uncle Frank gave me a 2-cd set from Alligator Records, which was at the time completely unknown to me. This Koko album is an absolute blues masterpiece.

Abbey Lincoln - People in Me... recorded in Japan in 1973 with Miles Davis in the house. Funny, lovely, acerbic. R.I.P. Abbey.

Betty Davis - s/t... a DJ Doogie favorite. Rocked out. Miles' wife for a minute. Also credited with giving Jimi his super fashion sense. This is dirty.

ROCK is back in town. Among the retrievals:

Sebadoh - Bakesale... revved up.

Toro - s/t... latin rock from the 1970s. Think Santana filtered through Larry Harlow.

The Replacements - Let it Be... this blue vinyl copy was spirited out of the basement of Twin-Tone Records in the 1990s by a guy who was then on the label. He brought it as a housewarming gift several houses ago. It still rocks.

Dinosaur Jr. - You're living all over me... noisy, gloomy, almost comically gloomy. This guy probably still lives with his parents.

Galaxie 500 - this is our music... in the early 1990s, I acted as caretaker to Brownie's record collection. This album was in the stack. I didn't really get into it at the time, but recently turned it up @ the squirrel's. Very Velvet Underground-y, but in the metronomic drums and washy guitars way, not in the pretentious artwank way.

The Beat - I just can't stop it... Ryan requested this last spring. I told him to be patient. The other night at my birthday party, I pulled it out for him. He had forgotten about the request. I hadn't. Great british ska.

Jazzy business, including:

Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet - Illumination!... not much to say here, other than "Buy It Now"

Roy Haynes - Out of the Afternoon... Turned onto this by Onikaaru. Long-time obsession. Why did this not come with me on the plane in 2007?

Fela Kuti - Black President... many, many years ahead of his time.

Clifford Coulter - East Side San Jose... Blues meets Jazz. All soul. Whatever it is, I'd probably do it again.

The last category is "file under: speaker testers"

Edgar Varese - six compositions... Musique Concrete. Beautiful flutes.

Electronic Music... This has Cage's Fontana Mix, a composition made from tape loops. Twelve minutes of madness.

Brian Eno/David Byrne - My life in the bush of ghosts... dance beats under found texts, including a chanting from the Qu'aran (which was removed from all subsequent pressings and from the CD issue... score one for vinyl) and an exorcist removing "the jezebel spirit" from a possessed soul.

What's in your ears this year?

usa / you

2010-08-27T22:59:00.008+02:00

To all you USA people who blessed us this summer -

so rich, so bountiful, such deep roots -

you were food for the soul.

In Northern Minnesota...

in Minneapolis...

in Brooklyn...

in Manhattan...

in Indiana...

in Atlantic City...

in Beacon...

in the car...

on skype...

and on our walk along the Mississippi that wasn't nearly long enough. And at a cafe on Vanderbilt. At the bike shop, at the wine shop, on the east side, and on the front stoop the night you picked up the chair.

Sitting at your kitchen counter pebbled with rice. Packing the beach towels before the storm rolled in over the ocean -- then, weeks later, rushing to pay the bill as the lightning storm threatened over the roofbar in the midwest.

On Chambers Street, on 65th street, on 29th Street, in Dumbo, at the kiddie playground in Prospect Park, and on 19th Street where you drank hot chocolate as thick as batter and told me about the Indian dancer you once saw performing a traditional dance just down the street. It was a dance that required the dancer to take the evil goddess's spirit into her body and release it, you tell me, and she had do it three times before the dance could come to an end.

orinthology

2010-08-24T21:30:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I had the front window in my office open... I was looking at the sunset.

We recently discovered a nest of sparrows in the ivy outside the window.

This interests our cat Birdie greatly.

Last night Lily said she fears a bird will fly into the house. That'll never happen, I said.

Today I came home after work and flung open the windows to the great wild wind that had kicked up in the afternoon. I pulled out the Charlie Parker box set I had recently retrieved from storage in Brooklyn and had been waiting for the right moment to slip into, sat down at the typewriter, and began to type up edits on a couple of new poems.

Birdie, as always, sat out on the windowsill, getting some air. Just when the first of three takes of Orinthology from Parker's March 1946 session came on, the wind kicked up and blew an adjacent window shut and Birdie spooked and fell off the windowsill down onto the brick walk below. I bolted the house and scooped her up. She was shaken, a couple scrapes on the chin.

So I brought Birdie back upstairs, let her go in the house, and heard Juju in the office bashing around over the second take of Orinthology. But it wasn't Juju. It was a bird that had flown in the window. Luckily, it didn't take me long to shoo it out. Luckily, I got there before one of the cats got murderous.

Such a strange confluence of events, all these birds, misplaced, getting into spills, acting recklessly, all at once one afternoon.

Village Life

2010-08-22T13:05:00.005+02:00

It's been a week now, back in the village. A week looking at hills again. A week of windows without screens again. And church bells and nutty beer and wondering why everyone's talking German. The trees fat with apples. The poet beside me. And dancing. Summer playlist in my ears.

dominos, the big pink
tell 'em, sleighbells
toxic (dub step remix), yael naim
kiss the ring, raekwon
i think yr a contra, vampire weekend
latin simone, gorillaz
elephants, warpaint
congratulation, MGMT
dancehall queen, robyn
it's in everything, BLK JKS
hold ya, gyptian