Italy 1 - Rome

Our Italy trip started with a visit to Rome...



To see Adam and Sarah...



We stayed with them at the American Academy...







It was hot, so we took turns in one of the Academy's fountains... the ladies with their hats...



The men not photographed with their gin and tonics. Rome's easy like that.


At the Villa, the ladies looked fetching in the light...




Sarah's new book had just been given a well-deserved rave by the Times, so everyone was buzzing...




Adam had little trouble being talked out of another day in the studio to walk us around...






It was hot, so we met up with Isadora and Jon (in town before their Poland tour) for gelato...



and dinner, which Jon LOVED...




One great thing about walking Rome with Sarah is that she's fluent in Latin, so she can translate all the inscriptions...



Rome was great at night... for trees and sky... for lights...

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.