So last night I wrote this blog for like two hours at my Grandpa's house.I deleted the thing before I got a chance to post it.By accident.Shit happens, uh?To tell the truth I never liked the thing in the first place.I started off by explaining that I just felt obligated to start a blog.
'Chungking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon,' it read.That is how it started off.And really, now that I look back on my unsatisfactory blog, that really was how it all started for me.
That first day, I admit, I did not know how to feel.I think it was an element of culture shock to tell the truth.Nolan and I found each other just fine at HK International.My plane arrived about 25 minutes before his.He was easy to spot—the only other kid wearing a backpack besides me.
Upon exiting our cab a rush of people swarmed around trying to lure us into their hostel or hotel.'No thankyou' is something you needed a screaming voice for right from the start.Our hostel was nice.It had AC, a private B-room (we didn't pay for), and an extra bed (we didn't pay for either).
Chungking Mansions is a massive building, if it is even considered just one building in the first place.It had blocks.Li's Hostel had us located in E Block.The place is damn lively!The multicultural hustle-n-bustle in that historic old place is awakening at the least!Apparently, a very popular place among travelers over the years.I should have taken that second man's offer to smoke the hashish for free.He was nice, you think he was dangerous, but he was a very kind traveler, he and his brother.At any rate, I did take the beer.
The shower, sink, and toilet in our room came as an all-in-one kind of deal with no door, only a cardboard piece to try and keep the water inside the thing.Strange at first it seemed to us westerners but quite practical now that I can agree with it.
HK really grew on me this time around.That is one of the points of this message, you know.If it's worth saying, I am a little dizzy off some cheap Chinese booze.Poor man's liqueur is what I am used to calling it.We spent enough money on expensive drinks that one night in Macau.We ran into some HK kids that lead us there.A nice place, I gotta say, very sparkly.Chinese seem to like things looking sparkly.Anyways, whenever you pulled a new cigarette from your pocket a person in uniform would somehow be RIGHT THERE to light your cig before you could even bring the thing to your lips properly.We got shit-faced that night.
So now I am in Guangzhou (Canton), where most Chinese people that I know in California originated from.For some reason today I have been noticing how people are the same, not how they are different.So far, trip totaled, I've caught three women crying, two couples arguing (or not getting along in some way… having an intense conversation or something), and one very obnoxious (thus amusing) group of drunk girls. It may sound silly, but I can see myself in all of these people in each of these groups.
It's been a damn good night tonight.Our riverside hostel in Guangzhou is much nicer than I expected.The nearby street-food (hot pot & BBQ) is delicious.Tomorrow I will get to see the river by daylight. Guilin the next day and many bicycle rides!
I'm not sure where I've rambled throughout this blog, nor am I sure how content I will be with this blog after I've posted it.But I think I will do it anyway.I may be ever-so-slightly intoxicated, but I am inspired.Good conversations and good conclusions tonight.
In pondering the events coming and the events already come, I’ve decided to post a few videos from China.
Somewhere along the Yangtze, village boatmen paddled then heaved us up the Shennong Stream. Word got around that one of them was a local singer. We requested that he stop his labor to sing us a song. This is what we got:
Macau:
In Macau we ate at a Hot Pot place. This is something they delivered to our table. I’m not usually accustomed to my food still moving while it rests on my plate!
Me getting harassed by a merchant:
Riding on Grandpa Ken’s "putt-putt" through Macau. My first motor-scooter ride:
If it wasn’t for the lights, I probably would have missed it. As it was, I drove back and forth past it three times, wondering if I was in the right place. From the outside, it looked more like a warehouse than a theatre, but after I parked, I saw an unlit sign on the roof: California Stage. It seemed I had found it. Now I just had to figure out where the entrance was. I followed a group of people who looked similarly confused through the wrong entrance, and we were led past a different stage, back outside, and around to the correct door.
We filed into the small and sparse black-painted theater, where the actors were already sitting onstage with their backs to the audience, moving slowly and rhythmically to a recording of the sound of ocean waves.
It was a good idea I had no idea what to expect from The First Thread, because anything I could have expected would have been way off. As the music started, the performers sprung into action, and proceeded to move and tumble across the floor for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Expressing the agony of indecision with only their bodies and facial expressions, they surprised the audience with their unorthodox antics, such as climbing around on the chairs in the front row. Defying the linear storytelling of traditional theater, this emotionally-laden movement piece grabbed its audience on a more visceral level. Indeed, charting new terrain in unconventional theater is what Sacramento Theatre Experiment does best. It was founded five years ago by artistic director Nick Avdienko, who was, as he says, "fed up with traditional theater." In emphasizing the experimental nature of the group, he notes: "We play. We take traditional theater and bend the rules as much as we can." Performer Christine Crapotta adds that STE tries to recapture the "luster" theater originally had in its inception centuries ago, by seeking unique ways of "delving into what creates the various layers of the human condition."
For instance, The First Thread was inspired by a photograph of a man sitting alone on a beach. As the director and performers discussed the photograph, they came to the conclusion that the man was trying to make a difficult decision. According to the program, they "were interested in exploring the decision-making process of an individual battling their inner demons in order to come to the point of making the decision to commit a horrible act." In the brainstorming process, they focused specifically on a father’s decision to throw his child off a bridge in cold blood: what would make a person come to that decision? During the performance, each actor represents an aspect of that person’s psyche during that decision-making process. And it is only the process that is revealed, with the outcome left to the audience’s imagination.
The First Thread is also unique in that it is the first piece entirely written by STE. (Perhaps "written" would be the wrong word, as there is no dialogue.) This was a truly collaborative effort, in which each member of the group actively participated in the creative process. Although there is in fact a "script" of sorts, there was also a significant amount of improvisation, giving the STE actors a freedom not enjoyed in traditional theater. "It allows the performer to grow," Nick explains. "Each performance gets stronger." Performer Tobe Daranouvong elaborates: "I think it’s so much more liberating working this way than in traditional theater. You have point A and point B, and you have to get to point B somehow; in traditional theater, it’s ’I want you to walk this way, I want you to have this expression, I want you to do this.’ Here, it’s so much more organic, it feels like it’s ours." His co-performer Jennifer Fong agrees. "You can call this what we do anti-realism, because we’re not depicting something that should be real. But I find this [STE] truly real, because what we do is us, and the movements are all us. We haven’t been trained to make these movements…The things that we do are coming straight from us. It’s not us acting, we’re really not acting. So it’s actually more real than realism."
STE will be holding auditions in April for a new show in October. Nick predicts their next experiment will be something similar to The First Thread: "I think we found something here we want to keep on exploring." For more information on these upcoming auditions and performances, check out www.beyond-pro.org or myspace.com/sac-theatre-experiment.
Having the ability to think freely is something that we all share. No matter how individual each of us are, there is something that connects us all—the ability to make our own decisions.
Our art symbolizes our minds and invents history. As artists, we create change. As artists we create movements.
Sacramento Theatre Experiment explores the inner-workings of the mind when faced with making a life-changing decision. Our show, The First Thread, takes a unique look at one soul in conflict whether it be you, me, or mankind.
Performance art re-defined.
Please come see us. Please support new work.
What: The First Thread Where: California Stage, 1723 25th St (& R St), downtown Sacramento When: 8pm every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from now until March 16th (one Sunday matinee at 2pm) Why: your intuitive mind tells us to transcend traditional American theatre and start a revolution.
Sac News & Review jocks us :)
Current mood: Proud of STE
Body language
The First Thread
By Patti Roberts
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Beyond the Proscenium Productions: getting physical.
The First Thread, 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee on March 16; $12-$15. Beyond the Proscenium Productions at California Stage, 1723 25th Street. (916) 456-1600; www.beyondthe proscenium.org. Through March 16.
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When local experimental theater group Abandon Productions disbanded a couple years ago, we missed their unique, bold, physically led performances. Stepping into that void is Beyond the Proscenium Productions with their newest offeringThe First Thread—a fascinating, movement-driven production that examines emotions through physical dynamics instead of spoken words.
There is no dialogue in the short hour-and-a-quarter piece. Instead, the seven-member cast, titled the Sacramento Theatre Experiment (STE), is driven by simple sounds of waves or eclectic music that ranges from ethereal and haunting to jarring, pulsating beats. The troupe's movements vary from gentle and graceful to athletic and violent as they work to emote feelings of loneliness, isolation, joy, playfulness, rage and peace.
STE creator Nick Avdienko workshopped The First Thread with his performers, resulting in a collaborative, cohesive effort. The seven-member troupe started out with a simple picture of a man sitting alone on the beach, and together they experimented and explored ways of translating moments and meanings through movement.
The cast is already in place when the audience files in, the members sitting stoically with their backs to the crowd. The seven, dressed in blacks and browns, begin to sway back and forth to the sounds of crashing waves. What follows is sometimes elegant, other times brutal.
The small setting at California Stage lends an intimate feeling—a black-walled theater with no props except for a white box and in a later piece, black and red scarves.
Thought the show is rather short, it would actually be more powerful if cut by about 10 minutes, eliminating a couple of the middle numbers that lag in energy or feel padded on. Regardless, the end result is a captivating, innovative production offered up by a talented troupe of physically creative performers.
A company created piece set in isolation on a beach facing the ocean. The script explores the thought process of making a life-altering decision using various movement styles.
The First Thread is the second production in BPP's 2007-08 Season.
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Well, they're at it again! Our sister company Sacramento Theatre Experiment (STE) is busy rehearsing for their newest movement play The First Thread. After performing three dynamic shows in BPP's 2005-06 Season, the wacky group is back to show us what they've been cooking up.
The First Thread is unique because STE created the entire show. Main themes include: How do we balance our public, private and ideal lives? How do social forces drive us to make dramatic, life-altering decisions? How do we arrive at a mental clarity that guides us to make the "right choice"?
Nick has been prepping the company with intense movement training, including Viewpoints, gymnastics, dance technique and even sprints across the parking lot. This world premiere features seven young actors, one square cube, a jazz-inspired musical composition, and even aerial suspension...
If you're on myspace, add STE to your friends for special promotions and the latest show updates. To view more behind-the-scenes photos, check out STE's myspace website: myspace.com/sac_theatre_experiment
Also, keep an eye out for these "street thespians" in Midtown Sacramento at the next Second Saturday Art Walk, February 9th!
This world premiere plays Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm from February 15th to March 16th at California Stage, 1723 25th Street, Sacramento. There will be one Sunday matinee at 2:00 pm on March 16th. All ages welcome.
Tickets are $15 general and $12 for seniors, students and SARTA members. Seating is limited, so tickets will sell out. To reserve your tickets email beyondpro@sbcglobal.net.
Beyond the Proscenium Productions (BPP) is a nonprofit theatre company that has consistently brought a maverick approach to making theatre in Sacramento producing over 30 regional premieres and over 17 new works of theatre since 1994.
We are currently seeking new members for our Board of Directors. Get involved in this exciting theatre arts organization! Please email us a letter of interest.
I'd always known that '07 was my year. I'd been waiting for it forever. I am a golden boar, of course. And near the end here, I had started to get worried that the end of '07 would bring my demise. I'm not sure exactly what I mean when I say that, but I do mean it. I worried that I would reverse. That's what I mean. I had this funny feeling and invisioned myself reverting back to old habbits and feelings and, well, feeling bad about it. I imagined me feeling stuck. Dissappointed.
But then. It hit me. I was wrong. '08 is the last year of my childhood. It's funny to say that. I don't know why, but I feel this way. After next year I will be grown up. Thus, '08 is a year of growing up. I don't mean maturing or gettin' my shit together, per say. I feel it is an inevitable thing that will happen that I will be intrinsically aware of. But you know what. I'm glad. Can you believe it--I'm glad! Crazy.
So here's what I'm really trying to say. I won't feel "stuck" in '08 because I will be moving forward in this vehicle headed for grown. There are already some amazing plans. I will travel in this vehicle. And for the first time in my life I feel certain that upon return from my travels, things will never be the same. And this is something I look forward to.
Symphony of Rats; 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday until April 21, with 2pm matinees on April 15 and 22; $12-$15. California Stage, 1723 25th (& R) Street; (916) 456-1600 or www.beyond-pro.org.
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Can you really go wrong staging a play about a high government official gone bonkers, and doing the show within a mile of the state Capitol? If the logic were really that simple, it wouldn't have taken nearly 20 years for someone to stage New York experimentalist Richard Foreman's Symphony of Rats in Sacramento.
In any case, Nick Avdienko, artistic director of the spunky Beyond the Proscenium Productions, has his own interpretation in mind. "I didn't want to copy Foreman's production style," Avdienko says in the program notes.
Foreman has been cited, by no less than the New York Times, for his "nonlinear tableaus about the unconscious mind." This show's wild and wooly in that regard. It's an interplanetary voyage with golf clubs, a pogo stick and a woman who walks on the ceiling. Symphony of Rats makes Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot look like a data-driven whodunit. Foreman's also known for deliriously decorated sets, but this local show has a black-box approach.
What Avdienko has done--and really done quite well--is turn an unconventional script that challenges almost every convention of storytelling into an absorbing, diverting, shape-shifting 75 minutes of theater. And he's done it with modest resources.
In the center of it all is veteran actor Blair Leatherwood, playing a president who hears voices, which could be coming from outer space. Leatherwood is deliciously deranged, and he's surrounded by an ensemble of younger performers.
If you want to know if the show makes sense, you're posing the wrong question. It gets you at an intuitive level. It's also highly physical and fun. And Avdienko, who's a composer, plays with music and sound layered with movement. Very interesting.
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Nonlinear success story
Richard Foreman's Symphony of Rats wins a national resurgence and a local premiere!
That's one way to frame a photo. Blair Leatherwood peers through his co-stars, Shandah Freih and Tobe Daranouvong, in Symphony of Rats.
Related stories this week: Symphony of Rats If you want to know if Beyond the Proscenium Productions' new show makes sense, you're posing the wrong question.
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Richard Foreman recently enjoyed the distinction of being dubbed "the emperor of New York experimental theater" by the New York Times. He's been challenging the status quo since 1968, when he established his Ontological-Hysteric Theater. He'll turn 70 in June, and he's still going strong.
"I make very controversial art," Foreman said, matter-of-factly, in a phone interview with SN&R. Case in point: Foreman's 1988 political play Symphony of Rats, about an American president who thinks he's seeing flying saucers. When Symphony of Rats premiered, Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Foreman insists he wasn't depicting any particular leader, but acknowledged that the play is experiencing a nationwide resurgence during George W. Bush's second term--including Sacramento's first-ever production, currently running at California Stage. (See review on this page.)
Symphony of Rats deals with a president who could be going crazy. The part of the president originally was written for Willem Dafoe. "Then Willem got a film and wasn't available," Foreman recalled. "Ron Vawter got the role, so I rewrote it directed toward Ron."
Foreman may have gotten some scathing reviews through the decades, as well as being blasted by bloggers who say his unconventional scripts don't make sense, but on the whole he's a satisfied guy. "I've done my plays for 40 years and have been well supported," he said. He's won five Obie Awards, bestowed by the Village Voice for off-Broadway theater, and he gets covered by the major New York press.
The New York Times recently called Foreman's current show in the Big Apple, Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! Your Unconscious Mind Is Dead!, a "dazzling exercise in reality-shifting." The show was just extended for three weeks.
Foreman told SN&R that his creative process involves writing "a little bit every day, having lots of pages. I don't know where it's coming from. When the time comes to make a play, I look for something provocative, then find other pages that go with it."
A linear plot is not his goal. "I've often said that stories hide the truth, which gets people's hackles up," he said. "They say stories are the basis of everything. I don't think so. Stories capture us in the narrative line, but make us blind to the beauties by the roadside." Foreman compares what he does to "theme and variation in music, or 20th century poetry."
"If you're reading a poem by Wallace Stevens, you're not reading a story," he added. "Moment by moment, you're savoring the twists and turns of the human mind as it confronts the world."
For those of you that came to support MedEia, thankyou. For those of you that did not, here's a recap:
For all of you, please come see Symphony of Rats. Opens March 23rd, 8pm, at the California Stage, 25th & R St. Every Thursday through Saturday 'til April 21st. (Sunday matinees April 15th & 22nd.)
So they say that time heals. Heals all wounds. But time doesn't do that. It doesn't heal. Time helps, but it does not heal. CHANGE heals. And change is only made if you act on the notion. We all get a grip at some point and decide that we need to change and that we're tired of bullshit. And we all realize that rock bottom was actually not rock bottom. So they also say that things get worse before they ever get better. But how much worse, we wonder? It gets so confusing in that dark tunnel you wonder if the light at the end of it is getting farther away as you get closer to it. Like, "Mommy, why is the moon following us?" Is it moving? Is that a light or just a hallucination?
It comes down to the glass, doesn't it? You know the one. The one that is either half full or half empty. Well? Which is it then? It fluxuates, I know. I'm starting to think that maybe we are the glasses. You gotta care about the glass sometime. Someone said to me recently "Maybe God wasn't trying to give you a vanity test. Maybe he was trying to get you to love yourself."
They also say one more thing. They say that you can't love anybody else if you don't love yourself. Existance, if it were an entity itself, larger than you, is in you. If you love something, love yourself, as well. It's often not easy. And the glass is often half empty. But balance it out. It feels like the harder path is the dark path, but it isn't. You already knew all this. And so did I. Don't fool you, be true to you.
Imagine a place. All kind of music, art and photo galleries, comedy acts, dance performances, the national roller derby games, carnival rides, foot-long corn-dogs, knitting classes, perfect weather and a space needle! A place for everyone and anyone. Seattle is fun with...
Jamie Lidell
Man rockin' bag pipes on the sidelines with a drummer.
Synth Club (including member Reggie Watts, multi-talented man)
Gohk-Bi System (African hip-hop group, my favorite... haha, look at this dude's eyes...)
If you look very very closely, you will see a tiny faint green spec of a person on the left side of the stage... that's Blondie :)
This dude was just SO happy
Dee Dee, The Rainbow Lady
Street art
Balloon art
More art
Art, art and art gazers
Nature's art
Our art
Rides
My torn apart feet (notice something in the upper right corner)
