Sunday, March 22, 2009

Grupo Corpo gives a big grin

Grupo Corpo — handout photo
Saw Grupo Corpo, a Brazilian dance troupe perform two pieces at the National Arts Centre Friday evening.

It was obvious the second piece, Breu, was being sold as the more noteworthy — dystopic as it was.
However, I found the first piece, from which the photo above was taken, the most compelling, partially because Breu relied on many similar moves already seen in the piece prior.

Also, the first piece was much more witty; Breu's choreography made it an event occurring on stage for the other dancers while the first, titled 7 or 8 pieces for ballet, was directly engaging of the audience.

Some audience members obviously tried to find the same intimacy in Breu as a few scattered weird and inappropriate laughs scattered during the piece indicated; this failed and it just added to the strain of watching the piece, despite its technical interest. Breu was simply emotionally disappointing — particularly after the emotion brilliance that preceded it.

So let us talk about 7 or 8 pieces; I thought the ballet I saw weeks ago was breathtaking at the time, now I know it was a pale piece on which to use such a word. This piece,  performed by this troupe, iswhere athleticism and beauty soar. I was instinctively looking for meaning in the piece but eventually gave up and let myself be swept away. The vividly striped pants, warmly full-lit stage reflect the childish whimsy of the piece. How the dancers were able to coordinate their movements so minutely — well, one must look to that magical instinct that can occur on a stage among artists who have given themselves over, letting their muscles and innate rhythms flow, feeling each other perfectly. It was brilliant.

One woman in the troupe, whose name I do not know, stood out. We oft hear the phrase "she moved like water"; this woman literally did. She subtly emphasized the latin assumption behind the strenuous piece and was sensuousness embodied, with all its joy and coyness, undulating her hips across the stage.

Ah. I will see them again. Just not Breu. More whimsy, please.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Oh, Betty

Am so jazzed to finally get to meet Betty Brown, so named by friend Carlos after he kindly went and got her for me. Betty was in Toronto, but the right size (it's hard to find a step-through for a woman over 5'8") and I was in Ottawa. Super Carlos came to my aid and gavde her that noxious name which has, sadly, stuck.

Since then, two other Toronto friends have seen her: Dave stored it in his storage locker, Mark picked it up and hauled it to his cottage, Mark's mother drove it from their cottage to Ottawa to drop it off in my dad's garage next door.

All these people have seen my bike but I have waited until the optimum moment for introduction. Methinks that shall occur this week.

When she goes for a tune I will have to procure a basket. Trés éxcitant.

Thoughts: wicker or black mesh basket?

Friday, March 13, 2009

Coincidentally

After a lovely yoga class today (bendy! bendy!) I decided to chop my hair off. In my search for my scissors I sat down at my desk to rummage through a drawer and found a link to a video of these charming ladies singing a medley of their least-favourite songs.

C o i n c i d e n t a l l y I rather like the short haircut sported by woman on left. And, they're funny. I am now smiling even more than was post-yoga-endorphined-glowed. aka pyog. Not to be confused with being pog-ed.

So my hair will not be cut by moi today as that cut, illustrated on the left of this video, requires someone with the ability to see the back of my head. More time for dinner concocting/cooking.


Medley from Riki Lindhome on Vimeo.

Here's another video by them, about making the Present Face (note actors included who now appear in How I Met Your Mother and my fave The Big Bang Theory. Sadly, not Sheldon. I <3 Sheldon 'cause he makes me seem less pedantic. teehee. )
Present Face Final from Erika Lindhome on Vimeo.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I miss South Africa

Saw Tshepang tonight with a friend, a play written and directed by Lara Foot Newton, notably a white South African with much theatrical repute. It was not what my friend expected, despite warnings.

My friend was horrified and mostly baffled by the play. She could not wrap her head around its subject matter; that life is not fair was "too abstract," she said after some discussion as we hunted for her car in the poorly signed NAC parking garage.

It is very hard, as a caucasian Canadian, to comprehend that this kind of violence exists in the world. It is also very hard to understand that many people's reality is so much different from what we experience every day. I find it hard and I have lived there, seen it, experienced some of it and grew up in a family with cosmopolitan experience, able to share the many shades of grey and evil in the world. But I am still a white Canadian with a comfortable life in a very, very rich country.

Before I go into the contents of the play, I must say that those who are disturbed by such things should not read on. Though, I think, being disturbed and uncomfortable is a good thing and you should.

We are told in PR materials playwright Newton wrote the play in reaction to news stories of a child, renamed Tshepang by hospital nurses, who had been brutally raped and then left to die in a veld in the Western Cape of RSA. I told my friend of this before we went to see the play ; she is the sort who is wounded when puppy dogs are spoken to harshly.

What I completely forgot to tell my friend was that the child was nine-months old. I forgot to do this because when I was living in South Africa such news reports were not uncommon. My friend was so shocked by this kind of violence she, literally, could not get her head around it.

Most instances of child rape are not reported in South Africa. We are told by the play that 20,000 children are raped every year. We are not told the source of this number (obviously) nor how "children" is defined.

I do not have access to numbers at present but I know, during my time there, it was understood most female Zulu children would be raped before they reached the age of 12. While there, I held a five-year-old boy in my arms whose body was covered in scar tissue from being lit on fire during a political party fight in a village, who had been raped and as result was now HIV positive. That I was eventually able to make him trust me enough to smile and play with me is forever burned into me.

I was also made familiar with the cavalier attitude of many within the police force/establishmnt and made intimately familiar with the cavalier and violent attitude of certain men (and women) towards the sanctity of a woman's body — even the men alongside whom I worked in NGOs and legislatures. And I heard from women and girls who accepted this, the misogyny behind it and its other permutations, as part of their life.

We have also all heard the stories — or I thought we had — of a certain belief that having sex with a virgin would prevent the instance of what we term HIV or AIDS. I write "what we term" because until recently RSA had a president who refused to acknowledge the disease accurately. Without such acknowledgment, health information and public health programs could not be effectively implemented. NGOs and CBOs struggling to change deeply held views came up against warped policies, let alone public participation and economic realities.

It would also be shortsighted and idiotic to see violence only among a certain population. Blacks, coloureds, whites are violent across cultural boundaries and the violence we can comprehend from our homes in Canada is only a fraction of the systemic, visceral normalization of practised violence and economics deprivations that have gone on for decades in South Africa, often by political groups later canonized by western powers and media.

Playwright Newton points at endemic drinking and patriarchy/misogyny as the cause of this particular rape. I was surprised to not see more discussion about the cause of such instances, nor the commonality of such and political inaction. Particularly as the final message seems to be one of "hope" (as Tshepang translates to in English) and a quiet spurring to action. Though there is some pointing at how the remote village's shame brought media attention and, with it, much transient largesse, there is no questioning of larger issues and what people who should be held accountable.

Applause must be given to Mncedisi Shabangu who, as narrator Simon, spoke all but maybe five words in this very difficult play. He was comic, dramatic, grounded and compelling. He was human, vacillating between emotions normally; one minute revealing his erectile dysfunction, the other making jokes about dogs then telling of giving Jesus a sister as comfort for a beaten friend.

It is unclear why the role of Ruth, the mother of Tshepang, was even cast. She was mute most of the time and though seeing her face was interesting and probably made reaction easier for Shabangu in his role, theatrically the narrator could have carried the play without Ruth. And, I believe, Shabangu could have well carried off this play on his own.

It seems trite to criticize anything in a play of such subject matter — however, what small problems there were came with some periods of shouting upstage where his voice was lost. This was unfortunate because he did create an intimate environment and those moments brought the fourth wall into existence.

That Shabangu is skilled showed in his ability to use stage props — a wooden broom and a loaf of bread — to re-enact the disturbing rape of the infant, shocking many in the audience to tears and silence, and then emerge to regain the intimate trust of the audience in the telling of the story.

He was even able to keep the audience engaged through far too much scripted use of Xhosa and later Afrikaans — two of the 11 official languages of RSA. I am sure the vast majority of the audience understood neither opening night, let alone which language was being spoken and also missed the intended socioeconomic meaning behind the use of each language. It is a clunky device and though very relevant to RSA audiences, lost to others. Though hearing those languages, the accent and references to melktarts made my heart sing — with joy and a reaffirmation echo of how each of us must be part of a "solution."

Many were moved to tears as Simon finally unpacked the violence at which he'd been hinting during the first half of the play. I was so moved, prepared as I was, when Simon finally told us of the young pimply-faced paramedic weeping beside the unconscious, ripped-open body of Tshepang.

It is a difficult play to see because of its content, an important one for we complacent North Americans, though our fear and shock is safe in the hands of the gentle character Simon crafted by Shabangu and Newton, who looks out at us, crying, asking and demanding, at the end of the play.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Reminder

I may seem in a good mood, but this is only because the five-day crying jags for no reason at all seem to be abating. This was due to the accumulation of prednisone in my system. But now I am being weaned off it. yay.

So, though I may seem cheerful and frolicsome I am actually in a right pissy mood because I am *not* in Costa Rica, nor Brazil as was planned, due to the blasted eye and ensuing evil prednisone. And it has made me circular. And weepy. And in incessant need of oranges. All of which makes me not cheerful.

Though this will soon be over.

Two weeks and then there will be booze and scads of cardio when my heart stops beating a million times a freakin' scintilla.

teehee. I am so excited.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Scrabble Cheater

Scrabble keyboard from Datamancer.net
I lied. There is no such Scrabble-magick gadget in this post. But if such things matter to you this keyboard might be more than intriguing.
Made by Richard R. Nagy, aka Datamancer, who specializes in creating bespoke steampunked laptops and keyboards — think current technology conceived aesthetically via the Victorian era, made this Scrabble keyboard for some enthusiasts. The keyboard uses actual, aged Scrabble tiles on a brushed aluminum casing for a Mac-feel with a slightly industrial twist. Yes, it works.
There's something appealing about a wooden keyboard, like the difference between playing a piano with ivory vs plastic keys.
Sadly, this was intended as a one-off piece but given "overwhelmingly positive" response Datamancer is looking into the legal implications of using the Scrabble tiles before putting a bunch into production. I recommend getting on the mailing list to be kept abreast.
There is no price listed for this keyboard but his other ones, often featuring aged wood like the Von Slatt keyboard pictured at left, scavenged typewriter keys, copper or severe aluminum, can run upwards of $1,200 U.S.
It's a pretty cool job.
Check out his site for inspiration for your own custom design.
• Scrabble and other bespoke steampunk keyboards, upwards of $1,200 U.S., Datamancer.net