Too cold to sleep

I am awake because it is too cold to sleep
I am awake because there is something burning in my brain: there must be a way. There must be. Muß es geben?
Es muß geben! Es muß geben! Es muß geben!

* * *

2007: A number of things have happened/are happening. Last week I went to Macau for a 4 day dance improv workshop with Makoto Matsushima and Toru Iwasita. It was wonderful for a number of reasons…

On the first day we did some sensory awareness stuff. Very basic stuff – slowing down to an awareness of the air molecules on the surface of our skin. Walking around the Macau Cultural Center and listening to our footsteps echo around the corridor.

And then to my surprise, I found myself filled with thoughts of creation… "If I opened a film with just a soundtrack of footsteps… I wonder how long I could sustain an audience with just the sound and no image?" … "That slope of water is just asking for a dance improv…"

I say surprised because of two reasons. One, because it was like coming across a lost sock. It's not that I had been overly aware of losing this odd sock, but on stumbling across it, had the feeling of "Oh, there you are. Someone's been waiting for you all this time in my drawer."

Second, because it made me realise how important creating is for me. I don't know how many people when they come across a place think of its potential as a place to dance. Or think about how they can make it into a film. And whether it is something that has been honed in me out of my training these past 5 years or something fundamental to my character in this life, it seems that creating is of something very very close to the bone.

* * *

The other thing that has been happening is that Jacek Luminski is coming to visit HK. For those of you who are not so familiar with Jacek, he is the dance teacher I followed to Bytom (Poland) for a year, and in an odd way, one of the reasons I am at the place I am now with movement.

So I owe him big time, and there's stuff in his work which I really believe is worth sharing, which is why I am trying to bring the Silesian Dance Theatre over, and connecting Jacek up with the local artists here to see if there can be some more long term exchange between Bytom and HK. And in the process of doing so, I have an excuse to get to know the people inside the circle of performing arts.

It really is a very small circle. Makoto, whom I took class with in Macau with, asked me over noodles, "So, do you do solo shows?"
I said, "Well, I'm just starting out in HK, but right now I am working with Theatre du Pif."
"Du Pif? Bonni and Sean? I worked with them!"
Ah, of course… I knew they were working with a Japanese dancer for the Murakami elephant show.. I just hadn't connected the dots up.

And for whatever quirk of fate, Jacek bumped into Victor Ma of Y-Space in Calcutta a couple of years ago. So I had been meaning to contact Victor, but it was only until I went to a Contact Jam in Y-Space that I dropped by his office and talked to him. And once I started talking to Victor and Mandy, things started to fall into place in a way that they hadn't so smoothly with CCDC and APA.

* * *

After a few days of phones and e-mails flying around, the flyer for Jacek's lecture/masterclasses is ready. I print the two A5 sized pages side by side on an A4 and look at it. This flyer has good energy. This visit is going to go well. No matter what happens, I have poured time and dedication to this; and was supported en route by numerous people.

On the minibus I call the Salvation Army Guesthouse. It is $150 per night than when they last quoted it for me and there is space. Yes!

* * *

It's 3:04am. I wake up, partly because of the cold, but also because I had been dreaming about making a business card for Burnt Mango and they had quoted me a sum of $1000 to make a huge stack. And someone said in my dream, "It's a bit too soon/it's unnecessary for you to make a card so soon.

And from there for some reason I started thinking about putting on a show. Previously I had been wondering: how do I mount my own show. My god, who is going to come? And then I realised. You know what? I just have to make good work and then people will help me. I have enough friends, Bonni, Victor, Sam Ho zi, etc; that if I make a piece of work and it is any good, they can help me launch it.

Or even if I wanted to launch it myself but couldn't fill an evening, I can write to the various contact lists and post an e-mail: "I need to create so I am thinking of putting together a show together at the Fringe. Anyone else who has this dire need to create contact me and if your show is any good/a good match we'll bill all of them on the same night."

When there is a will there is a way. Somehow. Anyhow. And now.

In the insanity of not-yet dawn anything is possible.

__________________________________

> More info on Luminski's visit can be found here