I am on a train from Prague back to Vienna. I just passed a beautiful lake- it is a clear day and the light at this hour (5:15pm) is beautiful. Evie is sleeping, Jeffery is watching Avatar on his ipod. We splurged on first class tickets for this and it was worth every euro. Riding a train can be so civilized, relaxing and contemplative. Tomorrow, we will board a hydrofoil train and head to Bratislava, Slovakia. Will the 90 minute boat ride feel as good? This train ride feels a bit like a marathon at 5 hours but the comfort of a first class car, our traveling away from one new foreign city and back to another, makes it feel like we've really lived today. Traveling has its ups and downs, certainly but I want to savor it now for the days when I am in Winston Salem and feeling particularly frozen or landlocked in that space. I am moving on a fast speed train and I am loving it. I am eager to return to Vienna...
Vienna and Impulstanz are both magnificent. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of both though. How do I get back for another summer- teaching a class at Wake's Vienna program or somewhere else in Europe? Or both?
Today, the highlight of my Prague trip was this morning. We visited a beautiful convent in Prague, right by the Maximilian hotel where we stayed called Convent of St. Agnes. It is a convent that began in the mid-late 13th century by a woman named Agnes who defied the path of marrying into a political marriage that her father, king Wencellus of Bohemia had pre-determined for her. Instead, she organized the means to have a convent built. Nuns came from Asisi (Italy) and the convent served to help the poor and the sick. She was a bad ass, basically and I wonder how a blockbuster movie about her staring someone like Julia Ormond has not happened yet. Agnes is actually St. Agnes I think- as in a saint...and if not- she should be; after reading her short bio on the convent wall entrance, I feel compelled to read more. Her tomb is on the grounds of this convent now, as is a medevil art gallery with extensive biblical art paintings and sculptures from the 1200’s-1500’s. They are in surprisingly great shape and are beautifully displayed there; it is the largest medevil art collection in Europe. What is most magnificent though is the convent itself, which you can tour through for free.
Immediately, passing through these tall vaulted ceilings, stone and brick walls and wide open, sparce rooms did I think about making something for this space. It begs for a site specific performance. How do I get back there to do this? I am reeling, and am imagining the following ideas:
-somehow exploring the idea of piety in performance. what does pious mean?!
-how is there camaraderie amongst a group of women who are nuns?
-what does it mean to love and worship something or someone who you cannot see? How do you feel Him? React to his grace? Respond to his good will? How does this translate in a space with movement?
-how is movement like prayer? How is it ritualistic? How does it move from habitual to meditative?
-When is it done privately (even if someone is watching)? What does movement look like when it is communal and shared? How does the space and place transform in both of these scenarios?
-how does singing happen in that space (with its tall, domed ceilings that echo incredibly)? What is sung? Who sings? Why sing- how does God hear singing and respond to it?
-how do we tap into the spirit of Agnes and recreate her character in performance?
It’s amazing when a place speaks to you in a performative way. I don’t think this has happened to me before this morning. Immediately, I wanted to be in this space in a movement research way. Why a convent? I was so drawn to go there when we arrived in Prague yet I had no idea why. I remember as a young girl my mother showing me a picture of her friend Donna dressed in a nun's habit. I don't know why I saw this picture. Did I find it? Did we visit with her and then my mom showed me this? I knew Donna has a husband and children, though so what possessed her to lead a life as a nun and then leave it?
All of this site specificity is of course connected to Anna Teresa de Keersmaker’s work that I saw at the Odeon theatre in Vienna last week. ATdK and her company originally performed a piece in Avignon, at a particular historical site that had some sort of significance (which I am forgetting) and the dancers worked with musicians who played instruments and sang songs from mid evil times. It was so stunning. She is kind of a genius, I think. It was great to see the piece and then talk about resonant moments with Kathleen Hermesdorf and Lilly Dwyer, two SF dancers that I met (or re-met) with this past week. The space at the Odeon theatre was a large, open, pillared room with gargoyle-type figures at the ceiling. It was old, and worn yet still chiseled and intact. This space in the large theatre complex was modern in a way, even if it felt really old, too. That pretty much sums up Vienna to me, too. An example: the space had floor to ceiling windows that looked out to another apartment building whose tenants had a television set on for instance. What an interesting juxtaposition of old and new: musical instruments from the 1500's in a room that is dated probably 300 years later, with a 21st century television show in the background for those who noticed.
The piece used natural light in a phenomenal way. It was amazing to watch light literally disappear as the sun went further down and down until there was nothing left to see but a solo dancer in the space, naked; his sounds more visible than any movement. Basically- these dancers were so just so beautiful it was as though I knew I was experiencing something special and I kept getting tingly just thinking about it. A few memorable and particular structural notes:
-walking patterns from left to right and right to left, simple patterns, some more complex. Focus intense and direct with one another. Moments when dancers held hands with a light connection (almost courtly) and then a hand would leave this connection as the other dancer watched this, remaining in place.
-a line up of dancers from downstage to upstage, vertical and staring leftward. A series of different beginnings ensued, some doing the same thing, others leaving. Simple idea yet executed beautifully.
-dancers joined together to re-enact these moving sculptures. They repeated this, with their fronts changing, and we were treated to a new perspective. This made me feel like I was in a piazza and walking around a sculpture, examining it from many different viewpoints.
It just occurred to me that these structural ideas could be "starters" in the act of creating something new. Generating new material is not the hard part. Structuring it, organizing it, putting it together with multiple people ...is. I like the idea of starting with something that is so specifically structurally based. Force myself to organize whatever movement ideas I spit out within these structural parameters (or any, really, that one comes up with)...
It's like telling a choreographer that her movement, which is chicken, is acceptable but it must be grilled chicken with creamy risotto, blanched asparagus and orange-infused beets. Go- make the meal.
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