The Final Week

The picture is a screen grab from the climax of "Utazo (The Traveler)," my Hungarian dance-for-camera. The show is this Sunday and I am very, very ready for it to be here. Performing is one thing; choreographing is one thing; directing is one thing; but marketing and pushing for ticket sales, sending out press packets, etc, is a very hard, full-time job. I understand why so many small dance companies have trouble staying afloat when they are only one person trying to push their work and put butts in seats.

That being said, I'm finished with all of the pieces, done with costumes and am only looking for a couple of props. I had a rehearsal with my six-year-old today who asked me, "Why do we have to rehearse? Why can't we just DO the piece." I wish it could be so, but we're almost there, and rehearsals have been surprisingly easy-going and enjoyable despite my nerves.

Now people just need to show up and things will be all right. San Diego is a very last-minute city I've found. People don't like to commit to anything, they just show up. While this is fine most of the time - small performances don't sell out, it's nerve-wracking when you don't know if anyone will be at your show or not. I just want the assurance and have to learn to live with a certain amount of uncertainty.

Good news is that a dance company in Richmond, Virginia, Z Mullins Dance, is going to show "Utazo (The Traveler)" at their March concert. I am ecstatic to have my work shown on the East Coast. I'm hoping this might be just the beginning.

Other news...John and I finally became grown-ups together and bought a living room suite for each other for Christmas. It's a nice little set with dark wood arms and straight back, soft beige suede cushions, coffee table, end tables and a matching chair. It's funny what a high a big purchase can put you on. I walked out of the store hopping up and down and talking a mile a minute. The last time I did that was after I bought my laptop.

Christmas has actually been really fun this year. We put up a beautiful little tree and I got my shopping done early. Today I mailed out gifts to my new in-laws and I only have a few cards left to send. John and I were on a Christmas movie/Christmas music kick. We spent a marathon watching tongues on telephone poles, "You'll put your eye out," Cary Grant as an angel, Bishop's wives ice skating, George C. Scott yelling "Bah! Humbug!" and "God bless us every one..." We haven't seen the Grinch yet (the old, wonderful cartoon), or Rudolph or "It's a Wonderful Life..." there are a lot of good holiday films out there. "Elf" was the newest one in which we partook. As much as I don't want to like Will Ferrell in anything, I think he's charming, and Bob Newhart is a wonderful "Papa Elf."

John and I went to see The Roches sing a holiday concert with two friends the other night. These three sisters are incredible a cappella singers, their most famous holiday tune is a three-part arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus. It's incredible. John came home and ordered their holiday album and it put us on a rash of Christmas songs. My two favorites are "Carol of the Bells" and "Sleigh Ride." John loves "Silver Bells" and "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues. It's funny: I haven't a religious bone in my body but there's something about Christmas music in December that makes me giddy.

Right now? Watching SVU and sitting in betwen my cat and my husband. I only have two more weeks of these pleasures. I need to soak them up.

Dance Weekend

John and I spent the whole weekend seeing and supporting dance. We haven't done that in a while and it was nice to take the time, get a little dressed up, and see what San Diego dancers are doing. We saw "One to Echo on Friday night, a curated show by Bound Contemporary Dance with A.S. Peterson Dance, Buffy Swallow, Amanda Waal and a video by Company of Strangers (edited my Monica Gillette, who was one of the dancers in Love and Murder lo those couple of years ago).

On Saturday we went to the Butterworth Dance fundraiser called "The Happening." They had a silent auction and performed a few of their pieces along with a piece by a new company called Tangocentric. John won me a beautiful brown beaded necklace to go with my new obsession with brown. I wore black for so long and it seems the tides are shifting. Don't know what that says about my emotional state, but it sure is spicing up my wardrobe.

We were supposed to see Allyson Green and Nadine George's site-specific work as well, but we got the dates mixed up and thought it was tonight instead of last night. I don't know what it is about John and I making plans together and our inability to properly read calendars; it only seems to happen when we're together. I was sad to miss the performance, but glad that I went to Butterworth, supported Molly Terbovich, who is one of my performers on the 17th, and ate some good grub.

Favorite moments of the two evenings? Amanda Waal, in a more extended version of a piece I saw during a "Ray at Night," rolling on her side and releasing a tiny red balloon into the air, her soul passing, and then later throwing lanky, fluid movement through a sound-score made up of different people discussing the last things they saw before they died. The three dancers in Alicia Peterson's piece finally coming together in a satisfying bit of unison after sitting in incongruous juxtaposition for so long. Monica Gillette's mad editing skills in making Hassan Christopher look as if he was doing one movement in three different places without stopping. (I've watched John put those moments together in the editing room; I know what kind of intuition that clarity takes). Jillian Chu's choreography. Period.

Twon's deep, M.C. voice. The fluidity and togetherness of Traves Butterworth's dancers, a lovely bit of dragon imagery in "Silk Road," Seeing Jessica Reed perform again. Getting caught by a board member as I stood guard over my necklace at the silent auction. BDC's espresso cake which was clearly fattening and decadent but impossible to walk away from.

Today John and I went into the studio to put the final touches on "Weiblich Ist?" and "Utazo (The Traveler)." We made several copies so we can send them out to a lot of people and hopefully get people watching. Going to concerts this weekend inspired me for my own, plus I got my first seat reservation yesterday and it made me feel like I wasn't doing all of this for absolutely nothing.

It's dry as a bone today with Santa Ana winds blowing, but my Christmas shopping is done and Lucius and Stella were sleeping together on the couch when I walked in so things are not all bad. Tonight I'm making quiche and we will watch a movie and enjoy being together; that's really what the holidays are all about.

As Traves Butterworth said last night, "Go support the arts this Christmas." We need it; it's every man for himself.

Hungary

This is me on the Danube. The bridge is called the Lanchid, which means "Chain Bridge." It's built by the same man who built the chain bridge across the Thames (Tierney, I think), and it is an incredible sight to behold. It was my first destination when I woke up on my first morning in Budapest. John left for the Opera Hotel and meetings about the Lizst project (which is why we were there in the first place) and I walked towards the Danube, which is called the Duna in Hungarian. The bridge connects Pest, the more modern, flat and cosmopolitan half of the city, with Buda, a Medieval, hilly section with a giant hill at the base of the bridge that holds Buda Palace, the Fisherman's Bastion and other incredible sights. It's one of the most beautiful skylines in all of Europe and I was blown backwards by it as I walked towards the sunny, dew-filled riverfront. It was the beginning of great things in terms of my little video. What an inspiring way to start.

This, on the other hand, is the last night we were there. John had more time off than we thought he would. It allowed us to shoot all over the city, take in the House of Terror (a chilling museum of the Soviet regime housed in the same building as the Nazi Party and, later, the Secret Police), wander through the Museum of Ethnography with its wonderful photo exhibit and beautiful national costumes, and see an opera at the most ornate opera house in which I've ever stepped foot. We saw "Figaro," which did not impress me as much as I'd hoped. The Cherubino was fantastic and the Susanna was a terrific actor, but the direction was stunted and the action often overplayed. It was an enjoyable evening nonetheless, and the Countess had a voice to die for.

It also allowed us to take our final evening and go to a local Balkan folk dance night at a youth center called Petofi Csarnok. It sits, monolithic, in the center of the city's woodland park, which is much like Central Park with a skating rink on a manmade lake and a big castle in the center, plus statuary everywhere you turn. We wandered through the darkened park to the Csarnok and were a bit dubious at first because the place seemed deserted. This was my only opportunity to shoot locals dancing so I was on the verge of being dissapointed until I got up my nerve to walk in the door and find the contact person I had been speaking with. He led me into a little dark room with a fantastic band and six young dancers who got together once a month to practice their dances while Pravo, the ensemble, played up a storm. They were dressed in everything from traditional dress to jeans and boots, and they pounded out the rhythms laughing while John and I shot. The director finally dragged me out on the floor as well, and John got footage of me doing some Balkan folk dancing. Something I never thought I'd do. The picture is before I was pulled onto the floor. The folk dancers are doing a fast circular dance and the band is jumping away in the back. I should folk dance all the time; it would be a great weight loss program. I've never been so tired and sore.

We shot some other locals too. This is a pic of John video taping a couple of Roma musicians in Vorosmarty square. We are standing right outside of Cafe Gerbaud, which is the most famous cafe in Budapest, known for its intense cafe culture. We had coffee and cake there later, but this morning we only had an hour before John ran off to do some location scouting. We came across these two, I dropped 200 forint (about a buck) into their hat, and they struck up a brilliant tune. My dancing to their playing is part of the opening to our video, which we titled "Utazo (The Traveler)."

This is John and I in front of the Fisherman's Bastion. This piece was built in the 19th century but looks much older. Right behind it is the Buda Hilton, which was built on some monestarial ruins. Sounds awful of them, but they've preserved much of the ruins in an outside area and you can walk through the walls and look at a statue of the more prominent monks. This may be my favorite view of the city, as the Bastion is right on the river and you can look across to Parliament and the Basilica rising up in Pest's flat landscape.

John and I had a terrific time. I would go back to Budapest in a heartbeat. The people were friendly, the coffee to die for and the scenery was heart wrenching. Hungary has a difficult history; much of the city of Budapest is new because it's been plundered so many times, sometimes by its own people. It's an interesting mix of Eastern and Western European ideals and, although the language is nearly impossible to speak and understand (I only conquered "Thank you," and for those who know me, you know that's not much), many young people and some older people speak enough English to get by. More popular is German, which can get you through the day nearly anywhere. Almost every restaurant had an English language menu, and absinthe is legal, though I never partook as I was dancing so much.

Click on the title of the post to go to my Flickr site. It has a bunch more pictures and descriptions. If you want to see the video, it's premiering at my concert on December 17th....yes, shameless plug, but that's why I journal on line anyway.

United Airlines Sucks! And, How to Feel Like a Foreign Criminal in your Own Country

So we just got back from Budapest. An amazing city and one of the most beautiful city centers I've ever experienced. The Danube cuts right through the middle and the bridge-lined riverfront displays gorgeous architecture after architecture. John and I shot almost four hours worth of footage which I will comment on later, especially my experience with Petofi Csarnok and Balkan Folk Dance Night. You can see photos at my Flickr site with long descriptions. Click on the title of this post and it will take you to Flickr.

The nadir of the trip was both travel days. We flew United/Lufthansa and it was torturous. Granted, we didn't make the reservations, they were made by the man in charge of the film for whom John was scouting. As soon as we got the reservations several weeks before we left, we got on the horn and tried to get seating reservations. We were told then and when we went on line (where we couldn't even bring up the reservation despite the fact that it was in our name) that no seat assignments would be available until the day of travel. The people on the phone told us that no overseas flight ever gives seat assignments before the day of, which is a total lie. This is the 6th time I've traveled to Europe and the first time I've gone to the airport having no idea where I was sitting.

So, on both trips, our seats ended up being the last seats on the plane. On the way back, our flight from Washington Dulles to San Diego, we couldn't even get aisle seats, so we were in the aisle and center of the last seat on the plane. This was not for lack of trying. Trying not to get discouraged, we dutifully called from Hungary, went on line, and tried to go to a ticket office in Budapest. John ended up calling the United States from our SIM-card enhanced cell phone and they told him the same thing - no seat assignments will be given until you are at the airport.

Okay...this is where I get really pissed. We showed up at the airport at 5:30 in the morning the day we traveled home, and got our seat assignments for all of the flights. Like I said, our flight from Dulles gave us the worst possible seats on the plane. I ask, "is there anything else available?" The agent says, "No, these are the last two available seats. All the rest have been reserved."

My next logical quesion, "How is it that they've been reserved? We've told that we couldn't get seat reservations until we checked in at the airport and that flight is more than 18 hours away. Are you telling me that everyone but us has already checked in for the flight 18 hours ahead of time?"

She says, "No, these seats have been reserved beforehand."

And so we get into a circular argument here about who is lying to whom? How could they all be reserved beforehand if you can't get seats until you show up at the airport? We were told this on every flight we checked in for - everyone but us seemed to reserve beforehand. How are we the only ones unable to do this? I shouldn't have to pay the same amount of money for a ticket and be shoved in the back by the restrooms. The legroom in the back is not as good either, so John was stuffed into a seat with his knees pressed against the seat in front of him. United did nothing to help us and even seemed to intimate that it was our fault that we had such bad seats.

The flight to San Diego was particularly frustrating when the flight attendant actually admitted that they didn't have enough meals for sale to feed the last five rows of the airplane. How is that possible? Because we're in the last five rows, we are not entitled to eat? United doesn't seem to think so.

In conclusion of my flight experience, I have to say, DO NOT FLY UNITED! They are a shabby excuse for an airline with terrible customer service and circular logic in their answers that brings up constant inconsistencies. I am completely dissatisfied in every way and would gladly pay more money for an airline that will treat me with respect. This isn't the first time I've had problems with them, but these are definitely the most heinous.

That being said...the other heinous part of traveling these days is customs and security. I was treated with kindness and respect by all of the security and customs officials in Hungary and Germany. We get back to the United States, however, and I am suddenly thrust into a long, slow line and treated like a criminal in my own country. Dulles has no organization whatsoever. After passing through immigration, we were thrown into a hall to recheck our baggage. There were people packed wall-to-wall and screaming at you to stay in line (what line?). We couldn't get to the recheck spot they screamed at us to go to without cutting around people who had already dropped off their bags, and we were screamed at by another agent wearing sunglasses (??) as we tried to give him our bag. At that point we waited over half an hour to get through two operating security tables with no line up to the front, everyone just shoving and squeezing through the crowds. TSA agents were screaming at us in some sort of half-English pidgin slang and shoving us into various lines as we got within spitting distance of the conveyor belts. People were crying and hyperventilating and I kept thinking that I had an easier time at customs when I flew into Mexico.

It's a hideous experience and a true equalizer as the ladies who lunch in their pearls and heels were in the same shoving, heaving, sweaty line as poor college students who spent the whole fall backpacking through Europe. All of us equally pissed off.

We got to the gate just as it was boarding and we were spitting at each other and stinky and tired and wholly unhappy. Nothing like reentering your own country to make any sort of travel wholly undesireable. We should have stayed in Europe.

And that's my diatribe. We reallyl did have a lovely time. I will recount it later, but I had to get this off my chest first.

The Eve Before the Trip

We leave tomorrow morning. We fly to Dulles then Frankfurt and finally to Budapest. Everything seems to be ready. I spent the whole day on line trying to put together a list of addresses for cultural facilities that might let me shoot on their property. I've only heard from one of them, who has invited me to a Balkan folk dance party on the 20th. Should be interesting no matter what happens.

We had a bit of a setback this morning. John called me to tell me that our hotel had not been secured. We thought it was taken care of but apparently not. He went on line at work and searched around for something affordable. We settled on the Hotel Pest, which is pictured here. It's a 3-star in an 18th century building with terrific reviews on line. I hope it lives up to its reputation. The best part is its location. It's right next to the Opera House and very close to the Lizst Academy of Music. Nothing like being in the middle of it all to inspire my shooting schedule.

Last night John and I went to see Pink Martini - Finally!! We tried to go when they were at Humphreys this summer but I got called away to work at Glimmerglass in New York and we ended up eating the tickets. Last night they were at 4th and B, which is a far inferior venue, but the band was still amazing. Check out the link if you haven't heard of them. They're from Portland, Oregon, and I discovered them about seven years ago when "Sympathique," their first album, was brand new. They do global lounge music. Bachelor pad favorites in Portugese, Italian, Japanese, French and even English. They have a great version of "Brazil," and "Bolero," and an incredibly creepy version of "Que Sera Sera."

There are twelve of them, with a great torch singer, China Forbes, along with piano, full drums, trombone, trumpet and a cross section of strings. All of them incredibly accomplished. I was especially enamored of one of Paloma Griffin, one of the violinists, who sat in the very front a bit stony-faced but passionate in her movements as she drew her bow across the violin. I enjoyed every minute of their playing and banter and wished there was a dance floor available. John says he doesn't dance, but I think if I can just get him out there...

The crap part was the venue. The people running the gig were loud and rude and seemd to think we were all teens at a rock concert instead of 30, 40 and 50-somethings at a big band performance. They stopped an incredible tango couple (and were admonished by the band for doing so) and spoke at full voice, yelling across the room, at extremely quiet times in the performance. The drinks were massively over priced, they didn't have a good liquor stock ("DiSarrono on the rocks, Oh, you don't have Amaretto...um, Kahlua and Cream, oh, no Kahlua?"), and they served everything in little plastic cups - even martinis. All through a beautiful Japanese song there were terrible noises and scraping sounds from the lobby and none of the people running the venue seemed to care. I was somewhat appalled. Pink Martini deserved better.

I hope they'll be back and in a venue more appropriate for the type of show they present.

And so, it was a night of fun and today was packing and running last minute errands. Tomorrow is getting on a plane over and over again and the next day will be running around Budapest. It's all up in the air - I have no idea what this experience will bring. It's terribly exciting and makes me a bit anxious, but I'm sure things will calm once I get there.

I'll let you know.