A Conspiracy Of Clowns

This was good and bad. It all started very well - keen to get home after exhausting but rewarding tour, last dashes of shopping/seeing to do, packing up, downloading photos, talking excitedly.

Then, the kak hit the fan. All 5 of us outside the hostel en route to final debrief and farewell lunch with GUMBO bags and stuff like laptop, we turn momentarily to hail a cab, we turn back (seconds later) and pfff! Laptop’s gone. Just like that. So now some @#!**$## now has a laptop full of your friendly neighbourhood integrated theatre company’s stuff (which is luckily backed up and all good) including all the pics of Buenos Aires (which unluckily we’d just completed downloading that morning and didn’t have a disc to burn them onto).

Incredibly frustrating and unluckily, Tink’s passport and all our tickets were in the bag for safekeeping. So our day now takes on the pallor of red tape and beaurocracy as we mission to get an emergency passport so that she can fly home in…ooh, just about 7 hours time.  Angry as all hell that none of us saw anything, we strike out to accomplish the impossible. And after several blind alleys and wild translation moments, we manage to do just that. Come 4/4.30 we actually have emergency document in hand and are en route to airport.

We have to say that the cops and the SA Embassy were really cool. They remained totally unruffled (although the slow-moving Argentine time, coupled with a lovely friendly interest in the rest of your life, can get a bit much when you want the wheels to turn a bit faster) and did their jobs with a great deal of efficiency. Thanks, you guys.

And, to keep it all in perspective, we were unharmed, alive, and had just lost a technological apparatus.  There was this guy at the police station that had been out the night before, someone slipped him a roofie and he woke up some point the next morning sans everything with no memory of what happened. That’s scary stuff.  Mr Eli Roth, come on down!

So we boarded the plane with a slightly sour taste in mouth, wanting now more than ever to be home.

So farewell Buenos Aires, thank you for a great tour that will get over the last hiccough in time; thanks to Nikki, Amanda, Juan, Paula, Nadia, Chistian, Clare, Maga, Mariano, and all the Saffers and hope to see y’all again soon.

Check out a homage to GUMBO made by awesome photographer Clare Thomas here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8_9FK5-bk or on the FTH:K blog.

And so, our time in Buenos Aires starts leaking out and we scrabble about doing last minute things.

Yesterday we sped off to La Recoleta, the city’s famous mausoleum, and spent a few hours walking around memories and salutations.  Tink says it’s not as big as Pere Lachaise in Paris, but every now and then you turn a corner in the City of the Dead, and nobody’s in earshot or eyesight for awhile, and silence wraps you up and things are very peaceful for a bit. Quite an amazing place. 

And, of course, like the good tourists that we are, we went to check out Evita!

After that we checked out the Centro Cultural Recoleta – I’m eternally amazed at these sprawling centres for creative arts they have here, where it seems there are numerous galleries, theatres and studios. And there are many of these throughout the city. Astounding. It’s hard and probably not fair to make comparisons with our situation, but one does anyway. When encountering some of the aspects of Buenos Aires cultural life, the dream of a culture house in Cape Town that houses multiple companies and disciplines seems to swim back into possibility…and indeed necessity.

Although, we heard some interesting stories re arts funding in the city – and it seems that theatres exist on a pittance from government, which more and more so is the case around the world. What they do have I guess is the sheer number of people to support the industry and make it commercially viable. However…having said that, interesting too is that many of the professional performers we meet also have day jobs. And performances seem to be at weird times – like Saturdays and Sundays, or every Tuesday in April. Obviously the big shows are more constant, sure – with some in their 8th year or so. But the more offbeat and independent work is scattered. And ask someone to recommend a show to see, and there’s strange confusion. Curious.

In the evening we donned our final fineries, and cabbed (gonna miss them taxis) off to our last party at a Milonga (Tango club). Again, this sprawling awesome venue that is the wet dream of any arts organisation in SA just in terms of sheer size and atmosphere. We joined in the later class and quickly learned it’s a lot harder than it looks. Mind you, we were jammed in like sardines, couldn’t understand a moment of the Spanish barked at us, and kept pissing off the locals who looked daggers at us and muttered curses under their breath. So eventually we left them to strut their stuff and took up the relatively safer occupation of watching for the rest of the night. Liez managed to snag an Argentine dance partner who knew (a) Spanish and (b) a bit of Tango, so lasted a lot longer than we did and seemed to be cooking.

And then, all too early it seemed, came the crucial moment of no return: either stay and party til dawn or creep away and feel great in the morning. See me type this as the city yawns and stretches its way into morning properly, and no prizes for guessing the latter. We just couldn’t do it – even final night and all. Feeling the weariness and bloatedness that comes from touring and strange food and disrupted sleep and stress and stuff. As awesome as it’s been to be here and meet the city and all the folk we have, it’ll be just amazing to be home.

And so we launched into our glorious 2 days off in Buenos Aires – official duties done, ‘tis now the time to cram the last bits of Argentine culture into ourselves, see as much of the last bits of the city as we can, and general go out with a bang and a whizz.

Yesterday was a long walk that turned into a looking fest that morphed into a shopping spree in Bond Street to start with.  In the middle of what is generally quite a plummy area is this galeria (kinda like a mall with its collection of shops, grouped thematically it seems at least 3 stories high) with an insane collection of tattoo artists, punker shops, underground literature, music, and general bad ass stuff.  Heaven, in short.  Bearing in mind there is still a recession on, we reigned ourselves in as much as possible, but still there was the temptation of a few things that no mortal of a certain disposition can resist.

Having sated our shopping lust, we started walking to our next destination only to stumble on a better kept secret (which even some of the locals didn’t know about) – this sprawling galeria of vintage second hand retro clothing, boots, jackets, and the like.  With Liez, Tink, and I emitting various squeals of delight and excitement, we plunged this way and that into various shops to come up with small treasures. Any costume designer would have plutzed with ecstasy at this wonderland. We seriously considered breaking the bank to bring back not only costumes for our next show QUACK! but for the next 3 years worth of shows. But alas and alack. We are but mortals.

Day became evening all too quickly (you really really need time to get Buenos Aires!) and we closed the festival with a cocktail and music affair, and later all hooked up in trendy Palerma Soho where it seemed we should really celebrate our similarities and differences with beer and kakpraat. Am glad to report that both South Africans and Argentines share those attributes well.

A day of two distinct halves, the first part I spent kicking around the San Telmo fair, which is a treasure trove for all antique/retro/collectible lovers, and a chance to soak up some culture on the streets.  This old puppeteer had a great world in a suitcase and enacted a story of drunkenness and regret with a marionette.  And I stood awhile transfixed at this 7 piece orchestra (piano, double bass, 3 violins, cello, and singer) and felt an unexpected surge of emotion in the middle of the road.

The second half of the day, and the reason for all the emotion, is the ending of an era, the closing of a chapter, the finishing of a phase.  Last night we performed GUMBO for the 124th, and probably final, time.  It was also the last time I will perform on stage for some time. And also with Tink focussing more on management and running the company, the last time she will be either director or directly involved with the touring of shows for a long time.

So here’s a shout out to GUMBO – who has been one of our best friends and closest companions for the past nearly three years of sustained touring and performance.  It’s been a great ride, it’s been a superb time, and we look forward to many more the same and even better.  FTH:K is on the move and evolving, and the next cycle starts here. Muy bien.

Breaking the half-way mark, the weariness starts setting in deep into bones.  We were invited to attend a theatre anthropology training session, but really not feeling on top of my game I ended up not going.  So Liez went by herself to represent us, and said it really rocked.  (At some point we’ll all get her to contribute words to this blog!)  Apparently there are a number of groups continuing Grotowski/Barba’s work here in Buenos Aires, which is really interesting.  At this session, there were 30 people.  I’ll say that again for the Cape Town peeps – 30 people who work 3 hours a day every day Monday to Friday.  How extraordinary.  How disciplined.  And this is just one of many groups!

Grotowski/Barba/etc isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, I know, and that’s not the point here…the point more is the dedication to training, and the realisation that a performer does more than keep looking good and waiting for the phone to ring for another casting.  ‘Nuff sed.

What sounded great was their taking every month to focus on a different energy, and base all exercises around that.  (This month was the Samurai, Liez said)  I like that kind of thematic structuring. 

In the afternoon, battling with a strange melancholy (that must surely be a result of tiredness and stress…right?), we took up Part 2 of our workshop Listen With Your Eyes, where we continued what we’d started yesterday, now starting to develop games into more structured activity on stage, and creating imagery and spatial relationships that start suggesting theatrical possibility. The workshop culminated with our rolling improv that works totally non-verbally and is a great source for movement, character, and scenic inspiration.

Although missing our Argentine Deaf participants, we ended on a high and for the moment beat back the melancholy.  Feedback is always illuminating, and we were particularly chuffed to see beaming faces and bright eyes, and hear people like Eduardo comment that as a painter he’d unearthed a different way to stare down the blank canvas and commit to the start of the painting process.  And there were some awesome eccentric clowns that we considered rolling up, stuffing into our bags, and taking home with us.  Which, apart from serious human right violations, oxygen, and starvation, isn’t the best idea.  We’ll just have to come back, I guess!

Raced back to the theatre (we’re always racing to be somewhere at the moment - maybe that too is contributing to the general weariness?) for an interview with BBC Radio Home Service, and then got caught in that no-man’s limbo-land of 45mins to kill before the show.  These are the kind of debilitating times for travellers, where you’re betwixt and between, and they are energy vampires.  Hurry up and wait and mill around.  Hmm…

And then we all watched Magnet’s show Every Year, Every Day I am Walking, a powerful investigation into dislocation and xenophobia in Africa, seen through the eyes of a young girl, Agi, and her mother, played by Faniswa Yisa and Jennie Reznek.  I’d seen bits of it at a benefit concert for Xenophobia survivors last year at the Baxter, but never the whole thing. 

The show has some incredibly powerful and moving sections, and some really striking images, and we spoke about them long afterwards.  I did find it hard to completely connect to the material emotionally, as it veers between theatre and dance and in so doing disrupts the flow of the narrative. I’m sure that’s the point, as it forces you not to get swayed completely by the emotion but critically think about what you’re seeing.  And I know that writing that betrays my own preferences of story, which is hard to overlook.  And my own preferences of play, I guess, which always comes up against that old conflict of show vs tell – how can we, as the audience, discover the moments at the same time as the performers?  And join in that wonderful moment of complicity, of conspiracy?  There’s nothing wrong with the representation of play, but it is that – representative.  It’s telling us that it’s play, and so we respond more intellectually rather than instinctually or intuitively. 

But without a doubt, Every Year is a powerful work, with Jennie and Faniswa formidable performers, and Mark has sculpted something quite stunning out of an ugly, ugly side of human nature.  It’s one of those works that should be seen all over the world.

What is the most amazing part is to be on tour with people such as Mark, Jenni, Faniswa, Craig, Anton, Lynn, and Renos – rubbing shoulders with the big guys.  We’re know we’re the new snotneus on the block, and this kind of opportunity is fantastic to gain experience and learn from them, so we’re excessively grateful all over again to Nikki Froneman and Proyecto 34 S.

If yesterday was all about transportation, then today was about wild translations.  Chaotic and beautiful at the same time.

We missioned off to IUNA, a university here in Buenos Aires, to deliver a lecture-demonstration on FTH:K’s work and Integrated Performance.  Small group – only about 10-15 people, but really interested and keen, which we’ll take anyday over a large disinterested one.

So there we stood before the thronging masses, with an SA Sign Language  interpreter to my left – Tink, interpreting for our Deaf members.  To my right stands our English-Spanish interpreter (who does this amazing job of receiving the info, scribbling down salient points, then delivering the translation).  To the right of her stands our Spanish Sign Language interpreter.  And so it goes.  Like tossing a rock into very placid waters, I start the talk.  Splash!  Out it ripples, in various and contrasting waves to the exterior .  And then, sometimes, would come a reverse wave as a question found its way back to the epicentre.

Beautiful and chaotic.  Love it.  Check out the post on the FTH:K blog here: http://fthk.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/buenos-aires-day-3/

Bumped into the Magnet guys at dinner who’d just survived their tech rehearsal.  Sounds like a similar bunch of wild translations grew there.  Hmm.  Now slightly nervous about ours…time is always such a premium at a tech and we’re opening the whole Proyecto 34°S. No pressure.  And going all cold and achy shivery with suspected ‘flu or something.  Not a good sign.  In bed really early and still no real sightseeing or anything.  Ah well.  Roll on the free days!

Bounced outta bed feeling much better, thank god!  Need all strength and stuff for tech today…

And how right was that!  Phew.  Hectic hectic day.  It starts off well enough – by lunch we are well on top of things, we’ve refocused and gelled the lights we need.  We’re ready to start plotting.  A couple of rounds of mate and we’re good to go. A staggering 5 + hours later we’re done with the laborious plotting sessions.  Now I really don’t like intelligent lighting.  I’m old school that way.  Gimme a fixed lamp and a dusty ceiling any day over a joystick and a clean shirt.  (Er, you know what I mean, right?  Right?!?!)  But we faff and fiddle and have got the whole thing in, and have just enough time to clear heads and do a cue to cue and the vague semblance of a proper warm-up before premiering.

So when Tink sees Maga (our lovely lighting tech person) beating on the lighting board with her fist, we kinda get a clue something’s up.  When a furious conference of technicians huddle together in the booth, talking and gesticulating with much purpose, we know something’s up.  An ashen-faced interpreter later informs us that the entire  board has crashed.  We’re about an hour away from curtain up, it’s the opening night of the Proyecto, there are already a couple of hundred people milling about outside sipping cocktails and stuff – what do we want to do?

Well, apart from running away screaming, our options are narrowed to re-plotting the entire show, postponing the opening time to an hour later (Cape Town audiences would never  go for that!), and with a resounding chorus of The Show Must Go On we endeavour precisely that.

Phew.  What had taken 5 hours previously we now complete in about 100 odd minutes.  Crazy translations continue – at one point the noise of the drumming outside of the opening ceremony drowns out our plotting, so Nadia sits next to me with a microphone, bellowing out the channels to programme.  Madness!  It’s a bit of a hack job, it’s not the best, but it’ll do.  Just enough time to open the doors, rush backstage (which I finally got to see what it looked like), swap lighting designer hat for performer, throw on a jacket and before I know it, I’m on stage throwing cards at Lysander in scene 1 of GUMBO.  Crazy.

It’s not the greatest performance in the world ever, it’s bumpy and uneven, and I spend a lot of time knocking into flats and trying to negotiate the space for the 1st time.  And the lights are OK in some places, kak in others as the not so intelligent lights change colour 3 times in a scene (I programmed that?!?! I don’t think so) and then track across the stage to where they’re needed next.

But we’ve saved the day, the Proyecto has opened, and most people don’t notice anything, and after waiting an hour and a bit, stay with us right to the end and give us very generous applause – including a standing or two. 

Utterly exhausted, we stumble out to dinner at about 11:45pm and fall into numb beautiful sleep.  These days are crazy.  At some point we’ll see something of the city…

Buenos Aires is a huge, sprawling urban playground.  Wide roads and chaotic driving.  (And you thought Africa was bad!)  Apartment blocks everywhere – you get a sense of just how many people there are.  Haphazard wires and rooftops and bustle and Latin American passion and wild translations – this will be the order of our days.

For all the passion and excitement, Argentines manage to remain curiously unruffled and naturally positive.  Nothing is a hassle, nothing is too much of a bother – in fact, so much so that Argentinean time could even be longer than African time.  OK, I’m generalising here, but within that there’s truth.  Remarkable – it’s like they are in a constant state of “yes” to the world, and that applies to everything.  Important tech meeting, we hustle in a few minutes late, the other South Africans already there and waiting…no problem, our genial hosts are still putting breakfast together.  And hey – while we about it, why not take everyone through a mate ritual?

This is not a bong, I swear.  Judging by the curious expression on my face, I’ve just had my first taste of the bitter infusion.  Mark and I were trying to place it – it’s familiar, yet strange.  Hah!  An uncanny tea!

Leaving Magnet to continue with their tech, we embarked on the rest of our day of transportation in Buenos Aires.  Yesterday had been 8 hours in the plane.  Today was a further hour in a bus into the outer suburbs, but still in BA.  Did I mention huge and sprawling?  Then, just for kicks, we thought we’d discover how many people we could jam into an old Citroen…with 3 in the front, and 5 squashed into the back, we broke the old Argentinean record.  Hmm, OK, probably not.

The reason for all this travelling was to inspect our set for the performances here. This is now the 4th set of GUMBO that exists – 1 for the original in 2006, 1 for the grand tours of 2007-2008, and 1 that was made in Germany for our tour there.  This one, the BA one, is really well made and solid.  Am glad we not dragging this one around the country cos it’s built for strength and solidity. We had to do the usual “It’s beautiful, but almost too beautiful; could you mess it up a bit please?” to the usual looks of horror. In Germany, we had to drag the set around an underground parking lot to get the desired “weathered” look.  Yep – love this job!

And then we returned by train. Now, BA drivers are pretty random and dangerous at the best of times.  But it seems they pale in comparison to the cowboy that was steering our train. I swear the thing was lifting off its rails as it lurched and skidded through the corners. Like the driver was in a real hurry to get to the loo or something.  Life in our own hands. Or life in some diarrheal driver’s hand.  Crazy stuff.

Transportation not over yet, we then trekked by foot through the city, stumbling over a wreath-laying ceremony somewhere in the centre.  A joke that a lookalike of the Dalai Lama was let into Argentina strangely didn’t go down well.  And one should never let clowns near anything official and ceremonious…

Exhausted and sore of feet and body, and suffering hugely from jetlag, we stumbled into our restaurant and found solace in a litre of beer. Aaah-gentina.  Things for the moment seemed just great.

And here we go, through the gates of the airport and into the city of Buenos Aires!  Hooray!

Just scribbling this down as we finish breakfast, start the jetlag battle, and then it’s off to the theatre we go to check out where GUMBO’s gonna play.  This afternoon we also gonna get first peek at our set…eek…which could go either way but we’re hoping the good one.

But whatever the case, we’re here, we’re kicking and we’re off to a flying start.  What great people so far, what awesome friendliness and hospitality, and man can they out-braai South Africans.  I say that unashamedly.  We pale in comparison.

Laters…

Need now to sleep as the day will dawn soon and we’ll be away into the air.

Keep abreast of the saga here - we’ll endeavour to document this as best we can.  Phew.  One deep breath…