Lynn Reid Banks will come to England's Lane bookshop next Monday. I think the last time I wrote there was a LOT about Two Is Lonely as it became some sort of bridge back to the UK.
I returned to London 3-and-a-half months ago and don't think I have written since. To merge Britain and Israel is so effortless in the world and mindset I inhabit. To care, take pride and realise its place in one's only-child instrospection is altogether different.
So Dorit arrived 10 days ago to prepare She London: The First Instalment with T, R, M and me. I had done some things...met with the girls, spoken with them, shaped my mind to their worlds, tried to pluck from them their needs and images for the process and purpose last week was to carve for us.
Since leaving Tel Aviv there has been no regression but a sort of bike-pedalling on the spot (not a gym bike) , in the sense that I can't ride a bike so the pedalling is quite impressive to watch but it is not really moving. There is space to think and analyse and to do these things productively requires discipline that, in Israel, exists without question. I forgot that with Dorit one cannot hide behind song lyrics, corsets, one-liners and eyeliners and homemade cakes.
She London at the end of February will see 5 spaces in the New End inhabited by a different artist as the audience, split into 5 groups, will move every 10 minutes around the circle. What questions are raised? Which thoughts must contextualise each artist's process and the final rooms' "products"? How, in 2 cities with 2 languages and so much to say, do we keep the circle simple with one centre-point focus?
Dorit worked with me to develop Undressing Cabaret for my relationship with the New End, for the relationship between one woman and a life and comfortablity in London and the tension and tears they encompass in contrast to their Tel Aviv counterparts. The other 3 women developed their performance art, improvisational and storytelling bases for the auditorium, bar and balcony and L's amazing skeletal puppet was incorporated on the main stage.
The flow of the evening felt practical and the Question and Answer session really showed the sophistication and intelligence of the audience but the special thing for me was what the other women in the circle chose not to mention when questioned about their thoughts and development.
In and out in and out that was how I felt all the time last week whilst all the time inside, Dorit talking with me, questioning me, caring about what I said not just for me but for the She circle, for the process of creating She London, for the bigger picture of joining the New End and the Karov, Britain and Israel. Every question, every answer, acknowledged and developed not with instensity or sentimentality but with true listening and understanding. And honesty.
An open heart and open mind...these words I always echo (somewhat nauseatingly) in every Meow Kacha I do and I have had neither for so long, not really. Then the Karov in London, Dorit in She, and the confrontations, denials and whims of the other three girls rotated something. Not changed but turned a bit of the core I can't get to, I can't control.
Fear is a powerful thing. If I lie awake at night with a two-liner lyric echoing in my mind with an anxiety in my belly which, unreassuringly, stems not from instinct but from the ever-present tendancy to only place myself first, that requires a change that can only come from small twists and turns step by step. She is so clever because it allows for slowly slowly...a long-term, gentle and firm nurturing which raises questions for the outer as well as finding answers for the inner.
I can take the care and nurture and grow and change, but can I pass it on? Can I find this friendly medium director-wise as well as performer-wise? When I continue to work with T, R and M between now and February, when I host Meow Kacha not in my parents' house and when C goes to Germany? These questions can only be answered if you consider them not in the context of your own life and experiences but after acknowledging and really caring about the questions posed by others...thinking about how their own pasts and presents shape their interpretation of your work and ideas.
If I can start to do this, degree by degree things will start to move and turn, I just know it, especially for the New End. It must have a future, it has to. And A is right, let's not make lists, let's do.
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Friday 16 July 2010
I must marry...
It echoes in my head again and again from Two Is Lonely. I must marry. Not me personally. But every connotation it inspires in my mind is a surprise.
The book brought fear to the surface, not of lonelines as maybe you'd gauge from the above and from my last post. Having never experienced true isolation in the practical sense of the word it is not something I fear. Detachment and disconnection are different.
No, the fear rises in me every time I, gasping, finish that epilogue. Its perfection, its spot-onness. This time I am afraid and glad to be - comfortable, even. Each step I take around Tel Aviv feels as though it is bringing me closer to leaving when really it is just time that is doing that. So I am given to walking in circles.
Last week I was afraid of leaving but now it sits deeper. I know what to expect from homecoming. I know what to expect of myself and exploit the good and battle the bad. It will not be dramatic or anticlimatic, I don't think. So what is this headache, this, I will say it again, fear.
It's real root I cannot deny to myself. There is no point to be dishonest. If I am, the inevitable pattern will repeat itself, he will be lost to me and I to him upsetting us both inwardly and, in my case, beyond measure.
Away from him here I am safe. He never feels unsafe, I am sure of it. And he certainly wasn't part of the reason I came in the first place - that I can say with utter conviction. But things change, thoughts and their little repetitions and developing habits sneak up on your smug, centered calm when you least expect it.
And they don't disrupt. They just root themselves, a little bit like threadworms, and begin to itch inconveniently yet without much immediate or noticeable damage.
So I am afraid. Fearful of how when I go back and fail, for all the right reasons, to confront this problem in spite of this heroic, trivial micro-honesty, there will remain just one more lost cause to add to a drab little supply.
I must marry...
The book brought fear to the surface, not of lonelines as maybe you'd gauge from the above and from my last post. Having never experienced true isolation in the practical sense of the word it is not something I fear. Detachment and disconnection are different.
No, the fear rises in me every time I, gasping, finish that epilogue. Its perfection, its spot-onness. This time I am afraid and glad to be - comfortable, even. Each step I take around Tel Aviv feels as though it is bringing me closer to leaving when really it is just time that is doing that. So I am given to walking in circles.
Last week I was afraid of leaving but now it sits deeper. I know what to expect from homecoming. I know what to expect of myself and exploit the good and battle the bad. It will not be dramatic or anticlimatic, I don't think. So what is this headache, this, I will say it again, fear.
It's real root I cannot deny to myself. There is no point to be dishonest. If I am, the inevitable pattern will repeat itself, he will be lost to me and I to him upsetting us both inwardly and, in my case, beyond measure.
Away from him here I am safe. He never feels unsafe, I am sure of it. And he certainly wasn't part of the reason I came in the first place - that I can say with utter conviction. But things change, thoughts and their little repetitions and developing habits sneak up on your smug, centered calm when you least expect it.
And they don't disrupt. They just root themselves, a little bit like threadworms, and begin to itch inconveniently yet without much immediate or noticeable damage.
So I am afraid. Fearful of how when I go back and fail, for all the right reasons, to confront this problem in spite of this heroic, trivial micro-honesty, there will remain just one more lost cause to add to a drab little supply.
I must marry...
Thursday 15 July 2010
Two Isn't Lonely
Have you ever read Two Is Lonely by Lynne Reid Banks?
It is the third book in the L-Shaped Room trilogy. A film was made of the first...pretty mediocre and, considering the original purpose, inaccurate in my opinion. But the book is extraordinary. And unlike the majority of unequal sequels, they just get better.
In The L-Shaped Room Jane Graham, after a first somewhat unsuccessful sexual experience at the age of 29, finds herself pregnant and unmarried in England in the 1950s. She decides to keep the baby and the 3 books chart both the personal and social challenges of being a single mother to an illegitimate child. More importantly, though, they follow her amazing, real and utterly human nature...the mistakes and stubborness and repression and imagination in one individual in ways I at one point found so breathtaking I would carry the books around in my handbag as though they were my own children (who I will of course carry around in my handbag at all times) and describe and dwell on at the drop of a hat to anyone who expressed even the remotest polite interest.
The third book, Two Is Lonely, charts Jane's struggle to come to terms with her little boy's fatherlessness...the effect on him and the inevitable guilt. It's magnified by the fact that she, somewhat "modernly", chose not to marry the father because they did not love one-another. He did offer but not only did she refuse him but, because of an avulsion to his weak nature and pathetic personality, decided to sever all contact and the possibly essential ties between father and son. Now he needs a father. He needs one very badly. And before she can accept an offer of marriage from Andy - her now-suitor and a complex, compassionate and brutally favourable choice, she must go to Israel and cut another connection. Whilst pregnant Jane began a relationship with a Jewish writer Toby Cohen, also weak-willed but an extraordinary balance to her practicalness and bright nature. The relationship didn't work out and he has since married, had 2 daughters, divorced and moved with his eldest child to a kibbutz in Israel to work the land and make what he feels a mandatory contribution in the days leading up to the Yom Kippur war.
I re-read (for perhaps the eighth time) this novel just after I arrived here in January and I am re-reading it again now. It tires me beyond reasonable doubt. I had many useful things to do today but instead I stayed reading this book, sleeping for hours at a time in between. God knows why.
And as Liron and I listened to music and drank vodka and orange I thought about two. Over the past half-year I have had no conventional partnership to speak of. Well I have only had one such in my life, in fact...a fortnight-long one which changed my head and left my insides shattered from the inside out...but since January I have lived and existed in twos, divided my days and head between one and two, quite by accident, and learned a new type of not being lonely.
Another person, another existence, another set of nature/nurture blots and beauties, creates an inevitable perspective alongside your own. It's not a matter of having someone else to consider. Depending on who you are you will or will not do that anyway. But the luxury at this age of being able to live with somebody else who is not practically dependent on you but is also going through change and sameness; struggle and joy, cannot be underestimated.
Read Two Is Lonely if you can. I had a similar tie to Anita Diamant's The Red Tent and used to give a copy to every lover who meant "something" to me (poor bastards) but apart from one individual I never shared Lynne Reid Banks and her magic on my life.
Please, please read it. And if you do, let me know what you think.
It is the third book in the L-Shaped Room trilogy. A film was made of the first...pretty mediocre and, considering the original purpose, inaccurate in my opinion. But the book is extraordinary. And unlike the majority of unequal sequels, they just get better.
In The L-Shaped Room Jane Graham, after a first somewhat unsuccessful sexual experience at the age of 29, finds herself pregnant and unmarried in England in the 1950s. She decides to keep the baby and the 3 books chart both the personal and social challenges of being a single mother to an illegitimate child. More importantly, though, they follow her amazing, real and utterly human nature...the mistakes and stubborness and repression and imagination in one individual in ways I at one point found so breathtaking I would carry the books around in my handbag as though they were my own children (who I will of course carry around in my handbag at all times) and describe and dwell on at the drop of a hat to anyone who expressed even the remotest polite interest.
The third book, Two Is Lonely, charts Jane's struggle to come to terms with her little boy's fatherlessness...the effect on him and the inevitable guilt. It's magnified by the fact that she, somewhat "modernly", chose not to marry the father because they did not love one-another. He did offer but not only did she refuse him but, because of an avulsion to his weak nature and pathetic personality, decided to sever all contact and the possibly essential ties between father and son. Now he needs a father. He needs one very badly. And before she can accept an offer of marriage from Andy - her now-suitor and a complex, compassionate and brutally favourable choice, she must go to Israel and cut another connection. Whilst pregnant Jane began a relationship with a Jewish writer Toby Cohen, also weak-willed but an extraordinary balance to her practicalness and bright nature. The relationship didn't work out and he has since married, had 2 daughters, divorced and moved with his eldest child to a kibbutz in Israel to work the land and make what he feels a mandatory contribution in the days leading up to the Yom Kippur war.
I re-read (for perhaps the eighth time) this novel just after I arrived here in January and I am re-reading it again now. It tires me beyond reasonable doubt. I had many useful things to do today but instead I stayed reading this book, sleeping for hours at a time in between. God knows why.
And as Liron and I listened to music and drank vodka and orange I thought about two. Over the past half-year I have had no conventional partnership to speak of. Well I have only had one such in my life, in fact...a fortnight-long one which changed my head and left my insides shattered from the inside out...but since January I have lived and existed in twos, divided my days and head between one and two, quite by accident, and learned a new type of not being lonely.
Another person, another existence, another set of nature/nurture blots and beauties, creates an inevitable perspective alongside your own. It's not a matter of having someone else to consider. Depending on who you are you will or will not do that anyway. But the luxury at this age of being able to live with somebody else who is not practically dependent on you but is also going through change and sameness; struggle and joy, cannot be underestimated.
Read Two Is Lonely if you can. I had a similar tie to Anita Diamant's The Red Tent and used to give a copy to every lover who meant "something" to me (poor bastards) but apart from one individual I never shared Lynne Reid Banks and her magic on my life.
Please, please read it. And if you do, let me know what you think.
Thursday 8 July 2010
London, touch and televizya metzuyenet
ONE
I tried and tried to write a little something about touch - the sense that comes next but always first where I am concerned. I am no biologist but touch maybe is what we are first aware of, no? It is not only where we come from but also when you start growing you are embedded in something so it is physical proximity which leads to everything else coming together?
It is very difficult at times to detach touch from sound. We have this expression "touching", don't we...and all this "touching the heart" etc...it makes me uncomfortable, it doesn't sit right. Touch originates from a wordless situation. The Nalagaat Theatre, its process and development rely on touch and how it can make visual and aural language possible (via the interpreters I mentioned before).
The British are known for their formality where touch is concerned. This rubs off heavily on their children and then on their children et al. The etiquette is hard because, now there are lots of connections with the outside world (much as the UK loves its autonomy and sovereignity and not having the Euro etc) and all sorts of euro-chic and sixties remnants and eighties remnants and drugs and severely mind-altering use of them, it's all a bit messed up and noone knows quite what to do. And does an overt sensitivity and appreciation of touch...using the mouth to feel, skin-on-skin, love of texture...necessarily go hand-in-hand with being tactile?
I really don't think it does. This evening I went to a beautiful evening of music and performance poetry hosted by the very, very touching Yarona Caspi. She sets poems by contemporary Israeli writers to music as well as performing more established pieces and accompanies herself on keyboard and guitar in a way I have never seen before. The evening was in the Galeria Shoreshim (Roots Gallery)...a small space with, at the moment, angel-focused pictures and a huge lion sculpture outside. Between her songs, Yarona invited different performance poets to come and read their work to the audience. My teacher L was one of them and, during one of her pieces, she needed to cry and leave the stage.
Now how and why this focused to the touch-sense I can hardly explain, but it did. The music, the emotion and the atmosphere all pointed towards a small, smoky little cabaret bar with red wine and beers but the gallery was clean, bright and cheerful. We sat in attractive, comfortable chairs, didn't need to make eye-contact with or touch one-another at all, and there was no drink of any kind to be had. When L left the stage in tears, other artists who were performing at different times went to comfort her and Yarona continued her repertoire without batting an eye. In Israel, touch is acceptable in a way it is not in the UK and I do not mean people are physically more open or tactile. It is more that if someone is uncomfortable with being hugged and kissed you know without having to test the water. Likewise, if someone not only likes and appreciates but needs physical affection they will just go for it and the recipient, whether or not they are like that themselves, responds and acknowledges and any awkwardness is dispelled.
It was this sense of unity...a very different type of harmony...that revealed itself to me in an evening of bizarre yet completely functional clashes. I suppose the principal one was that all the songs and poems were in Ivrit and whilst my understanding has improved I could by no means decode the meanings and metaphors. But this only occurs to me now as I write.
TWO
It's less than 2 weeks now before I go back to London. The thought fills me with a type of intense dread I could never have attached to coming here. I am not going to describe it or dwell on it but it leads me on to how walking the streets of Tel Aviv (I never take the bus or sherute now if I can avoid it...I would rather save the shekels and eat granola out in the mornings) puts skin-on-skin, sex and feeling and talk all the time in my head. The sun is on my arms and legs and I walk, always to somewhere with some (probably false...hopefully false) sense of purpose and I fall deeper and deeper in love every step I take.
Last night Liron taught me the words to London - an Israeli song written by Hanoch Levin (I never knew he wrote songs) and performed by Chava Alberstein. Listen to it here...it's grand. The nub and crux is that even if she dies lonely as a bitch in London at least it will be in front of some good telly. She also can't wait for the indifference of people in London. Or perhaps its their friendliness...I've had 2 different stories now it is most confusing. But the loneliness transcends both Israel and London in the song.
So does human touch alleviate loneliness in the shorter term? Does sex? Is that its main purpose in the average closed-off, free-for-all-living person's closed-off, free-for-living little world? It seems that yes, it really does. The fine line between feeling united with someone and just not being lonely is made up of sex and touching. And fine lines are not about satisfaction or fulfilment...they are fragile, not solid and stable. But what is? We are conditioned to think, for example, of good marriages as being these things but I would say that we must think carefully of what they actually are. When a fundamentally happy husband and wife have sexual contact, to what extent does it meet that fine line? Are they are quite assured that they are not alone, and to regularly have sex provides that stability?
There are so many different types of marriage, of relationship, in which touch is expected to create...maybe babies or maybe intimacy or both. But when I walk with a truly awakened sense of touch it is above and beyond any sexual experience I have because it both enforces and reconciles the inherent sense of loneliness I cherish. Heat hugs very tightly and I suppose it is not always comfortable but its intrusion is welcome. Cold is just inconvenient and repellent where my body is concerned. When I went to the Pashut Festival in the Ashram there was a workshop on touch. Some of my friends who also did it were really moved and felt connected to the other participants, their isolation diminished via the openness and acknowledgment of how important physical contact is. But my lasting memory will be of the men who just ejaculated after hugging me in the conclusion. Because of course.
Touch will always be my favourite sense, I think. though there's never any telling. It's so raw, so dangerous...you can never detach from it if you have it. It's connection to everything else...all the other senses...is unique.
And when someone is touching me and I feel nothing it makes me feel sadder and sicker than bad food, sad sights, sour smells and unwelcome sounds ever could.
I tried and tried to write a little something about touch - the sense that comes next but always first where I am concerned. I am no biologist but touch maybe is what we are first aware of, no? It is not only where we come from but also when you start growing you are embedded in something so it is physical proximity which leads to everything else coming together?
It is very difficult at times to detach touch from sound. We have this expression "touching", don't we...and all this "touching the heart" etc...it makes me uncomfortable, it doesn't sit right. Touch originates from a wordless situation. The Nalagaat Theatre, its process and development rely on touch and how it can make visual and aural language possible (via the interpreters I mentioned before).
The British are known for their formality where touch is concerned. This rubs off heavily on their children and then on their children et al. The etiquette is hard because, now there are lots of connections with the outside world (much as the UK loves its autonomy and sovereignity and not having the Euro etc) and all sorts of euro-chic and sixties remnants and eighties remnants and drugs and severely mind-altering use of them, it's all a bit messed up and noone knows quite what to do. And does an overt sensitivity and appreciation of touch...using the mouth to feel, skin-on-skin, love of texture...necessarily go hand-in-hand with being tactile?
I really don't think it does. This evening I went to a beautiful evening of music and performance poetry hosted by the very, very touching Yarona Caspi. She sets poems by contemporary Israeli writers to music as well as performing more established pieces and accompanies herself on keyboard and guitar in a way I have never seen before. The evening was in the Galeria Shoreshim (Roots Gallery)...a small space with, at the moment, angel-focused pictures and a huge lion sculpture outside. Between her songs, Yarona invited different performance poets to come and read their work to the audience. My teacher L was one of them and, during one of her pieces, she needed to cry and leave the stage.
Now how and why this focused to the touch-sense I can hardly explain, but it did. The music, the emotion and the atmosphere all pointed towards a small, smoky little cabaret bar with red wine and beers but the gallery was clean, bright and cheerful. We sat in attractive, comfortable chairs, didn't need to make eye-contact with or touch one-another at all, and there was no drink of any kind to be had. When L left the stage in tears, other artists who were performing at different times went to comfort her and Yarona continued her repertoire without batting an eye. In Israel, touch is acceptable in a way it is not in the UK and I do not mean people are physically more open or tactile. It is more that if someone is uncomfortable with being hugged and kissed you know without having to test the water. Likewise, if someone not only likes and appreciates but needs physical affection they will just go for it and the recipient, whether or not they are like that themselves, responds and acknowledges and any awkwardness is dispelled.
It was this sense of unity...a very different type of harmony...that revealed itself to me in an evening of bizarre yet completely functional clashes. I suppose the principal one was that all the songs and poems were in Ivrit and whilst my understanding has improved I could by no means decode the meanings and metaphors. But this only occurs to me now as I write.
TWO
It's less than 2 weeks now before I go back to London. The thought fills me with a type of intense dread I could never have attached to coming here. I am not going to describe it or dwell on it but it leads me on to how walking the streets of Tel Aviv (I never take the bus or sherute now if I can avoid it...I would rather save the shekels and eat granola out in the mornings) puts skin-on-skin, sex and feeling and talk all the time in my head. The sun is on my arms and legs and I walk, always to somewhere with some (probably false...hopefully false) sense of purpose and I fall deeper and deeper in love every step I take.
Last night Liron taught me the words to London - an Israeli song written by Hanoch Levin (I never knew he wrote songs) and performed by Chava Alberstein. Listen to it here...it's grand. The nub and crux is that even if she dies lonely as a bitch in London at least it will be in front of some good telly. She also can't wait for the indifference of people in London. Or perhaps its their friendliness...I've had 2 different stories now it is most confusing. But the loneliness transcends both Israel and London in the song.
So does human touch alleviate loneliness in the shorter term? Does sex? Is that its main purpose in the average closed-off, free-for-all-living person's closed-off, free-for-living little world? It seems that yes, it really does. The fine line between feeling united with someone and just not being lonely is made up of sex and touching. And fine lines are not about satisfaction or fulfilment...they are fragile, not solid and stable. But what is? We are conditioned to think, for example, of good marriages as being these things but I would say that we must think carefully of what they actually are. When a fundamentally happy husband and wife have sexual contact, to what extent does it meet that fine line? Are they are quite assured that they are not alone, and to regularly have sex provides that stability?
There are so many different types of marriage, of relationship, in which touch is expected to create...maybe babies or maybe intimacy or both. But when I walk with a truly awakened sense of touch it is above and beyond any sexual experience I have because it both enforces and reconciles the inherent sense of loneliness I cherish. Heat hugs very tightly and I suppose it is not always comfortable but its intrusion is welcome. Cold is just inconvenient and repellent where my body is concerned. When I went to the Pashut Festival in the Ashram there was a workshop on touch. Some of my friends who also did it were really moved and felt connected to the other participants, their isolation diminished via the openness and acknowledgment of how important physical contact is. But my lasting memory will be of the men who just ejaculated after hugging me in the conclusion. Because of course.
Touch will always be my favourite sense, I think. though there's never any telling. It's so raw, so dangerous...you can never detach from it if you have it. It's connection to everything else...all the other senses...is unique.
And when someone is touching me and I feel nothing it makes me feel sadder and sicker than bad food, sad sights, sour smells and unwelcome sounds ever could.
Sunday 27 June 2010
Sense 2: the gift of language, acoustically speaking
This morning I went to see P at her beautiful pied a terre in Neve Tzedek. A play of hers Forbidden has been translated to Hebrew and we briefly mulled over its options in Tel Aviv and as a provisional educational production in London. A rehearsed reading at the Hampstead Theatre in 2008 was directed by Yael Ronen's brother and the play deals with a fictionalised version of a real lesbian relationship between a Jewish girl and wife of a Nazi officer in Berlin during the Second World War.
As 2 British-born women of very different ages, Jewish identities and arts/non-arts backgrounds but with special long-term relationships with Israel, our talk soon turned to language. P lived in Jerusalem for 3 years in her early twenties where she intermittently learnt Hebrew (she is now fluent) and worked in the language before returning to England and working extensively in radio and journalism before writing her first play around 10 years ago..."I was supposed to go back to England briefly and return here but it never happened - be careful of that." We spoke of the beauty of translation from English to Hebrew and vice versa. As a kid I really wanted to be a translator between English, French and Spanish. On the rare occasions I chose to do my homework properly I would play around for hours with the words and dream about changing the face Le Petit Prince and Poeta En Nueva York through my radical linguistic reinterpretations. On the one hand I just look back and laugh but then now, even watching plays in Ivrit, my level of which is well below pidgen, I find myself translating the words and guessed phrases to English and sometimes even French...mixing and mistaking with no impact and no consequence whatsoever. If only I applied the same amount of concerted effort to learning my Ivrit verb endings.
It comes up again and again, the crime of kids no longer having to learn a language at GCSE in England. Oh yes it is so demeaning to those who are not good at languages. Yeah well what about if you are shit at maths. Anyway, I do think languages give an added dimension, awareness of other cultures etc but it is not just that. There is something about people who are into languages, those who speak more than one fluently or at least quite well. Because to do so post-childhood without living in a country where you just have to requires a certain amount of effort and engagement with something beyond your immediate world. Learning a second language as a kid, even just a bit, plants something that might just grow depending on later formative years...even if those just include a sight, sound or song that rouses the curiosity of brain and tongue.
Liron chose the perfect cake to welcome Nico home, Rachel to the Karov and me to full-time-Karov-less life. In the shape of a heart with hardcore "tahana" frosting it merged a treat with our champagne and usual chaotic multilingual talk of work, play, plays and workshops and countries and more. Nico speaks English well when he gets a little more into talking at length. It was a treat to see him back at the Karov with everyone else around - Liron, Linor, Dorit, Hadar and of course Rachel who seems more engaged every day with her love for the theatre.
At 5.30 Er. and R took me to the special tobacco shop as promised. What a place!! You can try the tobacco as you'd try wine and there's all sorts of exciting flavours including rose and caramel, both of which I sampled before choosing the latter. ER brought the dogs and in spite of myself I actually felt quite bonded. Particularly struck by R's sense with Bamba, the 3-year-old and knowledge of how to discipline and respect but without that sickening sentimental vibe you get with a lot of dog owners. The other one, Mitzi, is old - 15 - and going blind. Often she is slow slow slow whilst B of course rushes ahead, not long out of puppyhood. We had a fast/slow walk back to Florentin, talking about football and its universality - the beyond-language it's become for nations the world over. R told me how Hitler was well into football because it gives countries the chance to assert and prove their superiority. My immediate thought was of the tactic-based nature of football and its relation to the Final Solution. I said so and R related it to the coolly strategic way in which the German team plays and how all the other world teams play, each with their own culture-based trends all of which work on some level. So much depends on your opponent, I suppose.
I had my first Icity coffee, sitting with ER and the kelevot on the corner of Florentin and something. How does our parents' relationship with language affect us? R wants to learn French. His roots are Russian and it is his first language. I had no idea of the linguistic and cultural influence of France on St Petersburg. R wants to learn French, Spanish and German...enough to get by, fluency not necessary. With architecture, its grandioseness in Russia next to sheer poverty and likewise in Paris/London/all major cities etc we got to thinking about Tel Aviv and its major differences in that sense. Language and a constant sense of communication bring about proximity, again not in terms of the sentimental but rather the unavoidable. You see people constantly you know in the street. A citizen featuring in a national news story is connected intimately to at least someone you know knows. It was through such a connection I discovered E's childhood fascination with Sara Ahranson and her family's story..."At the age of 6 I loved it so much I used to read that great big book with my parents and go always to the museum. You don't know what a sense of nostalgia this has reawakened...". My mum once told me one of the saddest moments of her life was seeing a tiny child pass a bookshop with his mother and start to bang on the window saying "Books! Books!" and the mother's reply, "Don't be silly, they're only books. Time to go home." R's father and grandfather both ran classes for the deaf, just like my mum used to teach literature to blind students. Had that kind of interest not been the case, and E's parents been weirded out by their little girl asking again and again to read and explore the Ahranson legacy, I wonder how we'd be different.
Would I be uselessly transposing sentences I can barely string together into languages I barely know?
Would E continue altering dynamics in theatres and dimensions in photographs?
And would R know in a matter of seconds the acoustics of a room by visible materials or a couple of hand claps?
Who knows. Who cares. And language and sound we can separate into worlds of signs, musical notes and vibrations...do you know of the deaf man who created an entire system through clicking his tongue in different ways and sensing the materials around him by how they responded? But we need to be aware of stuff like that at least, just be aware.
As 2 British-born women of very different ages, Jewish identities and arts/non-arts backgrounds but with special long-term relationships with Israel, our talk soon turned to language. P lived in Jerusalem for 3 years in her early twenties where she intermittently learnt Hebrew (she is now fluent) and worked in the language before returning to England and working extensively in radio and journalism before writing her first play around 10 years ago..."I was supposed to go back to England briefly and return here but it never happened - be careful of that." We spoke of the beauty of translation from English to Hebrew and vice versa. As a kid I really wanted to be a translator between English, French and Spanish. On the rare occasions I chose to do my homework properly I would play around for hours with the words and dream about changing the face Le Petit Prince and Poeta En Nueva York through my radical linguistic reinterpretations. On the one hand I just look back and laugh but then now, even watching plays in Ivrit, my level of which is well below pidgen, I find myself translating the words and guessed phrases to English and sometimes even French...mixing and mistaking with no impact and no consequence whatsoever. If only I applied the same amount of concerted effort to learning my Ivrit verb endings.
It comes up again and again, the crime of kids no longer having to learn a language at GCSE in England. Oh yes it is so demeaning to those who are not good at languages. Yeah well what about if you are shit at maths. Anyway, I do think languages give an added dimension, awareness of other cultures etc but it is not just that. There is something about people who are into languages, those who speak more than one fluently or at least quite well. Because to do so post-childhood without living in a country where you just have to requires a certain amount of effort and engagement with something beyond your immediate world. Learning a second language as a kid, even just a bit, plants something that might just grow depending on later formative years...even if those just include a sight, sound or song that rouses the curiosity of brain and tongue.
Liron chose the perfect cake to welcome Nico home, Rachel to the Karov and me to full-time-Karov-less life. In the shape of a heart with hardcore "tahana" frosting it merged a treat with our champagne and usual chaotic multilingual talk of work, play, plays and workshops and countries and more. Nico speaks English well when he gets a little more into talking at length. It was a treat to see him back at the Karov with everyone else around - Liron, Linor, Dorit, Hadar and of course Rachel who seems more engaged every day with her love for the theatre.
At 5.30 Er. and R took me to the special tobacco shop as promised. What a place!! You can try the tobacco as you'd try wine and there's all sorts of exciting flavours including rose and caramel, both of which I sampled before choosing the latter. ER brought the dogs and in spite of myself I actually felt quite bonded. Particularly struck by R's sense with Bamba, the 3-year-old and knowledge of how to discipline and respect but without that sickening sentimental vibe you get with a lot of dog owners. The other one, Mitzi, is old - 15 - and going blind. Often she is slow slow slow whilst B of course rushes ahead, not long out of puppyhood. We had a fast/slow walk back to Florentin, talking about football and its universality - the beyond-language it's become for nations the world over. R told me how Hitler was well into football because it gives countries the chance to assert and prove their superiority. My immediate thought was of the tactic-based nature of football and its relation to the Final Solution. I said so and R related it to the coolly strategic way in which the German team plays and how all the other world teams play, each with their own culture-based trends all of which work on some level. So much depends on your opponent, I suppose.
I had my first Icity coffee, sitting with ER and the kelevot on the corner of Florentin and something. How does our parents' relationship with language affect us? R wants to learn French. His roots are Russian and it is his first language. I had no idea of the linguistic and cultural influence of France on St Petersburg. R wants to learn French, Spanish and German...enough to get by, fluency not necessary. With architecture, its grandioseness in Russia next to sheer poverty and likewise in Paris/London/all major cities etc we got to thinking about Tel Aviv and its major differences in that sense. Language and a constant sense of communication bring about proximity, again not in terms of the sentimental but rather the unavoidable. You see people constantly you know in the street. A citizen featuring in a national news story is connected intimately to at least someone you know knows. It was through such a connection I discovered E's childhood fascination with Sara Ahranson and her family's story..."At the age of 6 I loved it so much I used to read that great big book with my parents and go always to the museum. You don't know what a sense of nostalgia this has reawakened...". My mum once told me one of the saddest moments of her life was seeing a tiny child pass a bookshop with his mother and start to bang on the window saying "Books! Books!" and the mother's reply, "Don't be silly, they're only books. Time to go home." R's father and grandfather both ran classes for the deaf, just like my mum used to teach literature to blind students. Had that kind of interest not been the case, and E's parents been weirded out by their little girl asking again and again to read and explore the Ahranson legacy, I wonder how we'd be different.
Would I be uselessly transposing sentences I can barely string together into languages I barely know?
Would E continue altering dynamics in theatres and dimensions in photographs?
And would R know in a matter of seconds the acoustics of a room by visible materials or a couple of hand claps?
Who knows. Who cares. And language and sound we can separate into worlds of signs, musical notes and vibrations...do you know of the deaf man who created an entire system through clicking his tongue in different ways and sensing the materials around him by how they responded? But we need to be aware of stuff like that at least, just be aware.
Saturday 26 June 2010
Sense 1: Momentous manipulation...should it be momentary?
As I leave my full-time work at the Karov and instead focus on the different ways to get it abroad as a part of my, Nico, Dorit's and the other Karovians' Israel, there are other things to relate. They link to much of my learning here and to record them with a sense of consideration because others might read will also be helpful to me as I use this archive throughout my life and work.My first week-long blog project is about the senses...sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
Like always, it is amazing for me to hear anything that my writing or its components may spark in you so do consider sharing if you ever want.
On Thursday evening we went to see Not By Bread Alone at the Nalagat ('please do touch') Centre - a theatre and restaurant geared towards the work and productivity of deaf and/or blind actors. This show is famous now and will be at the Arts Depot in London, hopefully featuring also at the LIFT Festival. During the show 12 actors - some of them completely without sight or hearing, others with varying but generally low degrees of one or the other, make bread and relate their lives, dreams and observations (sorry) with immense creativity, aided by a special touch language 6 interpreters impart to them over the hour.
Afterwards C and I ate at the wonderful little Cafe Yafo up the road, forgoing the 30shekel live jazz an hour later to continue our talk as we walked back to Tel Aviv along the tayelet.
One thing I have been constantly intrigued and at times frustrated by over the past 5 months is the obsession with taking photos. Photos photos photo opportunity come on photo posing photo oh my god oh my god oh my god All The Fing Time. A told me her friend actually forgo swimming with dolphins in Eilat because nobody would be there with her to take pictures. wtf. And within this crazy scene I am increasingly aware of my own attitude to being in pictures. In the final leadership seminar one leader was taking individual pictures of us as we explained a project and I found myself, completely unintentionally, asking her not to photograph me. Put me on my trampoline, a swing, a stage of any kind and take whatever. But it's not that I just like not knowing when exactly someone's clicking. Sometimes it's fine...when there is no pressure, I suppose, to pose. I can't pose really. I just can't. Unless.....
Unless the moment is manipulating me...there's a stimulus. Being photographed is often aligned with the subject manipulating the moment, turning nothing into an inanimate animation - making a piece of film or a screened image amazing. At the top is a photo by D and at the bottom one created by A (although she is in it) and in both I found the situations (one I was aware the picture was being taken, the other one no) so sexy sexy sexy being photographed was great.
Stepping out of self-focus zzzz for a second, I love the pictures some of my photographer friends take...I mean those which are considered so highly, so thoughtfully, with the immense vision and angle in every sense of the word that a true photographer possesses. There are 2 people who really come to mind and to have an example of what I mean read the introduction on JP's wedding photography website. The other, R from my program, reflects the light of her presence, depth of emotional perception and extraordinary engagement with the bigness and smallness of the world in every moment she captures.
We will call her Erika, my favourite photographer personally known to me. She knows my "issues" with being photographed though we never had really the need to speak about them...I just knew she knew from her gentleness with me on one such occasion. She turns down some paid photographic work that doesn't incorporate the kind of thing or vibe she wants to picture...not out of snobbery or even real an idealism...it just doesn't come naturally. The way she talks about her art projects and those of her brother has taught me so much in its unknown humility and honesty. I won't write too much for discretion but Erika, if you are reading this, know how you touched me.
In a nutshell, when I have a conversation with people about this subject I dwell on my fear of camera-brandishers missing out on the moment itself because they are so keen to capture it on film. I really think a lot of the time they do. And it's an age-old cliche I know, the best photographs being imprinted on your memory. But even if you don't remember, does it matter? On the way back from Nalagat, C and I sat for a good while on the rocks overlooking the sea and talked at length. We came back to the moment itself and how we would cherish and remember it. The power of the sea, the sun, of how whether we call it G-d or science or struggle to define a greater creator or force it's to some extent immaterial. We spoke of personal impact, the definition of ambition and success. I said to C how she has effect already through her writing, through her conversations. Any subsequent development of her work, professional or otherwise, will carry on the success but on many levels she has already succeeded. As far as I am concerned anyway. :-) Moments and minutes count every day, whether we are waking, sleeping or dreaming. And isn't photography a wonderful thing to explore and extend those experiences for those with the gift of sight?
Monday 21 June 2010
Penultimate day and one or two views in point
Today I will graduate from Oranim 31.
I will stay in Tel Aviv until 21 July...one more month. The last month and a half have been so hectic and deeply rewarding. Things are slow whilst they move so fast in the lesser-known dark side of Israeli fringe theatre. There is a snobbishness to penetrate which rather than leaving you dogged refreshes the power and enforces the faith of those who believe and want shows to keep on happening in the Tahana Merkazit.
The last fortnight has been focused on the "big" (for me, for us) application to British Israeli Arts for She London. So much time and thought yet not enough not enough not enough. Who thought I could care about anything so much and articulate it? The vision is to work with 5 British-based and 3-Israel-based performers in a She event in North London, focusing on furthering both professionals' knowledge, creative thought and overall peripheral awareness on a collaborative British-Israeli platform. Dorit and I would work together to shape the space, the performers' group masterclasses and individual processes, and coordinate a one-off performance in March to commemorate the centenary of International Women's Day. Oh G-d I really really really really really really hope we get it.
Dad came back to Israel for a week...the poor thing was so exhausted and poorly with a chest infection from working so hard and round-the-clock with so many people in so many places. Through our conversations I learn so much every time. I am more open to learning from others here, even those I have known all my life. We saw at the Karov together Hotel Europe and Alef Alef: A Silent Woman - a previously unknown and favourite for me respectively. To watch show in Ivrit now is amazing. I can still understand maybe just 20% but to be familiar with the tone, text and purpose of the plays makes every viewing exciting in its own way.
As the Karov's new intern Rachel embarks on her 5-month journey here and we look for new opportunities internationally, I am reminded of how new the concept of site-specific, barely-budgeted fringe is in Israel. When I talk to other theatre professionals here about my work for Nico, collaborations with Dorit and the general purpose of the Karov, they often look down on it, don't understand it, don't engage. But slowly, slowly, slowly, with much time, energy and effort we will continue the change. The UK, USA, Europe and their various perspectives and developments are essential to help this little corner of Israel where theatre is concerned. July will be focused for me on making those relevant links.
Please continue following my journey here. If there is any way you can help at all, even just through your comments, suggestions and especially shared experiences of the Karov, I always want to hear from you.
With love.
Until tomorrow x
I will stay in Tel Aviv until 21 July...one more month. The last month and a half have been so hectic and deeply rewarding. Things are slow whilst they move so fast in the lesser-known dark side of Israeli fringe theatre. There is a snobbishness to penetrate which rather than leaving you dogged refreshes the power and enforces the faith of those who believe and want shows to keep on happening in the Tahana Merkazit.
The last fortnight has been focused on the "big" (for me, for us) application to British Israeli Arts for She London. So much time and thought yet not enough not enough not enough. Who thought I could care about anything so much and articulate it? The vision is to work with 5 British-based and 3-Israel-based performers in a She event in North London, focusing on furthering both professionals' knowledge, creative thought and overall peripheral awareness on a collaborative British-Israeli platform. Dorit and I would work together to shape the space, the performers' group masterclasses and individual processes, and coordinate a one-off performance in March to commemorate the centenary of International Women's Day. Oh G-d I really really really really really really hope we get it.
Dad came back to Israel for a week...the poor thing was so exhausted and poorly with a chest infection from working so hard and round-the-clock with so many people in so many places. Through our conversations I learn so much every time. I am more open to learning from others here, even those I have known all my life. We saw at the Karov together Hotel Europe and Alef Alef: A Silent Woman - a previously unknown and favourite for me respectively. To watch show in Ivrit now is amazing. I can still understand maybe just 20% but to be familiar with the tone, text and purpose of the plays makes every viewing exciting in its own way.
As the Karov's new intern Rachel embarks on her 5-month journey here and we look for new opportunities internationally, I am reminded of how new the concept of site-specific, barely-budgeted fringe is in Israel. When I talk to other theatre professionals here about my work for Nico, collaborations with Dorit and the general purpose of the Karov, they often look down on it, don't understand it, don't engage. But slowly, slowly, slowly, with much time, energy and effort we will continue the change. The UK, USA, Europe and their various perspectives and developments are essential to help this little corner of Israel where theatre is concerned. July will be focused for me on making those relevant links.
Please continue following my journey here. If there is any way you can help at all, even just through your comments, suggestions and especially shared experiences of the Karov, I always want to hear from you.
With love.
Until tomorrow x
Monday 24 May 2010
no power, power and magic moments
When I got to the Karov today I was first and realised I could feel my way round to the lights nearly as well as in the New End which was weird and nice.
I feel a bit weird and poorly so I will go home soon. I think it is mostly nostalgia because I watched 'Sex In The City' the first movie last night and it made me really really miss my clothes, especially the pink shoes. You can read more about my materialistic moral obsessions on the After A Fashion blog. The height of my feelings is such, however, that I momentarily had to mix the two worlds.
Building the profile of the Karov beyond Israel, or getting beyond Israel into the Karov proves daily to be less and less of a mean feat and today I am exhausted. I know what to do and how to use my brain but the two are just not in tune ha yom and I don't have the koach even for Ulpan. Also, as I was leaving the house today a cockroach fell on my head.
HOWEVER. ON THE PLUS SIDE.
This Saturday we have How To Teach Communism To The Mentally Ill which I can't wait to show to Ruthie when she comes. I can't wait to show you the Karov full-stop, darling. Also, I was telling Dorit all about the things Ruthie and I have done together and we want really to build part of She London around a unique non-Jewish perspective she could bring. If you're in Israel and read this, you can come to see Communism for the special rockabilly rate of 20NIS this Saturday only. I am doing the synopses, Karov backgrounds and refreshments (sort of) in English for non-Ivrit speakers so let me know ahead of time.
Nearly time to start the application for The Fall for Melbourne. We're also looking to Russian-Israeli embassies et al to raise the money to go to Grigory's festival. Nico seems up for the adventure and Albert said he would stay in a tent. All this pleased me.
I have lots of different favourite types of moments at the Karov but one that is very strong in my mind now is the type with Dorit when her energy and genuineness show me a new type of humility I never saw before in my life. Yesterday we were talking about something to do with the program-I do not remember what exactly-and I was moved by how she related the She event to the needs of others.
Very far removed from how I used to feel sitting in certain massive theatres surrounded by wankers who wouldn't know humility if it threw up in their soup.
Goodnight x
I feel a bit weird and poorly so I will go home soon. I think it is mostly nostalgia because I watched 'Sex In The City' the first movie last night and it made me really really miss my clothes, especially the pink shoes. You can read more about my materialistic moral obsessions on the After A Fashion blog. The height of my feelings is such, however, that I momentarily had to mix the two worlds.
Building the profile of the Karov beyond Israel, or getting beyond Israel into the Karov proves daily to be less and less of a mean feat and today I am exhausted. I know what to do and how to use my brain but the two are just not in tune ha yom and I don't have the koach even for Ulpan. Also, as I was leaving the house today a cockroach fell on my head.
HOWEVER. ON THE PLUS SIDE.
This Saturday we have How To Teach Communism To The Mentally Ill which I can't wait to show to Ruthie when she comes. I can't wait to show you the Karov full-stop, darling. Also, I was telling Dorit all about the things Ruthie and I have done together and we want really to build part of She London around a unique non-Jewish perspective she could bring. If you're in Israel and read this, you can come to see Communism for the special rockabilly rate of 20NIS this Saturday only. I am doing the synopses, Karov backgrounds and refreshments (sort of) in English for non-Ivrit speakers so let me know ahead of time.
Nearly time to start the application for The Fall for Melbourne. We're also looking to Russian-Israeli embassies et al to raise the money to go to Grigory's festival. Nico seems up for the adventure and Albert said he would stay in a tent. All this pleased me.
I have lots of different favourite types of moments at the Karov but one that is very strong in my mind now is the type with Dorit when her energy and genuineness show me a new type of humility I never saw before in my life. Yesterday we were talking about something to do with the program-I do not remember what exactly-and I was moved by how she related the She event to the needs of others.
Very far removed from how I used to feel sitting in certain massive theatres surrounded by wankers who wouldn't know humility if it threw up in their soup.
Goodnight x
Monday 10 May 2010
- The She Festival, and learning to trust that it's interesting...הרוע ה'א
It is over a week since the Karov's largest scale She festival to date.
With a rotating audience of over 120, every nook and cranny from the kitchen to the foyer with blindfolded performance art and contorting women in glass balls in the spaces between, SHE was pure Karovian magic at its height.
The night before we had the tech with all 5 of us, plus Dorit. As Pazit Yaron Minakovski breastfed her newborn baby in between her kitchen 'Pass the Salt' monologue, I really thought how truly "she" it all was with no pretense beyond the practical, and that really was special. Her baby was very well-behaved as well, even during Sara Sidoni's scary bit with the torch in the corridor leading to the bathrooms. She charted the experiences of a harassed woman breaking into bits of 'I Feel Pretty' in between, switching between English and Ivrit. Naomi Ben Asa...the lady using the glass bubble/ball and dance music soundtrack...is one of the warmest people I have ever met in my life. Her other full-time work is as a psychotherapist. Meredith Nadler from Germany asked half of her audience to orally describe her dancing to a blindfolded partner. She had just worked a few weeks in Haifa and has now gone back to the States. Dorit herself performed with renowned sculptor Yakov Chefetz, exploring the differences between live and recorded performance. Each year Dorit revives the SHE with strong recognition and memory of her friend Tali with whom she co-founded the idea 6 years ago. Tali subsequently passed away from cancer 2 years later. To experience not only the SHE process but its passionate legacy through the expressiveness of Dorit and her belief in the women she involves is pretty unique.
We each performed a small section of our shows. Afterwards Sara Sidoni commented, on Undressing Cabaret, that there was no distinction between the "performance" style and the singing that accompanies the getting dressed/getting undressed. The only difference was the type of song and the prime emotion (cute vs angry, I suppose) whereas the focus belonged to the state of mind...that of performing and projecting 2D-type sexiness versus not performing - the songs coming from inside as and when the preparation/unwinding process took place.
So afterwards, the night before the festival, Dorit and I went back to work. Before that I spent a good hour playing with her kids Mika and Yarden - two extraordinary little girls of 8 and 6 with all their mother's gumption, energy and intelligence. They gave me one of the best playtimes of my life and I have had many, many, many amazing playtimes in my life.
When Dorit's husband Effi finally took the kids home Dorit said, 'Alexa, look. You have to trust that what you do is interesting. When you are removing the eyeliner or putting on the shoes, it is a show in itself...it is watchable and special without the singing from deep down that then becomes crazy. If you want to show a woman who acts desperately in her dressing room and then goes out and tries to perform like Marilyn Monroe then that is fine and we will change the concept, but that isn't how, where and why we have worked so far. Let the songs just come to you, I beg of you.'
So that is what I did and it wasn't easy and it wasn't difficult - just different different different. Before the show I could watch all the audience congregating in the Tahana Merkazit to watch the six women in the dress (pictured here) and it was so exciting to see them arrive...all the different people. It was packed out...beyond capacity...and people were sitting on the pissed-on floor in my room which must have been nice for them.
I couldn't believe how many of my new friends came...it meant so much to me. I had invited Moti Sandak who is Director of All About Jewish Theatre - a network connecting Israel and Jewish arts all around the world. He liked SHE and we are now talking about using the Karov to forge a Next Generation section of his website in which young Diaspora discover Israel and its arts scene in a specific educational/professional opportunity.
For my own part in site-specific singing, I will now start to develop an idea in Tel Aviv which I will propose to a special Israeli festival I heard about some months ago. The chances of its being accepted are slim but I need to continue learning about my own processes of working. I need to learn how to risk in the way that is right for me.
Photos by Erika
Karov and the ARDC - our upcoming website page...
In August 2009 the Karov joined forces with the African Refugee and Development Centre to combine community, learning and theatrical fun.
We welcomed 40 children for a day of exploring our little theatre from the lighting board to the scene dock, from production process to mixed media. Dorit Nitai Neman led a special talk and workshop of the set of Hotel Europe assisted by the Karov team. In-house technician Ronen Bachar showed just how different lights and sounds transform a story into a full-on play experience.
Keeping children stimulated during the long summer holidays is a real challenge whatever your material status. When funds are low or non-existent, however, kids miss out even more with the advent of Playstations, computers and videogames being the modern solution.
The Karov believes in the power of theatre beyond the experience of just seeing a play. To give children the tools to create their own worlds, use their imagiations and, most significantly, see their neighborhood in a new light enriches our philosophy to the full.
Marketing manager Liron Ben Ezra remarked, It was an amazing day - we learnt as much from the kids as they did from us. Acting Artistic Director Dorit said, To see the children touching the projected film on the wall was really just incredible - many of them had never even seen a movie before and I had tears in my eyes.
Nearly a year on, we want to re-create this special day on a bi-monthly basis, extending our audience demographic beyond the expected age and social background of the average 2010 theatregoer in Tel Aviv. Our new International Relations department is looking for sponsors and fundraising opportunities to make this special project happen.
If you can help in any way, have any ideas, or would like to know more, please comment or email Alexa at skarov3@gmail.com.
Let's take Community Karov and Israeli Fringe to the next level.
We welcomed 40 children for a day of exploring our little theatre from the lighting board to the scene dock, from production process to mixed media. Dorit Nitai Neman led a special talk and workshop of the set of Hotel Europe assisted by the Karov team. In-house technician Ronen Bachar showed just how different lights and sounds transform a story into a full-on play experience.
Keeping children stimulated during the long summer holidays is a real challenge whatever your material status. When funds are low or non-existent, however, kids miss out even more with the advent of Playstations, computers and videogames being the modern solution.
The Karov believes in the power of theatre beyond the experience of just seeing a play. To give children the tools to create their own worlds, use their imagiations and, most significantly, see their neighborhood in a new light enriches our philosophy to the full.
Marketing manager Liron Ben Ezra remarked, It was an amazing day - we learnt as much from the kids as they did from us. Acting Artistic Director Dorit said, To see the children touching the projected film on the wall was really just incredible - many of them had never even seen a movie before and I had tears in my eyes.
Nearly a year on, we want to re-create this special day on a bi-monthly basis, extending our audience demographic beyond the expected age and social background of the average 2010 theatregoer in Tel Aviv. Our new International Relations department is looking for sponsors and fundraising opportunities to make this special project happen.
If you can help in any way, have any ideas, or would like to know more, please comment or email Alexa at skarov3@gmail.com.
Let's take Community Karov and Israeli Fringe to the next level.
Community Karov...well the kids love it.
The Karov Theatre meets the kids from the ARDC, Tel Aviv.
Before leaving for Eilat last Friday I made the beautiful discovery that Dorit and co pioneered a very special day last August. Around 40 children from the African Refugee and Development Centre spent a day at the theatre with actors, technicians and designers, plus the Karov team, to learn all about the magic of theatre and the all-important links with playtime.
I couldn't believe I'd been here nearly 3 months and never known about this, especially as Fiona and Gemma and lots of other Oranimers are volunteering for the ARDC. Later this week I will meet with Joanna, who manages the centre, to see if we can fundraise to make this a regular event. Below is the English page I've written for the Karov website. If you know of anyone or anything that could help, do let me know.
Love, and She Festival backlog coming coming coming, as well as forthcoming attendance of the (naked) Ashram Festival in the desert, the All About Jewish Theatre Next Generation, and a very special award for the Karov for our delicious show The Clown, the Whore and the Intellectual.
Shavua tov le culam.
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Nico's back, and She approaches with speed...
It is yom Shlishi...Tuesday and the 3rd day of the working week. In England I hate Tuesdays but here I like them a lot. Nico came back from nearly a month in Romania which was very, very welcome and he brought us all toblerones. Today was a really happy one. I translated a detailed scene-by-scene synopsis of Les Mouches (the Karov version) from French to English. I'd forgotten really how much I love translating and clarifying and re-clarifying things with words. Yofi! We have done a 10shekel (like, 1pound 20) for people from the Oranim program to come and see the play tomorrow with my English version in hand to see how much it helps.
I submitted a proposal to A at Oranim for Proyect Kanafiyim (The Wings Project) to get young Diaspora to the Karov and engaged with South Tel Aviv and the Tachana through a focused production and workshop in English. She called me and said she liked my proposal a lot which made me so glad and we will meet again next week to discuss it further.
Grigory has invited Nico and 7 actors to take part in the Lik Festival with a site-specific adaptation of Spirit Of The Forest which is so exciting. Nico's not sure about being able to adapt it for the smaller cast and for the forest there in Mikhailove but I do so hope he does.
Dorit and I still need to finalise the space for Undressing Cabaret but her little one has been poorly so we shall do it tomorrow. The e-flyer (and actual normal flyer) is beautiful and I am so proud to distribute it with my name on it in Ivrit. There is a woman called Ayelet Ron in the theatre now rehearsing with a massive dress from which 4 women emerge and do things with sticks by the sound of things.
I submitted a proposal to A at Oranim for Proyect Kanafiyim (The Wings Project) to get young Diaspora to the Karov and engaged with South Tel Aviv and the Tachana through a focused production and workshop in English. She called me and said she liked my proposal a lot which made me so glad and we will meet again next week to discuss it further.
Grigory has invited Nico and 7 actors to take part in the Lik Festival with a site-specific adaptation of Spirit Of The Forest which is so exciting. Nico's not sure about being able to adapt it for the smaller cast and for the forest there in Mikhailove but I do so hope he does.
Dorit and I still need to finalise the space for Undressing Cabaret but her little one has been poorly so we shall do it tomorrow. The e-flyer (and actual normal flyer) is beautiful and I am so proud to distribute it with my name on it in Ivrit. There is a woman called Ayelet Ron in the theatre now rehearsing with a massive dress from which 4 women emerge and do things with sticks by the sound of things.
Friday 23 April 2010
Undressing Cabaret...taking the She Festival to the next step
SHE is coming together in all its vivid glory. The Woman In The Wall has now become Undressing Cabaret...a performance that is requiring time, energy and parts of my brain I didn't even know existed.
When I started to work with Dorit and prepared a "backstage"cabaret performance for her, her first response was, "Look, Alexa. Look. If you want to do a performance I will give you the stage and a microphone but you said you wanted a hidden space. Why? Why is it about hiding? Why is it about getting changed constantly? Where do the songs come from?"
I spent morning after evening after morning in the weeks that followed sitting with notebooks and pens and coffees, trying to write stories and repertoires for this hour-long, rotating performance. This wasn't a spur of the minute bluff, nothing was or is that to me anymore. Someone besides me saw a need in me to both perform and hide at the same time; to not stay still, to not engage straightforwardly with my audience. And I had no clue how to start or what to do.
How it came together (or started to...there is only a week left and there is still a long way to go) I will never be quite sure. But it has. And this afternoon I worked and worked and worked, structuring, singing, timing, changing, hiding and showing. For an hour and a half in total, probably, but it felt like a lifetime.
There is a show...a short one. A cheap, desperate cabaret/burlesque act of about 5 minutes. Then a retirement backstage to transform. Or rather attempt to, but really stay in the same place as we constantly find ourselves doing. And here the songs come in...incredible lyrics and tunes of journey, regression and an inherent pain that still exists years after we think we've started doing what we love.
I play with corsets, shoes, cheap make-up and words. I don't think, I do. It is hard to rehearse this with the language barrier. It makes me want to scream sometimes at the Karov that I a) don't know Hebrew that well and b) don't make the necessary time to learn properly because of all the other things I am doing here.
But I am doing it. And Dorit is amazing with me in her own way.
Last week I met the other women in She. Each one is very beautiful...all unusual looking with varying degrees of warmth and magnetism but all fit the Karov's (and, more specifically, Dorit's) vision and philosophy as to how an audience should learn from who and what it watches.
Tomorrow morning I will make four pictures out of make-up to mirror how I will change my face for each audience. Dorit may hate it but it is the first way I have found some method of working and visualising that is hands-on. A bit like when I started working at Tatty Devine and realised something about the importance of perfection. I thrive on imperfection. I love it...I love dirt, bodily fluids and singing off-key and disgusting, wrong mistakes and how people sum them up and analyse them to little end. But perfection is needed to maximise what you love-at least in mentality. It doesn't matter how grotesque and wonderful it is in the end. But the rounded whole must be a goal.
Monday 19 April 2010
The Karov Theatre - the week after Yom Ha Shoah, IDF Memorial Day and the build towards independence...
It is a bitty time of year in Israel. First we have Pesach - a two-week holiday, then the weeks following are consumed with memory and looking backward, forward and at the present in the light and darkness behind the fun that is Tel Aviv and Israel.
I have just submitted an application to the Paideia Project Incubator in Sweden...an institute sponsored by the European Jewish Cultural Fund to link Israel with European Diaspora. On behalf of the Karov Liron and I could go and learn how to take things further with our international applications and initiatives.
PK (or Project Kanafayim - The Wings Project) comprises the following ventures for a 2-3 year series:
- She London - a twin mini-festival at the New End Theatre, Hampstead, providing a collaborative platform and creative education for female performers and practitioners in Israel and the UK.
- The Man From There (Paris production and workshop) - a revival of the Holocaust play in the French capital next Yom Ha Shoah.
- The Karov at InFoMaT, Athens (International Festival Of Making Theatre) - an opportunity for Dorit to teach a variety of European directors, actors and drama students about the importance of Israeli community theatre beyond its immediate location.
- Communism As Taught To The Mentally Ill and Hotel Europe in a special Eastern European teaching tour in community centres, schools, fringe theatres and institutes of higher education.
- Wings Internship and Education program - an accompanying opportunity to each project for two young Diaspora to work alongside the Karov in their home community, to build a unique perspective on international arts and Israel.
So fingers crossed. If I don't get the Paideia thing, Liron, Linor and I will hopefully go to Edinburgh for August. I want so badly to show them the playground on the Meadows and all the other stuff.
Last night the program took us to a memorial ceremony at a naval base in Haifa. It was the perfect place for it by the sea and it was incredible to see the navy kids and older people as well as the Army. It was a very difficult day thought-wise, that is all I can say really in writing. There were 2 silences, one in the night and one at 11 this morning.
Tonight there are parties everywhere to build up to Independence Day tomorrow. I will be again I think in Kikar Rabin with the Brazillian contingent. Moaan told me today she also is learning Spanish. I must work more on the Ivrit-Espanol swap-love with Liron as it is so much fun and I learn a lot from her. I wonder if it is connected to the fact that we both have teacher mothers.
Anyhow, I would really like your thoughts on the Wings Project and if anyone has any ideas to add. Gems of Mazal is coming on grand. I have a business plan to do before Thursday which is a huge old document but I like doing them because I am a freak. xx
I have just submitted an application to the Paideia Project Incubator in Sweden...an institute sponsored by the European Jewish Cultural Fund to link Israel with European Diaspora. On behalf of the Karov Liron and I could go and learn how to take things further with our international applications and initiatives.
PK (or Project Kanafayim - The Wings Project) comprises the following ventures for a 2-3 year series:
- She London - a twin mini-festival at the New End Theatre, Hampstead, providing a collaborative platform and creative education for female performers and practitioners in Israel and the UK.
- The Man From There (Paris production and workshop) - a revival of the Holocaust play in the French capital next Yom Ha Shoah.
- The Karov at InFoMaT, Athens (International Festival Of Making Theatre) - an opportunity for Dorit to teach a variety of European directors, actors and drama students about the importance of Israeli community theatre beyond its immediate location.
- Communism As Taught To The Mentally Ill and Hotel Europe in a special Eastern European teaching tour in community centres, schools, fringe theatres and institutes of higher education.
- Wings Internship and Education program - an accompanying opportunity to each project for two young Diaspora to work alongside the Karov in their home community, to build a unique perspective on international arts and Israel.
So fingers crossed. If I don't get the Paideia thing, Liron, Linor and I will hopefully go to Edinburgh for August. I want so badly to show them the playground on the Meadows and all the other stuff.
Last night the program took us to a memorial ceremony at a naval base in Haifa. It was the perfect place for it by the sea and it was incredible to see the navy kids and older people as well as the Army. It was a very difficult day thought-wise, that is all I can say really in writing. There were 2 silences, one in the night and one at 11 this morning.
Tonight there are parties everywhere to build up to Independence Day tomorrow. I will be again I think in Kikar Rabin with the Brazillian contingent. Moaan told me today she also is learning Spanish. I must work more on the Ivrit-Espanol swap-love with Liron as it is so much fun and I learn a lot from her. I wonder if it is connected to the fact that we both have teacher mothers.
Anyhow, I would really like your thoughts on the Wings Project and if anyone has any ideas to add. Gems of Mazal is coming on grand. I have a business plan to do before Thursday which is a huge old document but I like doing them because I am a freak. xx
Wednesday 14 April 2010
She 2010...First coverage and mucho excitimondo
Well, we have been invited to the Lik Festival by Grigory Kofman (the nice Russian director from the bench in Kiryat Motzkin). Liron and Linor spoke to Nico to propose the task of adapting and directing Chekhov's Spirit Of The Forest for 7 actors, 1 and a half hours and, er, a forest. Nico is in Romania and says that they are all too nice to him there and it is unnatural. In celebration we opened a pleasant bottle of wine and created a bar-type arrangement in the corridor.
Last week Linor took some lovely pictures of Dorit and me for the She Festival (see Woman In the Wall for more on my piece). Some very exciting contortions occurred, many of them involving a ladder.
Our first mention of the year on ynet can be found here. In a brief translation/summary, The Karov Theatre will present a variety of female performers through various media including participants from Berlin and London. Watch this space as The Woman In The Wall grows within various Karov corners. Briut xx
Tuesday 13 April 2010
היש משם - The Man From There. Holocaust Memorial Day at the Karov
National Holocaust Day in Israel is like nothing on earth. I went to three commemorative events, the first being a beautiful evening ceremony at the Cameri. Opening with a children's choir, followed by candle-lighting by survivors and solo vocal and guitar performances, the ceremony was incredibly moving. I liked that it was all in Ivrit although I only literally understood 20-30%...but the meaning of everything was clear. Even clearer though was the indescribable union of every person present. I went with J, L and others from the South American contingent. I loved this because after a particularly special piece of music or story J would lean to me and say, "Beautiful, so beautiful." and it was all my favourite moments too.
A lot of people here of my generation and situation are in Israel for the memory, purpose and carrying the word of their great-uncles, aunts and others who died in the Holocaust. My father's family, although Ashkenazim, were okay because they left Eastern Europe (to our knowledge) in the late, er, 20s maybe. My mother's uncles, however, both suffered acutely in the Second World War although they were Sephardic and grew up in Iraq, Persia then Palestine - moving around with my great-grandfather's work as he travelled as principal of the Alliance Francaise. In the late 30s my grandmother went to study at the Surbonne in Paris but then had to leave to go to England because of the war. She had two younger brothers. The middle one, Sammy, was captured and had half his face destroyed in the Second World War. I don't know how long he was imprisoned for. After the war, however, he went on to marry and have children but his wife died when they were 12, 9 and 4 and Sammy sought even further refuge in the shop he owned. He died in 1996. I don't ever remember meeting him but there is one photo of him holding me as a baby. His middle daughter Timna (my mother's first cousin) is my mother in Israel and one of my best friends. My youngest great-uncle Marco took his own life shortly after being sent to fight in France at the beginning of the Second World War. He was 21. My grandmother was the last family member to see him alive. It is him I remember (or rather don't) with particular...I don't know what, but something.
On the morning of 12 April itself a siren sounded at 10am to mark the start of a minute's silence. The whole Oranim program was at a special memorial at Ironi Yud Bet - the school where we have Ulpan. To be honest, it was something of a shambles because the construction work going on outside was so loud we could hear neither the siren nor the speeches or songs by teachers and pupils which followed.
The Man From There (היש משם) was written by Holocaust survivor Tuvia Ornan and directed by Dorit. In it we see the quintessential young Israeli couple at the start of their married life. They are brash and materialistic, she is pregnant, and there is a questionable third party involved - a young man returning at intervals from business abroad, laden with various bits of eurotrash. Amongst all this we have Grandma whose survival of the Shoah is best forgotten or at least ignored...who knows what cans of worms it might open up.
And finally, as we suspend disbelief and peel the layers of our own doubt, we have Moishe: a young man who has lived through Auschwitz to the present day, witnessing the creation of Israel and maintaining his youth and memory. Whilst maintaining an age-old friendship with the grandmother, Moishe proposes an unusual business plan to his contemporary counterparts: a present-day Auschwitz to educate the Israelis of the 21st Century complete with original layout, function and Nazi commanders. Sensing a monetary opportunity, the present-day men comply and relationships, friendships and moral judgement are thrown into chaos.
The kind of modern play which merges time-travel, family drama and social commentary doesn't generally wash with me. However, in the context of Yom Ha Shoah, The Man From There trod the fine balance of past and present, fantasy and reality, and the inevitable questions for modern Jews, particularly in Israel:
In giving birth to our children and then our grandchildren and their children, how do we lighten this burden from prejudice and scapegoating that is so recent? We must never, never forget and this must never happen again. And in the State of Israel - a developed homeland with a democracy where Western living is permitted and modernisation a key component, how can we look back to look forward without the gross intervention of materialism?
Afterwards the writer answered questions which was very moving, particularly those of the young Israelis soldiers in the audience (18-24ish) who started the evening looking bored as whatever and ended it completely engaged and full of thoughts and questions. I can't remember what they were now (they had to be translated for me) but there is something very warm about Israeli audiences on nights such as this. There are tears without sentimentality and people say things they mean.
If you are reading this and are in Israel, please, please come to the Karov. It's a very special place.
With love,
Alexa.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Shapira - 2nd installment: Alexa and friends
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE.Hello. Welcome to Clinca Karov...4 shows for 100nis and an exclusive appointment with "Doktor Cultura" aka Rafael Adi and a scant ushering service courtesy of Achot Alexa.
In the tiny Shapira neighbourhood, men, women and children flocked to songs, sounds and tambourines to learn about Nico Nitai's Karov Theatre.
Although we were stationed a 3-minute walk from the Tachana Merkazit (Central Bus Station), few new friends knew about us although most were familiar with Nico's name and work.Rafi and I thus created our own bus stop with the aid of an amiable tree, bringing the Karov's location into our larksome playtimes.
For the most part I donned a tambourine.
Alexa and friends:Left we have the beautiful Linor (chief photographer), pictured in schoolgirl get-up complete with cigarettes and fetching hair ribbon.
Doctor Rafi indulges in a little risque peeping Tomness and Alexa wears an authentic shawl from backstage.
Below we have Liron - a symphony in turquoise and veritable songbird of the Karov quintet. She can ring my bells any day.
Also pictured below is Rudi...lead singer and guitarist of Rutsi Buba and very talented at other things besides. He used to be in-house tech manager at the Karov in the days before girlfriend Linor became resident production manager. You can see me clapping along to the beat in the background. You don't have to look that carefully.
Wednesday 7 April 2010
Shapira Shapira Shapira
The Shapira Festival, 06/04...ESI YOFI.
Yesterday we set out from the Karov to the Shapira neighbourhood, 3 minutes' walk South of the Tachana Merkazit but longer with:
- the Karovmobile (not a car, a wooden box-office type contraption on wheels)
- Rafi "Doktor Cultura" Adi
- Linor "naughty schoolgirl (complete with satchel, handbell and hair-ribbon)" Kruzuk
- Me with corset, rabbit ears etc, and
- Liron
Shapira is the new old Nevesedek where there are lots of kids everywhere and small front rooms and grocers turned into public galleries and hang-out spots for the "festival". For the first couple of hours we were the only attraction, singing, dancing and re-enacting the spontaneous "Clinica Cultura" with Rafi the Rofe (doctor). Passers-by - children and adults and pets etc - were all really interested in the Karov and open to the on and off-street Karovian antics on offer. More so than in England. It was a Royal Mile just for us.
Yesterday I didn't have much koach having been up so early to take my dad to the airport et al so my bestest part of the day was playing with the children. There were three huge metal punch bags on chains hanging from a tree and you could bash them into each-other to make a noise. The neighbourhood provides wooden sticks with which to hit the metal punchbags and lo pasabamos bomba!
We stayed to promote the Karov in Shapira for four hours and had beer and cigarettes. Here were the three most beautiful things about it, I thought:
1. Rafi gave out sweets, all the the children as well as the interested adults, and everyone took them.
2. If you smoke and drink whilst promoting at a festival in Shapira it is not seen as derogatory or lazy or immature in relation to your cause. Rather it reflects an affinity which is even more attractive to locals.
3. Today I had an amazing conversation with Linor (naughty schoolgirl) who is the longest serving Karov persona except Nico and she lives in Shapira and said that to see it in festival mode and linked with her work enforced her love of living there.
For those of you living in Israel, we have a membership deal of 4 plays for 100NIS (about 15pounds). You can find more info here or post a comment and I'll get back to you.
Last night I cooked dinner and talked lots with F about the difference between North and South Tel Aviv - how South TA for me is the Israel of the future with its cultural diversity and laid-back welcome so inherent on days like yesterday.
There were a lot of art-recycling projects. Linor's favourite was the one with burnt chairs, reinstalled to become free-moving mechanisms which drew on a white wall with their charcoal remnants. I really liked the dismantled massive cardboard boxes and white paint next to where we were. So many children were going crazy and the way their freedom and inhibition came out in the patterns and sculpture-type things they made was just amazing.
Shapira looks a lot like an Israeli Kennington but without the yuppy wank. If I stay here beyond June I will def live there.
Thursday 1 April 2010
Grigory Kofman - a very nice and interesting man from Russia
http://www.lik-masterklass.com/ - Russian speakers/readers, enjoy!
Ages ago I contacted a company called GOFF who run a week-long site-specific festival in a forest in Russia, about 300km from Moscow and not very far from Latvia. I think I told them about Communism and the artistic director Grigory (after a lot of morfix and whatnot) arranged to meet me at Kiryat Motzkin train station so's I could give him the dvd (in Hebrew with Romanian subtitles) and we could, er, chat. How we both happened to be in Kiryat Motzkin at the same time on the same day is another story which I would write if I did not mind being the sort of blog person that I don't like.
Anyhow, we had a lovely meeting on a bench with some vending machine beverages as there was nowhere to sit on the train platform and there is, er, nothing in KM. Grigory was really interesting and talked to me lots about Russian culture and antisemitism and practicalities of forest theatre festivals as well as the implications of having to cut a 19-strong cast down to 8. Nico also suggested I bring up the Karov production of Spirit Of The Forest by Chekhov which I way prefer the idea of now I know they could do it around trees and that.
Ages ago I contacted a company called GOFF who run a week-long site-specific festival in a forest in Russia, about 300km from Moscow and not very far from Latvia. I think I told them about Communism and the artistic director Grigory (after a lot of morfix and whatnot) arranged to meet me at Kiryat Motzkin train station so's I could give him the dvd (in Hebrew with Romanian subtitles) and we could, er, chat. How we both happened to be in Kiryat Motzkin at the same time on the same day is another story which I would write if I did not mind being the sort of blog person that I don't like.
Anyhow, we had a lovely meeting on a bench with some vending machine beverages as there was nowhere to sit on the train platform and there is, er, nothing in KM. Grigory was really interesting and talked to me lots about Russian culture and antisemitism and practicalities of forest theatre festivals as well as the implications of having to cut a 19-strong cast down to 8. Nico also suggested I bring up the Karov production of Spirit Of The Forest by Chekhov which I way prefer the idea of now I know they could do it around trees and that.
The SHE Festival goes live on Kadmus, and daddy meets dorit...
Gerald got poorly in the throat and didn't come to hear Alexa's thrilled, spilled and pilled up thoughts about eating twins and subtitling the mentally ill or whatever I mentioned last time
Oh, you can change the font colour and see how it looks when you type. How exciting. Now I am going to write something that is really difficult to see hahaa oh but I can't see it either so never mind.
So thoughts for Gerry will have to wait. Instead, I took Brian to meet Dorit and co. It was great although we couldn't get any proper cookies because it is Pesach. I showed dad all the nice backstage and the wide stage and the foyer and office and tea and coffee and we talked about twinning the She Festival in particular with the New End. Ann has since made a page for this year's SF on Kadmus which is ever so nice of her. I will add some pictures here next week.
Increasingly I am excited about The Woman In The Wall. I think I would like to have a tyre as my swing, or something round-ish. They have now those wide round swings with three pieces of rope and they go round as well as up and down. The Sailor pushed me in one at Edinburgh and it was so much fun. Also, I always prefer round and round to backwards and forwards.
As a result of going to the Karov and meeting Dorit, B has an idea for a play about families in theatres, especially fathers and daughters. It sounds quite interesting actually. Anyway, we shall see. I also want to get Alef Alef to London in some shape or form, to promote the work of Jewish artists on the issue of domestic violence.
My dad said he was happy I went to the Karov and not somewhere like the Cameri, which I thought was nice. Also I felt very proud in a general way. It is sad he won't get to see anything there this time.
Monday 29 March 2010
Chag Samech, and forthcoming meeting with Gerald :-o
It is Pesach today which should be interesting. We are going to be in Ashdod this evening for the Seder. The whole holiday is about two weeks, I think, but normal times like that don't really apply to theatre so whatever. I am very curious because on Wednesday morning, Dorit and Liron and Linor have a meeting with the Karov's head trustee Gerald. He is English and runs a big tourist newspaper in Israel. I think he sounds rather important, a bit like Conrad or Godfrey or the trustees we have at the New End.
Just on an aside, Emma I know you are reading this and I want to give you a special Chag Samech and Mazel Tov because you did so amazingly in A Big Day For The Goldbergs at the New End. My dad wrote it you see and I was so sad that I couldn't see it.
Anyway, Gerald at the Karov will come partly to hear about the ideas for the theatre's English-speakers program. I like this work et al...also, I come up with many thoughts whilst smoking which makes me worried because what if when I don't smoke I never think of anything anymore? Or what if I just never stop smoking and just die very young? Well, my thoughts for Gerald etc are:
1) The Wings Project: a fortnightly surtitle program with a pioneer session sold to Oranim, Career Israel and a selection of invited English speakers in Tel Aviv.
2) Festivalim Kanafiyiim: a foundation proposal for the Karov on the international fringe - Israeli theatre, the wider world and thoughts beyond the Exposure.
3) Theatre twinning: I have this thought to twin the Karov with a similar scale space or festival elsewhere in the English-speaking world. For a week a year say, each company prepares an exchange project with the aid of two young Israeli/exchange volunteers, bringing a different kind of arts exposure to the two countries. I've broached it with the Captial Fringe Festival in Washington, and also with Bill and Ann at Kadmus Arts, plus the International Drama and Education Association who have very boring looking chairs on their website. For this I am sad.
They are all a bit on the educational side. After my dad in theatre, I think Gerald and I will be cool because I have thought all about where the money is coming from etc and I am not very idealistic.
My session or whatever ends if 5 minutes so Chag Samech and watch my space. Please please. I still have such a hang-up about this blog thing.
I miss my trampoline also:-(
A x
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