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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
