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.

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