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.

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.

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