Every exit being an entrance somewhere else, I've now turned my attention to this week's trip to Dunedin. A hauntingly familiar city when I visited for the first time last year, I'm looking forward to spending more time there.
Last Friday I shared some fruits of the past two weeks' work at an exhibition of drama skits and sketches by the 30 children and young people who have taken part. I enjoyed seeing the subtle changes they've undergone, the emergence of new confidence and the excitement of performing for their parents and friends.
The Spring progresses, but through mood swings of torrential downpour and dazzling brightness, an adolescent season of promise.
I'm enjoying tamarilloes, Vogel's bread, seeing Tuis in the bottle brush trees, strong sunlight, the sea.
I'm not enjoying the Auckland motorway.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Young promise
The blossom is in full flower here in Auckland. The first dusting of green on the deciduous trees is lime-green, changing by the day, and tonight the new moon lay in the old moon's arms. I started my second week of drama workshops with a younger group; a day spent shifting my expectations away from those set by last week's deep teenagers.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Dramatic tendencies
A week in New Zealand and I'm half-way through the first week-long workshop of drama activities, this one with a group of creative and enthusiastic home-schooled teenagers. They are a pleasure to work with; full of fun, focussed and genuinely interested in learning.
Don't get me started on the countless times this isn't the case.
Home-schooling is sometimes regarded with suspicion, or a cynical air, but this network of families home-schooling their children is a model of good practice, with living evidence of success and difference in groups of kids like the one I have the privilege of working with this week.
Don't get me started on the countless times this isn't the case.
Home-schooling is sometimes regarded with suspicion, or a cynical air, but this network of families home-schooling their children is a model of good practice, with living evidence of success and difference in groups of kids like the one I have the privilege of working with this week.
Hotel California
The theory was that a night's sleep in a hotel near the airport mid-way between the UK and New Zealand would alleviate the jet-lag effect of a 26-hour journey.
The evidence is positive; it's only taken me a couple of days to adjust to being eleven hours ahead of myself and, yes, the Los Angeles Airport Hilton is very nice thank you.
Well, I say that. The entrance is grandiose, the facade impressive in that smoked glass monolith kind of way, and the corridors are spacious and richly furnished with art and faux-antique couches. The actual rooms seem to have been an after-thought, squeezed around the edges of the magnificent approaches.
I had my fill of American TV, lost my battle with the telephone system, had a fine breakfast and a comfortable day resting in the public spaces and even took a walk. 'Walk ?' asked the concierge when I asked where might be a good place for this activity. 'Well..er.. there's a park about 10 blocks, you could get a taxi.' Was there anywhere I could walk from the Hotel ?
Following his directions I walked alone along tired boulevards lined with old parked cars. I walked for five blocks past hotels, private houses, rest homes, industrial parks and vacant lots in the humid Los Angeles sunshine. Every few minutes a planeload of people passed over me, ruffling my hair and landing moments later at LAX just across the way. I had the sidewalks entirely to myself.
It's worth saying too that travelling through this American port, which I've done several times now, was smooth and relatively stress-free. The staff were relaxed and friendly, a marked contrast to a few years ago when many of the staff were clearly on a hair-trigger.
The evidence is positive; it's only taken me a couple of days to adjust to being eleven hours ahead of myself and, yes, the Los Angeles Airport Hilton is very nice thank you.
Well, I say that. The entrance is grandiose, the facade impressive in that smoked glass monolith kind of way, and the corridors are spacious and richly furnished with art and faux-antique couches. The actual rooms seem to have been an after-thought, squeezed around the edges of the magnificent approaches.
I had my fill of American TV, lost my battle with the telephone system, had a fine breakfast and a comfortable day resting in the public spaces and even took a walk. 'Walk ?' asked the concierge when I asked where might be a good place for this activity. 'Well..er.. there's a park about 10 blocks, you could get a taxi.' Was there anywhere I could walk from the Hotel ?
Following his directions I walked alone along tired boulevards lined with old parked cars. I walked for five blocks past hotels, private houses, rest homes, industrial parks and vacant lots in the humid Los Angeles sunshine. Every few minutes a planeload of people passed over me, ruffling my hair and landing moments later at LAX just across the way. I had the sidewalks entirely to myself.
It's worth saying too that travelling through this American port, which I've done several times now, was smooth and relatively stress-free. The staff were relaxed and friendly, a marked contrast to a few years ago when many of the staff were clearly on a hair-trigger.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bard head
I have Shakespeare on the brain, what with the early stages of Macbeth in preparation (next year's Traquair production, where I am 'Director of Weird') and an upcoming production of Twelfth Night in New Zealand, where I am arriving at the last minute and appearing to direct operations. Icing the cake, in reality. This, combined with various workshop commitments here and black-clothed coffee-enriched meetings about future events, makes for a pleasing combination of activities occasionally darkened by last-minute frenzies and glimpses into the 'what about money ?' chasm.
I co-presented an adult workshop on Sunday about the RSC method of reading Shakespearean texts (I was doing the improvisation, status and physical theatre bits) which I found thought-provoking and inspiring. There are plans for more, based on the positive feedback we got, so more irons in the fire. Meanwhile it is timely new understandings for Twelfth Night.
House plans continue to limp along; we've moved up to roof shapes, square metres of window glass and definitions of 'combustible' now, so that has to be progress, doesn't it ?
I co-presented an adult workshop on Sunday about the RSC method of reading Shakespearean texts (I was doing the improvisation, status and physical theatre bits) which I found thought-provoking and inspiring. There are plans for more, based on the positive feedback we got, so more irons in the fire. Meanwhile it is timely new understandings for Twelfth Night.
House plans continue to limp along; we've moved up to roof shapes, square metres of window glass and definitions of 'combustible' now, so that has to be progress, doesn't it ?
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