November 11, 2006 by katie
We were lucky enough to have most of the day in Stockholm. It was a beautiful sunny day, and showed off the city at its best. The sun glinted off the water, which is everywhere (the city is made up of 4 islands).
We had a stroll around and took far too many pictures of nice looking buildings.
Then we decided to visit the architecture museum, which turned out to share its spacious modern building with the modern art gallery, and was really good. Lots of little models of buildings, and I even saw two Mondrian paintings (which I’d missed out on in Amsterdam last weekend).
November 10, 2006 by katie
The high speed train journey to Stockholm was incredibly picturesque. Little painted wooden houses nestled by the sides of beautiful tree-lined lakes. We had some Danish Krona left over, and had already bought some lunch, so blew the rest on some beers and a small bottle of wine for later. I did look like a bit of an alcoholic carrying it all back from the buffet car though.
by katie
We started to feel a bit like the world was against us during our one night in Stockholm. We wandered around a bit then went to find a vegetarian buffet restaurant recommended in the guide book – when we got there we got extra excited because it had an amazing view over the city. But it had stopped serving an hour before at 9pm (vegetarians!). We eventually found some grub at a cafe, and following that decided to get the tunnelbana into the city centre to visit Stockholm’s Ice Bar (where everything’s made of ice). We arrived to find a sign outside saying it was closed for maintenance for 7 days. Humph. The night was rescued when we found a cool little morrocan style bar near our hotel, and the barman made me a very wonderful mojito – result.
I’ll write about the day in the next entry…
November 9, 2006 by katie
After a two hour afternoon kip we got our act together and hit Copenhagen. Wandered over to the harbour and found an Italian restaurant (it’s going to be a theme, since we’re both veggie and meat/fish features pretty heavily in Scandinavian cuisine). We found a bar later on in the ‘latin quarter’ which may/may not have been a gay bar – there were lots of guys, and it did seem on further inspection that they were all talking in couples, but whatever, it had amazing red and gold vintage wallpaper and we felt like we’d gone back in time 100 years.
November 7, 2006 by katie
Me and Jane are off on a “work” trip to Helsinki to attend the Informal
European Theatre Meeting taking place there from 9th to 12th November.
Our mission is to get there without flying, and we’ve decided to take a
circular route around the Baltic Sea. We’ll pass through Belgium,
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden on the way out to Finland, and Estonia,
Lativa, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France on the way back.
It’s a bit of a long way round, but it should be quite an adventure.
by katie
Jane and I met up at Bruxelles-Midi train station, went straight to Haagen Daas, and got a belgian waffle down us.
We had about five hours to kill before our overnight train to Hamburg, so walked into the city and explored for a while. My geographer genes told me that if we walked up the hill we’d be sure to find something interesting, and we were rewarded with a big cathedral, lovely old narrow streets and courtyards, and a great little Italian restaurant where the owners treated you like family (and I got to do all the ordering in Italian, hooray).
Then it was into the poshest sleeper cabin I’ve ever been in for the train journey to Hamburg, complete with sink and towels in a little cabinet, and breakfast served on our cabin’s table in the morning. How very civilised.
October 7, 2006 by katie
We arrived at 7am, totally knackered after about four hours sleep and
both of us being dog-tired even before we met up in Bruxelles. We
snoozed in a waiting room for an hour or so, before getting on a train
to Copenhagen. The journey was mostly a blur of dozing, interrupted by
45 minutes of action when the train went onto a ferry (much like a car
might) and we went up on the windy deck to ease my feelings of
seasickness. This got me to worrying about the overnight ferry we’re
taking from Stockholm to Helsinki – let’s just hope it’s a calm night…
October 6, 2006 by katie
Can you make it to the Custard Factory in Birmingham tonight?
If so, come to Pilot. We’re going to be there trying out two small elements of Treasured on some of the audience there. As ever we won’t be using the stage, but a small dressing room round the back of it. Also we won’t be using the jewellery (which will be wierd after 3 weeks of getting so used to it) as we don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the final pieces. You might see the shadow of one of them though – as a teaser…
Here is the info:
PILOT
The Theatre @ The Custard Factory
Digbeth, Birmingham
Doors open 7pm
Tickets: £4/£3
more details: www.b-theatre.co.uk
October 3, 2006 by katie
I had a very lovely and relaxing weekend where I didn’t think about the project, or think or talk much in general. Returning on Monday I felt quite refreshed and with more brain space than at the end of last week.
However, my brain is obviously more overloaded than I realise. Last night I woke up standing on my bed in the pitch black, desperately trying to put the piece of head jewellery onto Katherine (who wasn’t there). In my sleep as I began to stand on the surface I remember thinking ‘this is a really unstable surface to do the dressing from’, and then ‘its really ridiculous to do this in the dark – I can’t see where her head is’. Upon exclaiming outloud ‘We need more light in here. This isn’t going to work’. I opened the curtain that hangs alongside my bed and woke up.
It strikes me that this has an interesting resonance with the pieces we’re making, and how you move from being outside a dream/fantasy world into being central to it yourself.
Shame my sleepwalks are never really useful in shedding light on the performance itself.
by katie
A week out of the space and away from rehearsing. Katie and I have tons of jobs, both related and unrelated to Treasured. This morning we had a bit of a break from the admin to meet with Gareth our stage manager who starts on the project next week. Katie talked through the performance to date – really good to go over it and discuss the practicalities of next week a bit. Good to see Gareth again too (who we worked with on ‘I am waiting’) and hear about his company (Little Earthquake)’s exploits.
In the afternoon we found time to feedback about each piece as it stood on Friday, and nab Joel for a cup of tea and chat about the performance. Some interesting stuff came up, particularly about the head piece which is proving difficult. It is such a powerful piece in itself that we seem to have been sucked into making a ritual out of it which offers more signifigance or power than we can actually deliver. It can only ever be disapointing following the current build up – having worn it you won’t rule a country or possess superhuman powers or win in a battle. We may have found a solution in focusing the experience more heavily around what happens when the piece is on the head. Perhaps moving away from loaded images of annointing, or cleansing and looking towards a narrative again.
I will think on!
