...little dancing moment in the North... tribute forever...
Celebrating and mourning… this is all what life is about in a way… Come back in Reykjavík for a short time (everything still relative of course!)… Tjarnarbíó, Home sweet home… There I am again. Crazy month of so many (different) things happening on the theatre, so many people passing by, so many divers events… And in the middle, so many changes happening on the theatre… we are getting every time better in all the fields… new black fancy curtains, soon new robots, the restaurant re-opening, and becoming a fantastic artistic-gastronomic place, run by the best chef around (Little Bosse ArnÞór), and so much more… With the greatest event of the year, and coming so soon: the auditorium and stage of the theatre that will undergo into complete renovation! More seats, better inclination (right one let say!), new disposition, new technical equipment, new patch… and of course the annual typical renovations. Good program! And all of that in 2 months! Big beginning 1st of june… 8 am! Few days left!… and everything has to be ready for the 1st of august! New good challenge! And a lot of work waiting in front… But let’s take time to think a little bit about it before… of course, a lot of excitement for those great news… but every changes implicate a celebration of a new beginning and a mourning of an old ending… Always great, but always emotionally charged! Through the opportunity offered by Gummi (artistic director of the place, for the one who still don’t know this main character) few month ago to dance on the theatre and the day he has decided (before we got the news of the found to make the works), after so many hours working (and living) on this place, and welcoming the great news, I’m suddenly invaded by the will of making a “last homage”, a last tribute to this place… Already so old, already changed so many times, already charged of a so long story… that have seen passed so many people, so many audiences, so many characters, so many stories… Definitely, a “last party” have to be done in it before the first one welcoming the coming-soon new auditorium. For other part, I decide that I want to enjoy one of the great meeting I had on the last month, the one with Mirte Bogart, here in Iceland… A meeting that will give a lot of stuffs to share, at least this is my intuition. And so, I propose her to make the show together… And we made it! Great first collaboration… and fantastic night of goodbye to the space… I could say so much about all this trip… all the doubt we get, all the goals we had… how much that was different of my precedent works and way of working (how much I love that by the way!)… how much we looked for new risks… Trying to resume, we really would like the space being the protagonist for the night, the dancers being ably a medium for that. We would like the audience take time to observe this space for a while, and explore it as they never did. We would like to revival old memories that pass through here, the difference characters and ghosts of them. And of course, we would love everybody just celebrate the space all together… And so we did in a way… a piece, or a performance should I say, created in few rehearsal, where the audience have a so huge role… and so where everything is so insure! Few clear decisions have been taken at the beginning: audience on the stage space, contemplating the auditorium that become a stage, the rythme of the global performance, the interaction with the audience and the presence of a lot of clothes, as huge symbol of so many things… But in other hand, so many stuffs that couldn't be decided…and so, so many options contemplated, so many possibilities of final imagined, so many “if”… The process made on the general structure as much as the mental work of what could happen this day. And the incorporation of the video-photo crew for the whole performance and process at the end. The construction of their character and the play with them. Fantastic work from Ađalgeir and Halldóra, and the one still to be done, with the edition of all of that! And finally the jump in of the technician (fantastic ArnÞór… (je me fatiguerait jamais de le répété!)), almost improvising with us from the structure I explain to him… At the end, part of the fact that I again had to divide myself in severals me… being in charge of the technical aspect and the marketing, as well as all the artistic and performing one (even if I have to say that is every time easier, probably because I learn every time more to delegate and because I have every time better crews!… Thank to all of you guys, again and again!), everything have been a wonderful experience… and I will finish by the best part… We get the best final we had imagine… we get a amazing audience (useless to say that so much audience for a dance show and foreigners, and the presence of some “VIP” people, have been a huge huge huge honour!), and so a even better goodbye night… At the end, everybody were dancing in the space, trying clothes, undressing and dressing again, dressing up the auditorium chairs, taking pictures and so more (and we have been told that seems even more surprising that they were Icelandic!)… the music going on, we disappear discreetly… and some 15 minutes later, some applause inside trying to make us come back… of course we didn’t… and there we have been innocently waiting for the audience getting out, in and on the bar (ideally with a beer)… kind of proud of that! Thank so much to all of you who come to share that with us… And after this first official dancing stage for me here, let’s keep going with inaugurations and closing… with my first official dance improvisation with jazz musician, in the bar of Tjarnarbíó in few days… of course, with some musicians (coming for few days from Germany) that I never met and that I barely never listen to their music… Everything I love!!! Let’s hope lots of other stage and improvisation dancing opportunities will come soon over here…
