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October 24, 2005
"It Is I, The Guinea Pig", Said The Raven.
The character research for Cinderella's slightly inebriated father was getting a bit too comfortable in a very incapacitating way so I decided to run a week-long empirical study on life without alcohol with myself as the sole subject. Strange that was. I even did London sans Jack for a day. I could get used to this. Then again...
We gather all manner of habits and routines around ourselves as to make life slide past easier. Occasionally it's interesting to break a few and see what life is like without them. Break some routines and wake the brain up again to see the surrounding world in a different light to prevent the life turning into a teflon coated colon: highly efficient, but very uninvolving as an experience.
A bunch of us dancers with Ashley and George, one of our technical wizards, are jetting off to Toronto on Tuesday as a part of Scottish Executive's effort to plug Scotland for unsuspecting Canadians to boost tourism, trade and industry. It sounds like a polite and boring black tie-event to me. Little do they know that they're about to be hit in the head with Nine Inch Nails. It's Pump Room we're doing and knowing Ashley it won't be too quiet either.
On the subject of volume I visited Ministry of Sound last night for the first time. Maybe it's just because I've worked in too many clubs and raves, but the whole thing was a bit like 'Spinal Tap' mated with 'The Ministry of Funny Walks' and 'Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas'. Put some seriously twisted moves taken very seriously into a blender full of sweaty bodies, sprinkle liberally with pills and turn the knob to eleven. I must be getting old for in the end of the evening I snubbed advances from a lovely Brazilian lady and instead opted to share the bed with a hairy, farting lump of a man. He happened to be my best friend and I was staying at his place anyway, but that's beside the point.
...they say that if you give up smoking, drinking and sex you don't live longer, it just seems like it. I'll pour myself one for the road.
October 08, 2005
If There Is Grass On The Green, The Game Is On.
You just know that it must have been a good night when it's two o'clock in the afternoon, the lady has taken a taxi home, the sun is out and you're still not in any kind of a condition to show yourself in the public. If I managed to drag myself out I'd fit right in though: Scotland is playing Belarus in Hampden Park around the corner so herds of feral NEDs (Non-Educated Delinquents) are on the prowl, the emergency services are out in full force and the Tartan Army is marching down the street chanting their war cries with bells and whistles and pheasants feathers, and no underwear. The excuse for yet another liver rinsing exercise was getting mistaken for Freddie Ljungberg, again, and ending up throwing free daiquiries down the neck in the launch of the newly-refurbished China White in the heart of Glasgow's hip Bath Street.
At the work front rehearsals for Cinderella are on full tilt and my character, Cindy's father, is getting abused left, right and center by his new wife and the little bundles of joy that came with the deal. The woman is spending all the money and her daughters are covering your only child with your ex-wife's ashes. It takes far less to drive a man to drink. The first night is on the 13th of December. It seems so far away, but the days are flying by and I'm still hunting for the character. Next week sees the unthinkable coming reality: I've got my first full days of work since the year two before the Great War. I don't think my part-timing behind can take it. I'll need to take the issue up with the management.
Talking about working times: a couple of weeks ago I was taken back in time to my days as a commercial dancer when the hours of work were scattered throughout the day, dancing on makeshift stages and changing in the back-room of a pub were the norm. A true blast from the past. We were doing a show for the Merchant City Festival performing in the middle of the kind of bar-lined indoor space that in Thailand would boast a boxing ring. It seemed that everyone and the neighbours dog had turned up for the free shows and the response to especially the Aphex Twin and Nine Inch Nails tracks of Acrid Avid Jam and Pump Room was brilliant. None of the people I talked to had seen any dance ever before and were right up for paying for the next fix. I have a vague recollection of talking about drug dealer tactics in the past - force the first pop down the general publics collective throat for free and they come begging for more regardless of the price. It sure does work. Cinderella is selling so well that my neighbours had a hard time getting decent seats. They had to change the date for the show they originally wanted to come to only had the back row of the balcony and two seats in the dress circle available. We'd better be good then. No pressure Ashley, it's only a ballet in three acts and we've still got all of, oh, nine weeks before the premiere.
Master Baggins, our masseur, is not too bothered by Cinderella. He prefers performing his rendition of the Sleeping Beauty. ©
The Tramway-project has stopped gathering moss in the bureaucratic teeth of the City Council and is on the roll again. The latest news is the appointment of Malcolm Fraser Associates as the architects to guide the baby home. Their past endeavours into the world of designing funky and functional arts spaces include Dance Base, the national centre for dance in Edinburgh, and the new Dance City building in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They're also the guys behind the forthcoming new HQ for Rambert on the Southbank. I ended up on the dancers committee for liaising with the architects and hold myself responsible for making sure that we get a sauna and a jacuzzi. Since the project is supposed to complete on the spring of 2008 I'd better make sure I don't get myself drop-kicked out of the company before that for throwing tellys through hotel windows in the name of rockstardom or publishing some less-than-savoury material on the web. We'll see how it goes for a man's got to do what a man's got to do.
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