Jarkko Lehmus Diary

To Make A Big man Cry...

The Christmas with its wrong presents has come and gone. Time to bring on the New Year. I've got a few people coming to see the last show in Glasgow, and for once I'm on when my friends are watching!

Then again, who gives a flying fuck about some fairytale, when you can spend a fiver watching such a classic as 'Merry Christmas.' I watched it between the rehearsal and the show this evening and was moved to tears. A grown man crying... I spent enough time freezing my arse off in a foxhole missing my girlfriend to have some understanding to the men of the Great War. I agree with Freddie Starr about the goodfulness of war.

After my training in the army, and seeing the battle grounds and the trenches my ancestors fought in just a few decades ago, was enough to bring a few tears into the corners of my hardened eyes. A normal person would give the feeling its full value and let it run its course. I'm an artiste and I cannibalise the feelings I have for the sake of the profession.

Does that make me a healthy person or just an interresting actor?

Serial Ceilidh

Ceilidh: An Irish or Scottish social gathering with traditional music, dancing, and storytelling.

Having no underwear on is such a liberating contrast to wearing a jockstrap for hours on end. For the past two nights I have been birling my head off in a kilt, combat boots and a t-shirt and not much else. My heart goes out to all those ladies that burned their bras (and inevitably headed south afterwards) in the sixties. It's an expression of freedom and nice for a while, but I wouldn't go around with my bits hanging about every day. I quite like my Calvins.

Last night, Sunday, was the Company's Christmas Party. A big bunch of dancers spiced up with a hearty handful of techies giving it their (our) best on the dancefloor. There's nothing like a good old shindig! I confess to indulging in some folk dancing in my youth (my then-girlfriend forced me into it!), but I never did that incest thing. As the common knowledge goes, there are two things one should never try: folk dancing and incest. Because I did the first I can blag my way through just about any folkish evening. What I could blag my way through if I'd done the second, I don't want to know.

Being properly warmed up I headed for the second round tonight. A friend of mine (whom I met in a library, believe it or not) plays drums in a ceilidh band. So basically, he invited me to crash a party full of Chinese nurses. How could I resist? What better way to spend a Monday night than busting some moves with a physiotherapist with funky boots? When the man with the red thong over his trousers stuck a bunnytail on and started doing the Highland Jig I knew the end was night, though.

Why am I sitting here writing this nonsense on a Monday night, you may ask. The social gathering, the traditional(ish) music (they did played a version of the Dallas theme and Ghostbusters) and dancing is covered, but there was no storytelling involved, so I had to fill the gap to complete the official description of ceilidh.

Now that the drinks have been drunk, the dances have been danced and the fat lady has sung the 'Dancing Queen' it's time for me to retire to my cave again. Ready for another week of cruising for bruising. A couple of shows off and another first night in the form of the third cast of daddyism. This time the honors of Cinderella go to lovely Sophie Martin and my old sparring partner Diana will be the bad mutha. Let the gods of Gonzo shine on me to get through it all.

Mid-Week Epics

Did I write that update during the weekend? Yeah, right... The world premiere is gone, the bubbly has been drunk and a few constellations' worth of stars received. It's a great feeling to have full houses. Full houses that are enjoying themselves! Hats of to the man who devised the first ballet with three acts, for he was a genius: warm them up with the first act, let them have a few during the first interval, blast them during the second act, lube them up even more during the second interval and, finally, set the house on fire in the third act. And my god does it burn bright with the amount of alcohol the Scottish audiences consume! More hats off for the tag-team of gentlemen Page, MacDonald and Mumford for another stunning production. The Glasgow shows are pretty much sold out, Edinburgh is doing well and the rest of the venues I have no idea of. How we are going to fit on stage in Aberdeen is a total mystery, though. I see rattlers being thrown out of the prams... I'm sure we'll cross the bridge once were there.

It says Veuve Clicquot on the bucket, but... ©

It's a Thursday night. I've done two shows. My shoulder is mashed up, I have a treatment at 10.20am, but I'm still here tapping away. Why? Peter Jackson is why. I've just seen King Kong in a late showing. Some may say that it's an over-long piece of poncy shite, but I say that it's the perfect modern blockbuster. If anyone says: "They don't make them like they used to", I say: "Damn right they don't!" They make them bigger, dirtier, prettier, more humane, more emotionally engaging, more layered and even more larger than life. Mr Jackson is one of those people with vision and passion.The first time I heard his name was when it was associated with such underground Kiwi gore-fests as 'Bad Taste' and 'Braindead'. He's undoubtedly born in a sheep pen for a banjo palying farmer and his daughter and spent his childhood biting heads off cockroaches while cultivating his artistic genius. How he developed from a barrel-dwelling freak into a heart-string pulling global mastermind, I don't know. Loads of hats off form him though.

I've got a huge pile of hats on tonight, trilbies, flat caps and even a few top hats, and they all come off to these amazing people that create these amazing pieces of art and entertainment. I've had the luck, or guidance, to have already ended up working with a few during my relatively short career. People who have vision and genius, but don't always know how to communicate it to others. Keegan-Dolan, Brandstrup, Page... It's fascinating and frustrating to try to figure out the workings of a mind that operates on a constant overdrive.

Finding your personal boundaries and crossing them is always shattering and relieving at the same time. This is the size of my world... But it's so much bigger! You get the carpet pulled out from under the feet of your sanity only for the carpet to turn out to be a magic one that carries you to new heights that you'd never imagine even existed. Unsettling and exhilarating.

I hope I am capable of capturing at least something with my words. I have the priviledge of knowing , and working with, some extra-ordinary people that keep surprising and challenging me. Sometimes, most of the time, I find it hard to dress the feelings that I have into a verbal form. Even harder is to find a verbal form that is understandable to other people. That is why my preference lies in communication without words. A physical, visceral, primitive form of communication that doesn't have to be explained. That is why I am a dancer.

Being a dancer because I'm rubbish with words? Because I have shortcomings in communicating my feelings to other people in a more socially acceptable manner? That's how it sounds like to me at the moment, but I'll damned if it isn't just what the doctor ordered. I challenge you to get out there, move more, touch each other more and see how it feels. Go get drunk, forget yourself and take a salsa class or whatever. Get in there, get involved, have a life and come back and tell me you didn't enjoy it! And if you honestly didn't, the drinks are on me the next time around.

Amsterdam By Striplight

Monday evening. Still alive. Relatively speaking. At least the next Monday is as far away as possible.

Let's sort the backlog first. Since my last report there's been all manner of occasions providing excuses to get involved. The National Theatre of Scotland was launched in Tramway after a century of debate. Champagne, socialising and disposable cameras. The theatre itself sounds like an interesting concept. It's a kind of a production agency thingy. Just the fact that they launched it in Glasgow, and in Tramway of all places, rather than in some posh Edinburgh theatre kind of sets the scene. I'll be waiting with interest for the first productions.

Other notable event was the Scottish Dance Theatre show, in Tramway as well. It was the first time I've seen the company. I take my hat off to Janet Smith. It's a very interesting and dynamic group of performers. It was also the first time that I've seen Gemma Nixon since Ashley created Acrid Avid Jam on us in the autumn of 2000. She was just as lovely dancer as I remembered.

Other than that I've been busy lobbying for a sauna for our forthcoming HQ. It's in the floorplans already, but it wasn't on the original brief, so it's not on the budget. Since it's my baby, I promised to look into sponsorship to fund the sauna. "This sauna was brought to you by Finlandia Vodka." That's got a nice ring to it...

So here I am sitting at my desk and listening to the soundtrack of 'Fashionistas'. I've spent the last two days getting lost in Amsterdam. My partners in crime on the first day were Robert Moran, the composer of 32 Cryptograms among other madness, and Alex and Johann, a couple of german musical terrorists with a fetish for alpine horns. The white widow pointed the way and we headed in the general direction in a circular kind of motion. In the process we gave birth to an academy of conceptual arts (I was appointed to the post of the lecturer in sensual massage), a film and a ballet. I think some of it had something to do with Peter Sellers and 'Alice In Wonderland'. The night ended in a ritual dance to house music, which I hate with a vengeance, in a club called Sinners. Nice. Or actually the night ended in a sunrise. I saw it coming and hid myself in the hotel.

The gentlemen headed back to Munich about the same time as I was heading to La-La-Land so I was all alone, or so I thought, for the second day. 4.30pm is a good time to wake up. 5pm is a good time to have a Heineken at the hotel bar. The liquid brunch turned into a dinner. Would that be a brunner then? Six hours later it was still raining outside, I had a new friend who works in Libya and lives in Brazil, the hotel staff was drunk and I felt the time for walkies again. Once outside everybody seemed to know me and think that I was called Charlie. What ever they were on about... I have to give Ali G one thing though: he said that one of the dangers of exctasy is that it makes people like house music. Dutch people like their house music way too much. My performers blood, and my friend Jack, pulled me away from it all into a theatre. 2am I was dancing conga on stage with a lovely brazilian lady and some random person in a gorilla outfit. She gave me a banana for my efforts.

Two hours of sleep and an hour or so on the plane really sets one up for a ballet class. I love Mondays. We're going to the theatre on Wednesday. I can't wait to get into the set with the costumes, wigs and all the bells and whistles. The character is finally falling into place and most of his fragmented behaviour is making at least some sense. There's still a week before the first night, so it should all be nicely sorted by the time the curtain rises. We shall see what the critics have to say about it. I'll drop a line or two during the weekend to give you a last-minute update. Until then...

Even if I won't shine, at least the costume will. ©