Jarkko Lehmus Diary

"It Wasn't Me, Officer. The Bearded Pigs Did It."

Even Santas are forced to wander the streets aimlessly. Times are hard. ©

Oops... Another couple of months have passed seemingly in a blink of an eye. It's strange how days just vanish. A bit like yesterday... Maybe the absinthe had something to do with that... In any case the metamorphosis from a frustrated neo-classical troll into a hairy peat bog warrior has been a rather intriguing rollercoaster ride of mental and emotional purging, liver bashing and high speed screaming. Let me fill you in...

Last two weeks of Galway were fairly cilivilised with the skeleton of the piece starting to take shape and the crew get a little out of shape. Four weeks of fairly intense work does eventually take it's toll and the even the most hardened professionals were rolling on the floor and throwing rubber crumb at each other by the last days. Brain farts galore... We did achieve what we set out to do though, so happy days for all.

The focal point of the Galway leg of the gig was definitely the sweat lodge, a kind of American Indian spiritual trippy sauna. Although it was a fairly civilised affair compared to the crocodiles and axes of the last one I attended, it was still plenty deep for me. Suffice to say that I coughed up a litre or so of shite out of my lungs and voluntarily got a bit too close to the fire for a bit too long... So in the middle of all that I realised that my spark had been a bit dim for the past few years. The fire burnt out long ago and I'd just been dragging myself along for years on end. I used to wake up in the morning and be burning inside. Burning with anger, hunger and passion. Most of the anger is gone now. The hunger was the result of hard training and the hard training was fired by the passion. The passion to move. To move bigger, faster, deeper and stronger. I've written a lot about the frustrations and bullshit in the past, so it's time to stop whining and get the groove on again. I decided to strive to let go a little further in the next sweat lodge and exlore that wonderful fire a little further. What I've found so far is that there's plenty of fire in the belly once I let it catch properly. I just occasionally feel that it would be safer to keep it contained a bit. Than again safe options are boring and the bigger the fire the brighter the life... Let it burn big and strong even if it burns down the house! I'll have my marshmallows ready.

Somehow in the middle of all the lunacy I managed to squeeze out another essay. This time the subject was Big Willie Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It was a bit rubbish, but at least I got it done on time. I watched various different film versions of the play, but ended up analysing the Scottish Ballet version. In doing so I got to analyse my own performance. It was a very curious and informative excercise. My Capulet was rather brittle and one-dimensional. There was scope for much more there. Although that's all been and done now, it's still a good old lesson for the future.

I'm not quite sure what the Irish pave their roads with (cheesegraters maybe?), but they seem to eat up tyres like a ravenous tiger shark with a rubber fetish. I got about half the usual mileage from my tyres. Clearly the throttle hand had nothing to do with the speed the rear tyre disintgrated. It was the road surface, officer. Before I knew it, the rear tyre was chewed up down to the canvas. That tyre was supposed to take me back to Glasgow. Fat chance. Getting hold of a new tyre wasn't quitre as straightforward as I'd thought though. It seems that the Irish don't believe in computers and think that advertising on the yellow pages is cheating. Just getting hold of the contact details of a bike shop was hard enough. It was all worth it in the end for the new rear tyre had some magic powers... The route finder gave me an estimated journey time of five hours and two minutes from Galway to Belfast harbour via the back roads. The magical rear tyre got me there in four hours flat with a massive grin on my face. Happy days...

Being back in Glasgow for the two week break was a rather surreal experience. Essentially I was unemployed for two weeks. What a strange feeling... Funnily enough I was rushed off my feet for the entire time trying to get to see people, sort out things that needed to be done while at home, doing a bit studying and keeping up witht the yoga practice. I even managed to pop over to Scottish Ballet to do a few classes. And to sit in the sauna, of course! What a contrast it was entering the ballet studio again after the Galway weeks. There were so many mentally and physically tired and broken people. The air was thick with exhaustion. It was like the dancers were breathing in their collective tiredness... It was very weird just hanging around the place without any reason, other than social ones, to really be there. The behaviour of the SB people was most inriguing. Some were happy to see me, for some I dind't exist and some found my happiness threatening. It was endless entertainment just smiling and looking at people and seeing what comes back. What funny animals we are...

The highlight of the Glasgow leg was most definitely the MOBOs. I got sent a free screamer pass for the gig. I was minding my own business standing in front of the stage when I saw a familiar figure waving at me from the VIP tables. When the call comes, who am I to refuse... Booze, music and pretty girls was just what the doctor ordered. The evening was made all the more interesting by the bouncers of the afterparty mistakenly thinking that my friend was a sexual pervert and trying to throw him out. Pervert he is, but not the one they were looking for. A quality Wednesday evening it was.

Before long the time was nigh to head down to London again. Supposedly there are fourteen days in two week. It's amazing how fast they fly by. I didn't quite get to see and do everything I was supposed to, but that's how it went this time around... I was reminded about the approaching winter by having to put the bike away before heading south. Thanks to good old Mr Baldry the Red Beast is safe and sound hibernating in his garage. Much appreciated!

The calm before the storm. ©

London Town... Where do I start? From the beginning? Right... I came down a couple of days early to catch BouncE, the Swedish street dance crew, at the Peacock and Scottish Ballet at the Wells. I've seen the BouncE gig, Insane In The Brain, quite a few times now, but it never ceases to amaze and entertain. A fabulous piece performed by dancers with some mad skillz. They got some serious plans on the boil. The Globen and Culberg were mentioned. Sounds like a spectacle in the making... I might just have to pop over to Stockholm to check out what's going on during the spring... Watching Scottish Ballet perform was a mixed bag of emotions. I could hardly tell some of the dancers apart to start with. So many of the girls especially looked like they had been pressed from the same mould. Do ballet companies have to be like that? So homogenous? It certainly didn'ty look like a company I would have fitted into. How strange I must have looked in the middle of it all... I was very content just sitting there and watching, thank you very much.

That's how we roll... ©

There's 18 of these on the stage and only two in the zoo. ©

It's been rather refreshing being in the London groove again. Living centrally and doing the little commuting that's been needed has been a revelation. Back in the day when I used to live in this dirty old city the commuting killed it for me. This is something else now. Everything is right on the doorstep. Because London has all of a sudden become so accessible, it would be rude not to make the best of it. Working six days a week and going out dancing six nights a week was the norm for the first four weeks of the London leg of the rehearsals. The amount of beautiful women especially in the Latin dance citcuit is quite eye-opening after the utter deprivation up in Glasgow. Of course there were the occasional pearl up there too, but they were few and far apart... It's positively rich pickings down here. After the inevitable post-repression rebound sensory gorge I have slowly got back to my old "quality over quantity" guidelines. Although the mantra is the same, the relationship between quality and quantity have been prodoundly altered due to the quantity of quality. Feeling rather reinvigorated and stimulated I did pull things back a little for the week leading up to the first night to make sure I'd be able to give it a full shot. It was quite a blast... At this point I'll just let other people do the talking.

Independent on Sunday started it, Guardian, The Times and
Financial Times agreed. Of course a few others didn't. Chiefly The Telegraph. One can't, and wouldn't want to, please them all.

Here's a little link for the ENO promotional videos to give you a little glimpse of what they are talking about. The first two videos are about the current gig. Knock yourself out...

That's almost it for now. I would like to finish off by stating that having another Finn around is positively fabulous, stupidly funny and occasionally utterly destructive. I would also like to let the world know that samba is the best form of aerobic excercise know to man. On that note: may the metamorphosis continue...