Two sleeps to go before I get home to my own bed. Joella and Devon dropped me off at my sister Kim’s after the long drive back to Halifax. I was hoping to get to see the dress rehearsal for the Neptune Theatre production of No Great Mischief (directed by Richard Rose and featuring my friend Billy MacLellan) but instead spent some much needed downtime having dinner with my family. (Thanks for the gluten free desserts Aunt Eve.) I also had fun hanging out with my two year old nephew Rowan who I only get to see a couple of times a year.
Hanging with the next generation
On Monday morning, mom and I drove into downtown Halifax for walk and then met Billy, my sister Robin and my two aunts (Eve and Pat) for lunch. After lunch had a brief visit with my 97 year old maternal grandfather and then picked Kim up at school (both she and her husband are teachers). Kim dropped me and my luggage off at my cousin Sean’s tiny apartment on the Dalhousie campus. Sean – who was my roommate when I first moved back to Toronto – is currently in his second year at Dal Law so we wandered over to the law school. Sean wanted to show me my paternal grandfather’s graduation class photo.
Charlie Lorway, bottom row, second from the left
Sean had to go to class, so I headed over to the Dalhousie Arts Centre to revisit the spaces where I spent my formative college years. Not much has changed in the bunker (the music department is three stories underground) which made for a fun stroll down memory lane. I met Sean again after his class for surprisingly good Halagonian Indian Food before heading over to my friend Kelley Edward’s for the night.
Oh the hours I wasted on the couch at this place...
The next day, Kelley and I got up and walked down to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia where we met up with Sarah Fillmore, Acting Chief Curator for the Gallery. I had sat next to Sarah during dinner at the Creative Nova Scotia Awards Gala and she offered to take me through the gallery’s exhibition featuring the five artists short-listed for the 2009 Sobey Art Award.
I guess this is why groceries are so expensive
The short list (by region) included: Luanne Martineau, West Coast & Yukon; Marcel Dzama, Prairies & The North; Shary Boyle, Ontario; David Altmejd, Québec; and Graeme Patterson, Atlantic Region.
This year’s prize went to David Altmejd, whose work The Index, was a hit at the 2007 Venice Biennale before it moved to the back ground-level gallery in the new AGO. The Sobey Art Award is designed to celebrate a body of work from an artist as opposed to an individual piece. Of the works on display at the AGNS, I was particularly taken by Shary Boyle’s overhead projection onto sculpture and Graeme Patterson’s piece Grudge Match.
Seemingly simple but incredibly beautiful
After a quick tour of some of the other galleries, I rushed back to Kelley’s to grab my luggage. One more uneventful flight and my month-long journey was over.
It’s always nice to be back in Nova Scotia. After three weeks of busy cities, it was refreshing to wake up at my sister’s place in the outskirts of Halifax, sipping coffee while watching deer stroll down her quiet street. My good friend and former boss Joella Foulds picked me up at noon and we – along with her Celtic Colours colleague (and former Slowcoaster drummer) Devon Strang – made our way along the South Shore to Yarmouth for the annual Creative Nova Scotia Conference and Awards Gala. I was invited as one of this year’s guest speakers.
I need a break from long journeys in confined spaces
The event kicked-off with a reception at the Yarmouth branch of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. It was fun to reconnect with a number of old friends and to meet some new folks who were working in the arts in the province. There was a great exhibition of works by ceramist Léopold L. Foulem entitled Récupération on display in the main gallery. After the reception, a group of us wandered down the hill to a local brew pub for dinner.
Smokin' Pots
The next morning I met a number of delegates in the lobby and was offered a drive over to the conference venue, an Acadian school in Tusket. After about 15 minutes of winding country roads, we came to the intersection the led to the school. As we turned left, a red SUV slammed into the passenger side of the car. Thankfully, no one was hurt. After exchanging information, we continued on to the school, arriving just in time for the first session.
The first two speakers were David Moss and Alyson Queen. David – who has been working with our CEO Janice Price on the recently announced Culture Days initiative – spoke about planning for the 2010 launch. Alyson, fresh off of Nocturne (Halifax’s version of Nuit Blanche) spoke about the success of this year’s event and plans for future growth.
Next was the keynote address by Yvan Gauthier, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec. Jaws dropped as envious artists and administrators heard stat after stat about how this division of the provincial government is supporting the growth of the arts sector in Quebec. (It is a very interesting time for the arts in Nova Scotia. The community is divided over whether or not to push the new NDP government to reinstate an arms length arts council after it was dismantled by the Conservative government nearly a decade ago. As an outsider, it was disheartening to see two groups with aligned objectives bickering in front of the newly appointed Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. I fear that not much good will happen as long as this division exists.)
After lunch, I participated in two panel discussions: the first was entitled “Finding your Audience” and the second “Arts, Culture and Community Development”. Most of the people in attendance were from small rural communities so it was an interesting challenge to put my recent experience into a context that was relevant for that audience.
The conference ended with the Creative Nova Scotia Awards Gala which honors artists with a number of significant cash awards including the Lieutenant Governor’s Masterworks Award and the Portia White Prize. (My Great Great Aunt Edith Read, longtime principal of Branksome Hall in Toronto, was a driving force behind Portia’s career. She produced Portia’s Toronto debut at the Eaton Auditorium - now the Carlu - in 1941 and then arranged an audition for her with the Metropolitan Opera, launching a brief international career.)
Portia White
The event was masterfully hosted by my friend and fellow Caper Kelly Peck and featured performances by Steven MacDougall and Mike LeLievre, Grande Derangement, Peter Farmer and Ryan Cook.
The LG Masterworks prize went to John Macnab, a Halifax sculptor, for his work CSDC 3-8 (Compound Spiral Double Cone No. 3, 8 sided).
Not sure if this is the award winning spiral but it gives you a sense of his work
The Portia White prize was awarded to Mary Vingoe, an actor, director, playwright and founder of Eastern Front and Ship’s Company theatres in Dartmouth and Parrsboro, NS. Mary is also known across Canada for her work with Magnetic North and Theatre Passe Muraille. The interesting thing about this award is that the winner gets to name a protégé who also receives a cash prize. This honor went to Natasha MacLellan, an emerging playwright from Margaree.
Having run out of clean socks and underwear, the first priority on Monday morning was to find a local launderette. Clyde and I both dropped off our stuff and then wandered through the city center, down to the Thames, over the bridge and along the South Bank to the Tate Modern. One of my favorite things to do in London is to check out the installations at the Tate’s massive turbine gallery. The current installation is Miroslaw Balka’s (our first Polish artist of the day) How It Is, an immense steel structure with an open end that leads into a dark, velvet void.
After 5 minutes in the dark with a hundred or so other Tate visitors, we headed upstairs to the Pop Life exhibition. It was a very cleverly installation that started with Warhol and ended with Murakami (with a little Haring, Koons and Hirst along the way).
Murakami, McG and Kirsten Dunst are Turning Japanese
From there, we crossed the Millennium Bridge, passed Saint Paul’s Cathedral and weaved our way through the highline maze to the Barbican Centre. Another favorite installation space – The Curve Gallery – had been transformed by another Polish artist. In the appropriately named Bunker, artist Robert Kusmirowski envisioned the gallery as a World War II-era bunker, complete with its own rail line. Once inside, you immediately forgot this incredibly realistic and detailed multi-level work was housed in a much more contemporary bunker (which is how many people refer to the concrete arts centre).
Inside the Curve
Emerging back into the light, we met up with Roy Luxford, one of our One Thousand and One Nights producers, for a glass of wine. Graham Sheffield joined us and then took us to Gaocho, a yummy Argentine steak house, for dinner.
Tuesday was a big meetings day. After picking up our laundry, we headed east to Arts Admin at the Toynbee Studios for a meeting with Roy and Tim Supple, the director of our 2008 Midsummer Night’s Dream and upcoming (in 2011) One Thousand and One Nights. From there, we headed north-west to Sadler’s Wells to meet with Suzanne Walker (Sadler’s Director of Programming) and Jo Patton (who is producing Rufus’ Prima Donna for the venue). The café was brimming with artists. Suzanne introduced me to Alistair Spalding, the Well’s Chief Executive/Artistic Director and Richard Thomas, the composer of Jerry Springer: The Opera. I also had a brief chat with Christopher Wheeldon and Rachel Sharek, a dancer from Christopher’s company Morphoses, who was a student at the School of American Ballet when I was living there.
Arts Admin in East London
We then wandered down the laneway to meet with Alex Poots and the Manchester Festival team and finally, ended the day at designer Antony McDonald’s studio in Islington. While driving to Antony’s, Alex pointed out a school that was made famous when a local teacher invited a band called Pink Floyd to record a now infamous song with some of his students. Needless to say with lyrics like “We don’t need no education” and “Hey - teacher- leave those kids alone” said teacher was sacked shortly after the album’s release. After a long day of meetings, Jo took us to The Heights Bar at The Saint Georges Hotel for a glass a wine and an incredible view of London.
For a great view of London, check out the Heights
Wednesday - one last day in London and so much to do. The day started at the Nordic Bakery in Soho where I met with Patrick Eakin Young, a young director designer who is originally from Toronto but now living in London. Some of you may have seen (or heard about) his acclaimed production of Dido and Aeneas that played at the Winchester Theatre in September.
From there, I reconnected with Clyde and we headed down Piccadilly to the Royal Academy to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition. The scale of the work was quite incredible (they will be stripping wax and pigment off the walls for years). Particularly impressive were the massive block of red wax that slowly moved on a track between gallery spaces and the fan-favorite wax cannon that shot 20 pound shells of blood-red wax against a gallery wall every 20 minutes.
Ready...aim...
After a quick lunch, Clyde headed off to Paris and I went back to Sadler’s Wells to meet with Richard Thomas. He has been commissioned by Sadler’s Wells to write a new music theater piece about shoes. We sat in his studio where he played me a number of the songs and told me more about the project.
My last night in London ended with tapas at the highly recommended Moro restaurant and a mixed program by Morphoses at Sadler’s. (The company will perform at City Center in New York next week and there is an article about the challenges the company is facing in the NY Times this weekend.) The very tall John Lithgow was in attendance (he narrated Wheeldon’s TheCarnival of the Animals at New York City Ballet a number of years ago). The program included a work by choreographers Lightfoot and Leon, favorites of mine whose work (Shoot the Moon) you may remember from our NDT show this year. As the show ended, my body told me it was time to go home to bed.
2009 is a big anniversary year in Europe. In addition to celebrating 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall (check out these images from a new Royal de Luxe show – thanks for the link Jesse), arts organizations around the world are paying tribute to the impresario and company that shaped the dance world over the last century: Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. A majority of these tributes have taken the form of recreations of some of the company’s masterworks, including Balanchine’s Apollo, Fokine’s Petrushka and Nijinski’s masterpieces L’Apres-midi d’un Faune and The Rite of Spring. (I recently saw Coco & Igor at TIFF, a film that tells the story of the brief affair between Chanel and Stravinsky. The film opens with a brilliant recreation of the The Rite and subsequent riots that broke out after that now infamous performance.)
This preamble leads to our first night in London. Our Egypt Air flight arrived mid-afternoon and we sped into the city on the much-loved Heathrow Express. We were staying at the Sheraton Park Lane (courtesy of Aeroplan) and being a Starwood Preferred Guest, I was upgraded to a very nice room. (Clyde was not too happy about that - though sadly, I was only there for one night and switched to a much more modest and musty Best Western the following night.) Once settled, we hopped on the Tube and headed east to Sadler’s Wells to see In the Spirit of Diaghilev, a program of commissioned new works celebrating a central idea behind the Ballet Russe (Surprise me!). Four hot contemporary choreographers (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Javier De Frutos, Russell Maliphant and Wayne McGregor) concocted a wonderful evening that combined both beauty and shock, two elements that made the company famous.
The great impressario Diaghliev
Sunday was a gorgeous fall day so we walked from Marble Arch to Regent Park for the closing day of the Frieze Art Fare. These events always overwhelm me. There is so much work crammed into endless rows of gallery booths and the results are always very mixed. We found one artist that appeared to have been inspired by our festival (everyone seems to love the blue iris) and a second who was refreshingly honest.
I get the sense someone is watching me
And even that is a stretch...
We left the tent after a couple of hours and made our way over to the sculpture garden. Both Clyde and I were very impressed with the installation work in the park, in particular the meticulous masking of lighting and electrical elements (very cleanly buried under the grass).
Frieze sculpture garden
From there we made a quick visit to the London Zoo. It was my first time there – it’s a great city zoo. I could spend hours watching the meerkats. We had a bit of Indian food and then called it an early night.
Proves that every species enjoys their time in the spotlight
Now back to work. Our next adventure was a train journey to Alexandria (or as the locals say ‘Alex’) on Egypt’s Northern Mediterranean coast to look at a number of potential rehearsal venues for The One Thousand and One Nights. Two Jesuit compounds – one in downtown Alex and they other about 30 minute outside of the city – were identified by our local producer as having the best facilities and resources. We met Ahmed at the Cairo Central Station at 11 AM, where he informed us that he would not be able to join us but that his IT guy, Yaheih, happened to be in Alex (we later found out on vacation) and would escort us around for the day. After a quick coffee and chat with Ahmed, we boarded the train for a hypothetical two hour journey.
Where else can you ride in first class for $7?
Three hours later, we arrived in Alex and were met by Yaheih who quickly commissioned a taxi for the day. You should have seen this car. It was a circa 1970’s Peugeot or Lata (we couldn’t tell because all remnants of any branding had long since disappeared) with no seat belts, a gaping hole in the dashboard and a broken speedometer, all seemingly held together by endless amounts of duct tape (once again proving the age old adage that duct tape can fix anything).
Yaheih, our guide for the day
Our first stop was the Jesuit college in downtown Alex that had two theatres and a number of rehearsal spaces. After a quick walk through to assess the site and collect relevant technical information, we jumped back in the taxi and headed for our next stop. As we sped along the coastline, I caught a passing glimpse of the Alexandria Library designed by Snøhetta. It was one of the only examples of contemporary architecture I had seen thus far in Egypt (from what I can tell, the locals are not big fans). I would have liked to have had the opportunity to check out the interior of the building – next time.
Snøhetta's Bibliotheca Alexandrina
What followed was a terrifying ride, as we hit the highway and wove in and out of traffic at speeds much beyond the capacity of our ride (at this point we gave thanks for the broken speedometer – better not to know). We stopped at a little roadside store for drinks and then were back on the highway for another fifteen minutes of terror. As we drove further out into the desert, we noticed a number of walled compounds, behind which lay massive villas and gardens. This odd subdivision was the home to our next stop, a Jesuit education and retreat centre. Neither the taxi driver nor Yaheih knew exactly where the place was so we stopped to ask a number of men who were sitting at the side of the road. Turns out that one of the guys was a real estate agent and he mistakenly took Clyde and me to be wealthy Westerners in search of a vacation home. He excitedly hopped into the already cramped car and guided us down bumpy dirt roads and through flocks of sheep (who just didn’t want to get out of the way) to our final destination. He was upset to learn at the end that we were not in the market for a multi-million dollar villa.
Wooly speed bumps
The Jesuit retreat was beautiful - a much needed oasis after 48 hours in hectic Cairo. We were given a full tour of the site while groups of high school kids participated in some form of frosh week around us. There was a perfect, flat field in the center of a quad which is often used for rehearsals and performances and will work very well for us. (It must be nice to have the confidence to program this sort of space knowing that rain will never be an issue.)
Inside the Jesuit compound
Outside of the compound gates was a like a zoo. Cats, dogs, chickens, donkeys and baby goats all intermingled on the open street. I wandered a few meters up the road to get a close-up shot of a group of baby goats and was suddenly mobbed by a hoard of small, extremely excited children who probably didn’t run into big white guys all that often. Our driver shooed them off as we embarked on yet another horrifying ride back to downtown Alex. We had a quick dinner at a seaside Italian restaurant (that had no wine) before boarding the 7 PM train back to Cairo.
The friendly mob
When we arrived back in the city, we went directly to Aboul el Sid to meet Clyde’s friends Brian and Manny for dessert/drinks. They were just winding down a ten day tour of Egypt and were glad to finally be in Cairo for a couple of days. Ahmed also joined us which gave me an opportunity to catch up with him and to hear about his new show. It was an early night as we had to be at the airport at 7 AM the next morning.
Words that I would use to describe Dubai are new, clean, western, organized and soulless. Cairo is none of these. After an uneventful (and thankfully short) flight, I arrived at the Cairo International Airport, got my visa and luggage and met my driver just beyond customs. I noticed that the front pocket on one of my suitcases had been unzipped and upon further inspection discovered that all of my accumulated receipts, business cards and remnants of foreign currency were gone. Marcia (our CFO) is going to have my head.
The view from my hotel room in Dubai
The drive into downtown gave me a sense of what to expect over the next couple of days. It was rush hour, so the driver took to the back roads, weaving in and out of traffic at terrifying speeds and narrowly missing pedestrians who seemed to take joy in their game of human Frogger.
I arrived at the famous Shepherd Hotel on the Nile just after 8 PM and met up with our GM Clyde Wagner. After a few minutes of getting settled into my room, Clyde and I set off for dinner across the river on the island of Zamalek. Two of Clyde’s friends – who just happened to be traveling in the region - had recommended a restaurant called Aboul el Sid that served local Egyptian cuisine. We had a nice, leisurely meal of mixed salads and grilled meats (accompanied by a rather unusual vintage of Egyptian wine) and caught up on a number of work things.
The view from my hotel room in Cairo
Our original reason for coming to Cairo was to meet with the director Tim Supple (whose Midsummer Night’s Dream was an anchor of the 2008 Festival) as he wound down his second casting trip for a new production of The One Thousand and One Nights. The trip got delayed until the spring but given that both Clyde and I were in the region (he had just come from a couple of days in Damascus), we thought it worthwhile to meet up with the local producer (Ahmed El Attar) and to check out some potential rehearsal locations.
But first we had a day to be tourists. Early the next morning, we met our guide and driver and set off for Giza to see the pyramids. En route, our guide gave us a brief history of the early Egyptian Dynasties in very broken English (which included something about throwing sacrificial virgins into the Nile – we both suddenly felt very safe). As we motored through a busy city suburb the top of a pyramid suddenly appeared above a series of run down buildings on the left. Five minutes later, we were in bus tour hell as thousands of people made their way into one of the world’s most famous sites.
We were quickly schooled on the various money extraction schemes perpetrated by the locals who swarmed the site. Friendly smiles (‘hey mister - where you from? Canada? Ah - Canada Dry!’), presentations of “gifts” and offers to take your photograph were soon followed by aggressive begging. (At least one guy was honest when he yelled ‘mister – what can I do to take your money from you?’) That said, the experience of seeing these structures and the landscape that surrounded them was life-changing.
Clyde makes a new friend
When we travel together, Clyde often provides a range of comic relief, which this time included him and his new “friend” in matching turbans, his near panic attack as we crept down a steep and narrow incline into a subterranean tomb and his efforts to get a camel to play by his rules as we rode through the desert. But ultimately, he had the last laugh. As we were walking past one of the many vendors, I commented that they sold pretty much everything, including a wide variety of cigarettes. Our guide took this to mean that I was in need of a smoke, and in an act of kindness, purchased a package of Marlboroughs to share with me. So for the next couple of hours, I smoked a number of cigarettes so as not to offend as Clyde snickered in the background.
Can anyone say Ishtar?
After lunch at a very touristy Japanese filled restaurant (Queen Cleopatra’s), we were taken to a papyrus store (where we actually had an interesting presentation on how the first paper was made) and then on to the “market” near Old Cairo that catered exclusively to the bus tour circuit. Laneway after laneway and kiosk after kiosk was brimming to capacity with the same old cheap, crappy souvenirs – small pyramids, miniature replicas of various kings and gods, shisha pipes and papyrus. Does anyone actually buy this stuff? At that point we were done and headed back to the hotel to catch up on some work and do some preparations for our trip to Alexandria the next day.
Sugar and spice
After an early dinner in the city center, we wandered over to the Nile for a nightcap on one of the floating restaurants. We passed through a riverside garden that seemed to be the place where young locals came for their date night. Each of the many benches was occupied by a single couple who held hands and innocently and chatted as brightly lit boats passed by.
Where does one start. For the last 4-5 years, I have had a curious fascination with the Emirates. In my last couple of years at AEA Consulting (before moving to Toronto), there were a lot of announcements being made about major investments in cultural infrastructure in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Huge deals were being done with western cultural organizations like the Louvre and the Guggenheim, a seemingly perfect marriage between collection-rich institutions with licensing and curatorial expertise and cash-rich emerging cities who saw art as one way of defining themselves in an international marketplace. Festival teams (including some of our friends from TIFF) were transplanted to the region to start similar events, creating a general perception that if you had a strong cultural product or idea, chances are you could sell it in the UAE.
I was curious to explore the current state of play vis a vis cultural strategy and set a meeting with officials from Dubai Culture, a body set up to push forward the cultural agenda for the city. David Pecaut had connected me with Scott Desmarais, a former BCG-er who was now heading up strategic initiatives for the authority. I met with Scott and his colleague Yasser Al Gergawi, who deals with performing arts initiatives, at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) where we had a very interesting and insightful conversation. They explained to me that Dubai’s approach to cultural development is very different from what we hear is happening in Abu Dhabi.
Given its reputation as a tolerant and open city, many artists from other areas of the region come to Dubai to live and work. So the authority’s first priority is to support these artists and provide infrastructure to grow a sustainable arts community. Scott also pointed out that the majority of artists coming out of the region were women, which was largely due to gender occupation expectations. (Men were not really encouraged by their families to be “artists”.) Over time, Dubai’s objective is to be seen as a creative city in the cultural world as opposed to one that just imports things from the outside. The economic crisis has put the brakes on some proposed initiatives but hopes are that in 18 months the economy would recover and things would be back on track. I have to say that I was impressed to hear that this was the approach they were taking. It’ll be interesting to look at both Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 20 years to see which strategy proved most effective.
After our meeting, Scott took me on a quick tour of some of the galleries at the DIFC which were scattered amongst high-end retail outlets in an outdoor plaza. He explained to me that a couple of the galleries were hoping to make the conversion to private museums. (We both had some difficulty trying to figure out how the business model would work.) After a number of quick introductions to various gallery owners, we hopped in Scott’s car and headed down to Bastakiya, the oldest region of the city along the Dubai Creek. This area, with Persian-style architecture and narrow laneways, was home to another cluster of galleries and cultural spaces. We had a nice lunch at the XVA Hotel café (the mint lemonade is a must) and continued our conversation about the development of the region.
XVA Gallery and Cafe
After lunch, Scott headed back to the office, leaving me to explore the district. I made my way along the Creek, watching tiny boats filled to capacity ferry people from bank to bank. Eventually, I came upon a series of souks (markets) which sold different textiles and did a bit of souvenir shopping.
I love the tourists with their shopping bags
Over lunch, Scott had told me that in order to get a full picture of Dubai, a visit to one of its mega-malls was essential. So I hopped in a cab and headed over to the newly opened Dubai Mall in the Downtown Burj Dubai district (which is also home to the new tallest building in the world scheduled to open at the end of this year). The first thing I came upon as I entered the mall was a full size skating rink. Around the corner were two huge fountains where life-size sculptures of divers cascaded down an eight-story wall. (I assume this fountain was designed by the same artist who built the fountain at Rosa Mexicana - one of my favorite restaurants - in NYC.) From there, I strolled through the Golden Souk which featured top jewelry boutiques from around the world. At the end of the passage was a huge indoor aquarium, filled with sharks, rays and massive schools of colourful fish. And then there was the shopping. I’m not much of a shopper but have to admit that I was seduced by the meticulously designed retail spaces.
Puts the Rosa Mexicana fountain to shame.
After an ice cream break at Cold Stone Creamery, I wandered outside to see the Burj Dubai building and the man-made lagoon which was home to a massive WET Design fountain (similar to the Bellagio’s- unfortunately the shows only happened in the evenings). The building, designed by former SOM architect Adam Smith, is quite spectacular at a height of 818 meters. (As a point of reference, the CN Tower is 553 meters.)
Almost 1.5 times the height of the CN Tower
At this point, I was beginning to run out of stream so I returned to my hotel for a rest and a swim. I had hopes of visiting one of the big beach hotels that evening (the Jumeriah Hotel or the recently opened Atlantis) but instead treated myself to a massage at the hotel spa and dinner at a Thai restaurant on the compound.
My pad in Dubai - it's a shame I was only there for 36 hrs
While I was eating a woman walked by carrying a guitar and invited me to join a group of her friends who were having a nightcap and singsong on the beach. It was a nice mix of British and Caribbean ex-pats (one of whom was an ex-back up singer for the Eurythmics). After some good tunes, I headed to bed, knowing I would need to be well rested for my next stop: Cairo.
I just did a quick calculation to total the number of hours spent in the air on this trip. It ends up being about three days. Add transit times to and from the airport, check-ins and layovers and it adds up to be just under five.
Today was a particularly long travel day. I left Melbourne shortly after noon to catch a flight to Singapore, the first eight hour leg of my journey to Dubai. I was flying Singapore Airlines and had my first ride on one of the new double-decker A380 planes. Thankfully I scored an exit row as these long-haul economy flights are killing me. When we arrived, I had about an hour to wander through the Singapore airport which was gorgeous. Particularly impressive were the orchid gardens that connected the departure gates.
Orchid Gardens at the Singapore Airport
Next, another seven-hour flight to Dubai. I arrived at 2:30 AM, grabbed my bags and hopped into a cab. After a narrated tour of downtown Dubai from my way-to-alert-for-this-hour cabby, I was dropped at my hotel on the trunk of Jumeirah Palm just before 4 AM. I paid the cab fare but forgot to do my normal sweep of the back seat due to exhaustion. So now someone in the Emirates has a brand new Australian rugby shirt for a four year old (sorry Rowan), an anthology celebrating 150 years of the Atlantic Monthly (which has/had been a great travel read) and an iPod (with an extremely eclectic mix of tunes). It sucks to be me.
I guess the silver lining was that my hotel room was fantastic, a one-bedroom apartment in a private bank of residences, complete with kitchen and washing machine. It was dark, but I could see the Arabian Sea glistening in the moonlight from my bedroom window. I crashed right away knowing that I had an 11 AM meeting with the Dubai Ministry of Culture and needed to get up early enough to get my bearings.
Got up early this AM for a swim. Then made my way down to a little bakery I found in Melbourne’s famous laneways that specialized in gluten-free baked goods. Their apple cinnamon muffins are to die for.
After catching up on email back at the hotel, I walked up to Fitzroy to have lunch with Gideon Obarzanek and Rachael Azzopardi (the Artistic Director and Executive Producer of Chunky Move – and two of the toughest last names in the business). The venue was St. Jude’s Cellars, a combination wine shop and restaurant. My kind of place.
Wine and Dine
After a tasty lunch and a catch up, Rachael drove me over to the North Melbourne Town Hall where I was seeing Peter Greenaway’s multimedia installation Leonardo’s Last Supper. (We produced the Greenaway/Andriessen opera Writing to Vermeer when I was at the Lincoln Centre Festival so I was eager to see this new piece.) In his artist statement posted outside of the theatre, Greenaway stated that his intention with this work was to explore the relationship between film - a relatively new creative medium - and painting, a medium that has been around for thousands of years. He also referenced da Vinci’s obsession with both art and technology, saying that if he were around today he would be pushing the boundaries to explore where the two intersected.
The audience entered a chamber with a physical recreation of the table from the painting and its contents in the centre of the room. On two opposite walls were projected images of da Vinci’s masterpiece and X. The lights dimmed and for the next twenty minutes, the audience experienced the deconstruction and reconstruction of the work. Light and shadow added depth and dimension and the addition and subtraction of colour brought certain details to the forefront. At one point, the camera zoomed in to capture the pigment landscape of the painting and flecks of paint sprang to life to create new abstract images. These visual stimuli were accompanied by a pulsating recorded score that enveloped the room.
From there, I had a nice walk in the much-needed rain (Victoria county has had a serious drought problems for more then a decade) over to the Malthouse to see the Abbey Theatre’s production of Terminus. Since its 2007 premiere, this play has been getting rave reviews and so I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype. Going in, I had no idea what the show was about. Three characters appeared on a bare stage and launched into a series of monologues set in verse. The beauty of the language was starkly contrasted by the phantasmagoric and violent stories that emerged. I’m still not sure how I feel about this play (which is odd, given my guilty-pleasure obsession with teen-slasher movies) but will say that both the writing and the performances were masterful.
And now for something completely different… The next stop was the Melbourne Town Hall where Cameron Carpenter was giving a recital. When I arrived at the venue, there was a huge queue down the street which seemed to be a mix of organ enthusiasts and Cameron enthusiasts. For those of you who don’t know him, Cameron is an accomplished child prodigy (trained at NCSA and Julliard) whose mission is to bring sexy back to the organ. He does this with video screens, tight clothes and plenty of sequins. (If he’s looking to build out his wardrobe, I can suggest a few shops in Tokyo.) The performance went up late due to some technical difficulties. Cameron – and kudos to him for doing this – wandered out into the lobby to say hello to adoring fans as they waited. Unfortunately, the late start meant that I could only stay for the first couple of numbers as I had dinner plans with Laura Colby and Todd Wetzel from Perdue University. What I saw was quite thrilling – the instrument itself was a sight to behold and Cameron’s eclectic mix of repertoire and original transcriptions illustrated that behind all of the flash lies an incredible musician. The last thing I heard was a Percy Grainger piece which was particularly moving given that we were in the composer’s home town.
After a nice dinner with Laura and Todd, we wandered over to the festival club. We had a quick drink with Melanie Pose, a friend who works for the Festival, and a chat with Bishi – one of the club’s featured artists that night - and Cameron, fresh from his performance. It was a nice way to wind down my time in Melbourne.
Slept in a bit after the opening night party. I had two shows to see today so wanted to make sure they had my full attention. Wandered up Flinder’s Lane to a little restaurant named Cumulus that the gang from Chunky Move had introduced to me last year. I was craving their Turkish eggs and wasn’t disappointed.
My first show of the day was When the Rain Stops Falling, a new play by Andrew Bovell (some of you may know his play/film Lantana). It took me a bit to get into the story but by the end they had me. It’s another tough but moving work that examines four generations of an incredibly dysfunctional family. Before coming to the Festival, it had successful runs in Sydney and London. I wouldn’t be surprised if it finds its way overseas in the near future. Ran into Justin Mcdonnell at the show, who is now doing consulting work in Australia after being the Artistic Director at the new Miami PAC for five years.
I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed over to the State Theatre at the Victoria Arts Center for Medea (by the end of this trip I’ll be a scholar on the Greeks), an opera by Pascal Dusapin performed by Sasha Waltz & Guests. When I was in Hannover, Germany two years ago for Tanz Platform, everyone was talking about this company so it was great to finally see them perform. For me, the show was a bit too episodic in the beginning as the dancers set the stage for the story (although I did enjoy a projected sequence where the Greek stone wall sculpture came to life). Caroline Stein, who played the titular character, was incredible and the orchestra and choir successfully navigated the complex score. The company is also performing their signature work, Körper, later in the week which I’m sad to miss.
After the show, I wandered over to Federation Square for Strange Fruit’s 15th anniversary party. It was a nice, informal outdoor gathering, packed with always-friendly Aussies. A big kudos goes out to the waitress at the restaurant (Tjanabi) who inquired after noticing that I wasn’t eating any of the passed food and offered to make me a gluten free platter. I can tell you, there ain’t nothin’ like gluten free crocodile.
Chris Lorway has worked as a practitioner and consultant in the arts community for over 12 years. He has worked for numerous international arts organizations including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Opera and the Edinburgh Festival and was part of the founding team of Nova Scotia’s international music festival Celtic Colours.
