Sydney

It was YB's birthday on Tuesday and, to celebrate, we went to Luna Park on Saturday. As it is her last year in her twenties, she decided it was fitting to go to an amusement park and act like kids, going on silly rides and stuff. I'm not one for rides but Luna Park is such a good opportunity for pictures.

The highlight of the trip was Coney Island; DB pondered that we were old skool... but how can you beat silly mirrors and slippery slides. As we entered the building I raced ahead to take happy snaps of the girls on the various rides and a random guy came up to me, thinking the girls were some kind of celebrities or something, and asked me if I was a professional photographer. No I'm not and no the girls were just having fun. DB and I decided to try out the big kids slide, which is crazy high, as we were about to slide down we questioned what the hell we were doing up there but, after the first go we were immediately back up the stairs for a second go. Fun. Later a group of us tried the Wheel of Joy, where you sat on top of a spinning cone and tried to stay on the longest. I slid off fairly early but DB was challenging for a win when she stacked it and did a full forward roll over her tiara and got a couple of bruises. Awesome!

None of the other rides at Luna Park quite matched Coney Island, except maybe the Dodge 'ems, which is classic. YB decided it was more fun to try to avoid being bumped, which only just made her even more of an appealing target! We also tried some of the games. The first was a sort-of race where you tried to roll balls into holes, each hole makes your chariot fish go a certain distance. Three Bangarra dancers had a go and we got third-last, second-last and last positions. We have shamed our company. Later on JS and I tried the Clowns; I initially thought that high scores are good and felt dejected half way through when I was only on four when we found out that we should actually aim to get a LOW score. Consequently I did pretty well and got a Cat In The Hat, which I gave to JPB. He loved it...

Does anyone know why the harbour has just exploded? I love random fireworks. We had just finished work and were sitting in the office checking emails and stuff when suddenly it sounded like the pier was being bombarded. Racing outside we found the sky ablaze, which lasted for the next half an hour.

Sydney loves a good fireworks display and, besides New Years, this was pretty special. We just don't know what for? It would have been nice to have had some warning so I could have brought decent equipment to work to take pictures.

Electrical storms are pretty common back home (and apparently Darwin is the Lightning Capital of the world!) so I'm not too fussed when we have an electrical storm in the big smoke. HOWEVER, we don't have too many Sydney Harbour Bridges spanning the Katherine River. This picture is pretty impressive! Taken from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Had a pretty eventful week. My back that I sprained last week hasn't given me too many problems but that's because I've had quite alot of treatment on it (and getting a back rub about every second day isn't something that I'm going to complain about much...) What's been frustrating is that rehearsal director is erring on the side of caution and not pushing me in rehearsals much, which is bad because I really do need the practise! And if my back fails now, it'd probably be better to know sooner than later. On the plus side, wow have I got a great team to support me and my ageing body, I think I'm getting great treatment from the two guys that I'm seeing, my osteo and my masseur. They've been indispensible. Got one more massage before the opening of clan which at this moment, according to the Countdown block on this page, is only two days, twenty hours, 52 minutes and two seconds away!

I had a massage on the Tuesday and the guy that I see is in Woolloomooloo. Great. The place is jam-packed with people saying hello to Mary, I've never seen so many people down there. Afterwards I had to go back to the Opera House to see a show at 7:30 which, of course, happened to be the time when the OTHER Queen was docking. Cabbed it but Macquarie Street was jam-packed with cars and people. Made it to the show just in time, though I guess it didn't help that I was busy taking photos.

Snuck into The Studio late for David Hoyle's SOS, while he was busy bitching about the two Queens and encouraging us to take matters into our own hands and blow them up. Ooops! I had my camera hanging off my neck and hoped that he wouldn't ask me to show him the pictures that I'd taken. Brilliant show by the way, he urged us to "kill, if necessary" people like John Howard and the gay clones, to blow up those big floating bits of metal the Queens, to level the Pyramids of Egypt (he much preferred the modern Sydney Opera House, which he was thankful to be performing in). We the people of Australia that, apparently, waited for the pedestrian crossing lights to turn green, had to be wary of being complacent because life here is so easy, that the most we have to worry about is kids on skateboards knocking us down on the street. Singing is his forte but there was, er, contemporary dance and abstract painting in there for good measure.

[On the Friday, David and two other guys got gay-bashed in North Hyde park by a group of ten guys. Bloody appalling. But, with only one more show to do for this season (and it might be a bit morbid to say this but) it would have been intriguing to see his last show, to hear what he had to say about it. Apparently he didn't dwell too much on it though.]

On the same idea of Australians being too complacent, we went and saw The Gates of Egypt. Could barely keep my eyes open for the first twenty minutes though less because of the show and more because I was pretty tired. But the show itself was pretty ordinary anyway. Yes, we the people that wait for the lights to turn green and only need to worry about wayward skateboarders must not become apathetic citizens of the world but... I just don't know. I'm supposed to care more about what's going on in the world, yes, but I certainly couldn't care all that much for the play.

Though this week we did have a chance to show how much we do care about what's going on in the world, with the arrival of Dick Cheney. "Kill, if necessary" is what we were told by David Hoyle and, I'm telling you, if I had a rocket launcher I would have shot down a couple of helicopters. They were giving me the shits. On the Friday morning the noise from the helicopters over the harbour was disrupting the meditative mood of our morning yoga class. Sounded like we were in a war zone (sorry for the hyperbole). 350 Anti-war protesters clashed with the police as they marched down George Street, disrupting traffic but apparently it's okay for ONE person (the US Vice-President, yes, but still just the ONE person) to cause road closures through the city. Put him in an unmarked car and make him wait in traffic like the rest of us, I reckon.

Last night we had a cocktail party, which was modestly attended but there was good food and, with less people arriving than expected, there was more alcohol to go around. Wasn't feeling too well the day after.

And finally, my parents called me up about the website I'm doing for their shop (Johnny's Electronics). The layout is pretty much finished and all I need is content. Dad asked if I had a couple of spare weeks to fly up and take photos for the site. AS IF! Have you seen our Bangarra schedule? Besides, there's nothing stopping him from taking the pictures himself and emailing them to me...

And now it's next week. Gotta go to bed now.

Sydney Festival 2007
Wow it's been a terrific start to the year in Sydney. As far as festivals go, it's right up there with the time when Stephen Page was running the show in Adelaide and Bangarra was the headline show... thankfully we didn't have to perform here in Sydney so I got to see heaps of things. And what a program it was! Here is my top five festival events:

5. Lou Reed - Berlin
Not my cup of tea, to be sure, but the musicianship was unquestionably good. Guest vocalist Antony, who was here for last year's festival, blew us away again, with his soaring voice. It was standing room only at The State but it was worth it.

4. Australian Dance Theatre - Devolution
The dancers of ADT are superhuman and are appropriately matched with the un-human robots. It was like we were on board the Nostromo, battling Aliens. It's undeniably spectacular, ambitious and mind-blowing but, like the soundtrack, it all runs at volume eleven. Halfway through you become thankful for the beautiful calm projections, as if someone had turned the volume down to about three, so that you can take a moment to breathe again. Strangely enough, and in contrast to alot of other reactions to this work, I wanted to see more robots, or at least more interaction with them. The two large robots entering the dance space to inspect the dancers, and the large tentacle-like robotic appendages protruding from the dancers' torsos were highlights, teasing the audience to believe that we would actually see a devolution where the dancers would become totally integrated with the robotic mechanisms. It never happens, though, instead we get to see an explosive finale full of daring acrobatics at warp speed. Am I expecting too much from them already?

The next three I couldn't decide between them so they're all equal first!

=1. Back To Back Theatre - Small Metal Objects
This production turns the theatrical experience on its head and manages to effortlessly deal with improbable contradictions in less than an hour. It is sad and funny at the same time. The audience becomes the stage for random passers-by to watch as we laugh at them and their silly human ways. Actors intermingle through a sea of *real people* in transit, some intrigued by the spectacle of a full audience stand while others simply ignore it as they get on with their lives. As one of the performers stares blankly into the audience (he's a bit wrong in the head, apparently) he becomes a people magnet, attracting the passers-by to stop and watch us, oblivious to the fact that there's a personal drama being acted out in this most public of places, The Circular Quay train station. You can't help but laugh when tourists stop to take photos of us, and there was a hilarious moment when a couple of toddlers took the opportunity to run up to the audience and do their own little performance. Seemingly incongruous to the fact that we are watching a rather large drug deal but, then again, where better to supply gear than a train station? (not like I'd know) Intriguing theatre.

=1. Lucy Guerin Company - Structure and Sadness
Guerin amasses a talent pool of dancers to match ADT but the production is on a much smaller scale, the cold robotic metal replaced with the ordinary slabs of wood. But boy is she meticulous about the wood! I could watch the dancers build that house-of-cards structure all night, knowing that the domino-like collapse of the building was inevitable. And unlike ADT, Guerin delivers on the title of her work: there is a structure and, after it collapses, there is sadness. Simple, really. There's also rebuilding, a coming-to-terms with the disaster, that's quite touching.

=1. La Clique
The Tennis-Racquet guy was especially hilarious. This was a perfectly entertaining piece of theatre, perfectly staged, and was amazing the whole way through. I felt like I had gone back in time, to the era of burlesque theatre (whatever era that was...)

Not to forget:
Akhe Russian Engineering Theatre - White Cabin: No discernible story. More like an excuse to get onstage and get drunk whilst spilling lots of wine and burning things and getting a bit wet. I have no idea what I saw but was more than happy to experience it. Those crazy Russians!

Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Antony Gormley and Nitin Sawhney - zero degrees
This could have been a good work but I went on opening night at The Carriageworks and, along with about 95% of the audience, couldn't see what was going on. Thankfully it all got sorted by the time I went to see ADT. Love the venue besides...

Tags: Sydney Festival, Dance, Theatre, Music, Australian Dance Theatre, Lou Reed, Antony, Back To Back Theatre, Lucy Guerin, La Clique.

I had just gotten back from Lismore and was driving home from PT (who had kindly allowed me to leave my car at his place). As I was driving down Cleveland Street I notice that the garage where I normally take my car for servicing was totally gutted out. Crazy. Very annoying because I now have to find somewhere else to take my car in. Oops! How rude of me... I hope no one got hurt and I'm sorry for the owner's losses, they were quite good to me.

Anyway, more changes: Sydney Dance Company are in need of a new Artistic Director. I know, this is extremely old news but I've been away! This Sydney Morning Herald article places just about all the blame on the lack of government funding for dance. I really don't know where to begin commenting about this, its such big news for our neighbours and I hope the dancers are all okay... not a situation I would like to be in.

However, I am interested to see who the company will get to replace Murphy. I'm having alot of trouble imagining the company with a different director, then again the dancers took to Narelle Benjamin's choreography really well, and I really did like the company performing Stephen Petronio's Underland. Never underestimate a dancer's ability to cope with change, just ask me! The change in directorship of the company is big news but I don't think it will necessarily be down hill from here.

Oh, and there's a local Woolies now, on Bourke Street. How convenient! Change is not always a bad thing.

Tags: Dance, Sydney, Sydney Dance Company.

Post-parade Oxford Street had just deteriorated into the inevitable chaotic pedestrian thoroughfare; the once-orderly barricades now lie haphazardly fragmented across the road. I had just met a guy and had just gotten into a brief argument about apostrophes. About an hour later I was offloading the contents of my stomach at JPB’s house, I think it was about midnight but who can be sure?

I don’t know how the topic of apostrophes came up, though I’m pretty sure I brought it up. Anyway, two against one and it was no longer Chris’s [café] but just Chris’. I had mentioned I was reading Lynne Truss’s, sorry, Lynne Truss’ (yeah, right!) book Eats, Shoots & Leaves (funny book, by the way) and apparently I should know better. Well good on me, I do! Lynne backs me up, as well as the Apostrophe Protection Society, Fowler’s Modern English Usage, the editors of the Sydney Morning Herald… Truss does suggest that people have gotten into very heated discussions about the placement of the little mark but to have one on the street after the Mardi Gras parade?

No matter. JPB and I watched the parade from the fifteenth floor, looking down over the street. To see it from that height made me feel excited about the whole thing, after being quite unenthusiastic about it all. It was amazing to see the street so crowded with people. Pity it was too far away to make out the floats in any details but it didn’t matter: I had my main guy with me and we were drinking lovely wine having just eaten a lovely dinner. I didn’t bring my new camera, knowing that I was going to get a bit messy; I didn’t want to risk it so I grabbed the host’s camera and took pictures for him. Must get copies of those pictures!

Tags: Sydney Gay And Lesbian Mardi Gras, Punctuation.

I opened the door to reveal a dark room with corrugated iron walls. The stacked chairs threatened to fall on me. At the very back I could make out a refridgerator and a sofa stacked on it's side. At my feet was a television and a computer monitor. Stacks and stacks of boxes.

So this is my life, then? All stuffed into a space no bigger than your average bathroom. Lucky for me I had sold my bed, there was no way it was going to all fit. I get the sense that there is alot, and that I have alot of junk, remembering that my washing machine and heaters are being loaned out to friends, and my car is parked out the front of the storage place. Then again, I don't own a house...

I found room to store a couple of last boxes and locked the door. It was kind of liberating to do that, like I was now living a slimmed-down version of my life. Surely the great Buddha realised that getting rid of your material possessions was good not to reach a higher spirituality but because moving is just such a bitch. Sometimes I fantasise about that room being nukes, obliterating all of that unnecessary stuff.

Being on opposite sides of the city from JPB got quite annoying. Besides, after *living* in the west (albeit extremely close to the city) for eight months I realise that I'm simply not a west end girl. Sure I only really spent at most two months there but it was enough to decide that I really don't need the space of a one-bedroom apartment at the moment in my life and that I would rather be where the action happens. Faced with a seven-week stint in Melbourne beginning in the next few days, it seemed like a good time to make the move; not having to pay Sydney rent for that time is a good thing!

Next on the agenda: get rid of the car...

Oh, and update my blog on a regular basis again...

We were looking down on the homosexuals again. When I arrived, the gang were playing with lighters. Luckily I brought along my camera!

tags: Fire.