6.02.2010
The first snippet of many to come, wherein I begin to try to explain my childhood to strangers.
As children we slept under wagons. When you are seven, everyone assumes you will think it's an adventure. And sometimes you do. But sometimes, even at seven, you think to yourself, I am tired of sleeping on the fucking ground. Sometimes you forget where you are and sit up when you wake up, slamming your forehead on the fifth wheel. Sometimes your feet are wet in the end of your sleeping bag, because in your sleep you can't control where your body goes, and sometimes it sticks parts of itself out in the rain. At night as you are drifting off, you make efforts to remind your body to stay under the wagon, where it's dry, and hope for the best.
4.26.2010
Staying current
Okay. I didn't blog about Brief Encounters every day. The process and experience were so joyous, I just loved being present. I will regale you. I'm running on reserve battery power just now and wanted to remind you that I have updated all my calendars and everything, so you can be sure that my upcoming shows link over there ===> is fresh and good. Come see stuff! I'm so excited about all the things I'm doing, and I think it really reads on stage right now. Rippin' it up!
xoxoRH
xoxoRH
4.07.2010
Brief Encounters - Serge and Riel meet. Riel gets choreographed!
Serge and I met today. He is French french. I gave myself over to the universe and Serge started to improvise movement pieces for me. I won't give it all away, what we are thinking, but it's not like anything I've done before, and that, my friends, is why I am alive. Truly.
I have just come away from a conversation with a friend where I told her I think I'm grateful to be alive. And as soon as I had said it I knew it was true on a level I haven't experienced before. I am grateful for all of it, the good, the hard, the beautiful, the absurd, the pain in the ass, the pain, the pleasure. All of it. So rich.
Just being. Not waiting.
What a lesson. A thirty-eight year lesson. I am so intrigued by how everything will unfold. Like, for the rest of my life.
Travel gently,
Riel
I have just come away from a conversation with a friend where I told her I think I'm grateful to be alive. And as soon as I had said it I knew it was true on a level I haven't experienced before. I am grateful for all of it, the good, the hard, the beautiful, the absurd, the pain in the ass, the pain, the pleasure. All of it. So rich.
Just being. Not waiting.
What a lesson. A thirty-eight year lesson. I am so intrigued by how everything will unfold. Like, for the rest of my life.
Travel gently,
Riel
3.29.2010
Brief Encounters. And Passover.
Today our partners in Brief Encounters were revealed! I have been paired with Serge Bennathan, a choreographer. We are slated to begin work on our co-creation April 1st, and will be performing at Brief Encounters at Performance Works April 15, 16 and 17. I am going to write a bit about the experience of creating a 5-15 minute performance piece with someone I've never met as we go, I am so intrigued as to what will happen!
I'm used to creating in short periods of time - I have participated in Theatre Under The Gun (aka Show Off Festival) several times, and it is always a wonderful experience. Not easy, necessarily, but so rewarding. And I am always so surprised and delighted at the work that comes out of it. Theatre Under the Gun and Brief Encounters differ in a few ways. TUTG is a 48 hour playwrighting festival. An inspiration package is received at 8pm on Wednesday night and you're off and running! The package contains an image, a sound bite, a prop and a line of text or dialogue. You spend 48 hours creating a 15 minute piece and perform on Friday night at 8pm. Amazing! Generally speaking, all of the pieces I have been involved with at TUTG have been created by people who know each other and work together regularly. Brief Encounters pairs two artists of differing disciplines and gives them two weeks to create a 5-15 minute piece. No inspiration package, total strangers! So I am not nervous about the length of time we have, but I am a bit nervous about whether Serge and I will be good working partners. I am wide open to whatever we come up with - a funny dance piece? I am already imagining so many things....ohboyohboyohboy!
Okay, I am off to make charoset for a seder I'm attending tonight. Lucky me making the charoset, super easy chopping! I haven't been to a seder in years. I kind of let all the Jewiness fall off when Poppie died five years ago. He was such a connection to tradition, in such a non traditional way. So it is very sweet to have been invited to another family's seder, especially because it sounds kind of loose...they describe it as a hippie seder. I'm gonna dress up, anyway!
Cashews, honey, apples, cinnamon, lemon...chop, blend, chill...eat and be reminded of the bricks we made while we were slaves. (nb, I actually have no personal memory of being a slave, and am pretty grateful for that.)
So...stay tuned for updates about the creation process, and possibly even some more short fiction. I've had a lot of words roiling around in my brain lately, likely they are looking for an escape route. Might as well be out my fingers.
xoRH
I'm used to creating in short periods of time - I have participated in Theatre Under The Gun (aka Show Off Festival) several times, and it is always a wonderful experience. Not easy, necessarily, but so rewarding. And I am always so surprised and delighted at the work that comes out of it. Theatre Under the Gun and Brief Encounters differ in a few ways. TUTG is a 48 hour playwrighting festival. An inspiration package is received at 8pm on Wednesday night and you're off and running! The package contains an image, a sound bite, a prop and a line of text or dialogue. You spend 48 hours creating a 15 minute piece and perform on Friday night at 8pm. Amazing! Generally speaking, all of the pieces I have been involved with at TUTG have been created by people who know each other and work together regularly. Brief Encounters pairs two artists of differing disciplines and gives them two weeks to create a 5-15 minute piece. No inspiration package, total strangers! So I am not nervous about the length of time we have, but I am a bit nervous about whether Serge and I will be good working partners. I am wide open to whatever we come up with - a funny dance piece? I am already imagining so many things....ohboyohboyohboy!
Okay, I am off to make charoset for a seder I'm attending tonight. Lucky me making the charoset, super easy chopping! I haven't been to a seder in years. I kind of let all the Jewiness fall off when Poppie died five years ago. He was such a connection to tradition, in such a non traditional way. So it is very sweet to have been invited to another family's seder, especially because it sounds kind of loose...they describe it as a hippie seder. I'm gonna dress up, anyway!
Cashews, honey, apples, cinnamon, lemon...chop, blend, chill...eat and be reminded of the bricks we made while we were slaves. (nb, I actually have no personal memory of being a slave, and am pretty grateful for that.)
So...stay tuned for updates about the creation process, and possibly even some more short fiction. I've had a lot of words roiling around in my brain lately, likely they are looking for an escape route. Might as well be out my fingers.
xoRH
10.30.2009
I started this tonight. Don't know what it is yet.
This is an in between season. Something not quite autumn, with sun and crunchy leaves, and not quite winter, with snow and merrymaking. It is the blue season. A cavernous time of darkening and oppression. Cold rain comes down fast and hard. So hard that as drops hit anything they explode and become mist which then travels back up and makes having an umbrella a cruel joke. Storefront windows are fogged, people leave their hats on indoors. Suicides increase.
"Why don't you cheer the fuck up, anyway?" Barry's feet are on the coffee table and his sport socks, clearly worn for days on end, sag around the toes, giving him the look of a limp elf. He has your manuscript in his hands. He is reading it. Fucking douche. Didn’t you tell him not to touch anything?
“I’ll cheer the fuck up when you get a job and get out of my apartment, Barry. That’s when I’ll cheer the fuck up.” You feel good about that one, just a little pressure valve release, to keep you from killing him. From strangling your own brother. Sometimes imagining him slowly turning blue and his lifeless body dangling in your hands, sometimes this is the only thing that can put you to sleep at night. This has become worrisome.
“I never used to want to kill you, Barry.” Barry laughs, but his laugh ends in a little cough when you coolly take the manuscript from him and place one hand on his throat, squeezing gently. Holding on just long enough to make him uncomfortable. Barry’s face changes.
“Hey, cut that out. Fuck, Dale, that shit’s not funny.”
“Get out of the apartment, Barry. Go away for a while. Go to the park, or a movie, or go get drunk. Just leave me in peace.” Barry looks like he might respond, his mouth opens, then closes, like a fish. Barry’s stupid, fishy face stares at you.
“Can I have twenty dollars?” He is sheepish and arrogant at the same time. It equals out to pathetic, but you find twenty dollars and shove it at him. He mutters thank you, and goes. You think maybe you see him crying a little on his way out. It almost softens you, but not quite. You need the breathing room. Time alone. Close your heart, you think to yourself, it’s better for both of you. You hear the door close and Barry’s fading, thudding footsteps.
It is quiet. You realize you are gripping the manuscript so tightly that you have crumpled it. After staring at it for a moment, you frown, then scream, then throw the manuscript at nothing in particular. The pages mock you, drifting in all directions, spreading across the sofa and coffee table, fluttering peacefully to the floor. You hate it when Barry’s right.
"Why don't you cheer the fuck up, anyway?" Barry's feet are on the coffee table and his sport socks, clearly worn for days on end, sag around the toes, giving him the look of a limp elf. He has your manuscript in his hands. He is reading it. Fucking douche. Didn’t you tell him not to touch anything?
“I’ll cheer the fuck up when you get a job and get out of my apartment, Barry. That’s when I’ll cheer the fuck up.” You feel good about that one, just a little pressure valve release, to keep you from killing him. From strangling your own brother. Sometimes imagining him slowly turning blue and his lifeless body dangling in your hands, sometimes this is the only thing that can put you to sleep at night. This has become worrisome.
“I never used to want to kill you, Barry.” Barry laughs, but his laugh ends in a little cough when you coolly take the manuscript from him and place one hand on his throat, squeezing gently. Holding on just long enough to make him uncomfortable. Barry’s face changes.
“Hey, cut that out. Fuck, Dale, that shit’s not funny.”
“Get out of the apartment, Barry. Go away for a while. Go to the park, or a movie, or go get drunk. Just leave me in peace.” Barry looks like he might respond, his mouth opens, then closes, like a fish. Barry’s stupid, fishy face stares at you.
“Can I have twenty dollars?” He is sheepish and arrogant at the same time. It equals out to pathetic, but you find twenty dollars and shove it at him. He mutters thank you, and goes. You think maybe you see him crying a little on his way out. It almost softens you, but not quite. You need the breathing room. Time alone. Close your heart, you think to yourself, it’s better for both of you. You hear the door close and Barry’s fading, thudding footsteps.
It is quiet. You realize you are gripping the manuscript so tightly that you have crumpled it. After staring at it for a moment, you frown, then scream, then throw the manuscript at nothing in particular. The pages mock you, drifting in all directions, spreading across the sofa and coffee table, fluttering peacefully to the floor. You hate it when Barry’s right.
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