An artsy fartsy day

Yesterday was my last day in London for a while, so I decided to do it up a little bit, spending the least amount of money possible. So after a late rise, I made my way down to Waterloo station on the South Bank. Down by the National Theatre and Ballet, they were having a whole shwack of festivals. There was a food festival going on all around the grounds, and then inside the Southbank Centre there were s bunch of free acts put on as part of the dancEUnion festival, which is a festival of European dance... not like traditional folky stuff, but more like contemporary, modern, and ballet dancers from all across Europe. So I managed to catch 3 free acts, and then a 4th less than amazing act. So first I headed downstairs to a multi-media piece. Seemed pretentious, but I was up for it. Well it was unreal. There was a girl dancing in one corner of the room in front of this white background. Then, on a wall on the other side of the room she was being project live. So at first I thought... oh blah blah blah seen it before. But then some crazy cool stuff started. The feed was run through a computer, and she was holding a remote control. So she would dance for a bit, then press a button, and her improv would play back. She could then switch back and forth between this recorded bit and her live, so at times it would just flick back to her watching herself, other times doing a different movement sequence. So it became a play on tempo and depth, and also made a really interesting exploration of spectator interacton. I liked it.
Then, in a different hall, there were 6 tvs set up. Each person was given a headset with 6 channels on it. As you went from screen to screen, you saw that there was also a small tv below each screen. On the small television you could see a dancer doing a routine. Above, on the larger screen, you see that the dancer in the tv below was wearing a head-mounted camera, facing their face. You would tune in to their channel to hear their music and sounds, and then you could watch their dance below, while watching a close up on their heads above. It was so interesting to see a dancer moving in a still environment on one, and then what seems like the whole world moving around a still face above. I loved this one.
Then, upstairs, there were a couple less experimental dance routines from Norway. Pretty gorgeous stuff.

Then, there was last night. Hooo boy. I decided that I wanted to see a play in the West End. had thought I'd see Rain Man because Josh Hartnett is in it and how often does that happen? But I had a change of heart and instead decided to see Ivanov starring Kenneth Branagh! There were only standing room tickets left, but it was worth every second of those 190 minutes standing at the back. It was a new adaptation by Tom Stoppard... very English Chekhov! But jeeeezus this play was good.
I stood near the stage door to see if he'd come out after, but the mob was huge so I moved on.

A good evening.

I'm going down to Brighton today. I'm pretty stoked.

kisses
nick