14th July, Nearly finished, not finished yet.

Today I had a panic attack! I thought that next week we only had Monday and Tuesday for rehearsals before we begin tech runs from Wednesday! I’m already running over the 10 minute time limit and I hadn’t even begun the third and final game, so I have a lot of work cut out for me!!?? But the timetable for next week was up on the notice board today and it turns out that we still have 5 full 3 hour rehearsals in between right up to Friday, so all is happy in Zaimon land…………J

I was pleased to have dinner and ice cream with Naim and some of the dancers tonight, I haven’t had a chance to chat with him yet and learn more about him. So tonight we got to talk, and he’s very interesting, we even have someone we know in common, Nanette Hassell (he performed in Perth one time, unfortunately he never meet my good my good friend Justin Rutzou who also works at WAPPA,, but I will find out more…..)

Yi-Jie Yeh, Naim, ?,?

Half of the cold rock ice cream was funded buy my coffee addiction. For every two coffees you buy at the 7/11, you get one sticker.

And I have my Program photo I love it!

13th July, Sharing

Today I had an opportunity to share some knowledge I’ve learnt over the last couple of years, about critical feedback. Julia, Angela and I thought it might be good to show some of the ideas we have been working on over the last week. I suggested that maybe we could use some of Liz Lerman’s critical feed back as a base; neither of them had heard of her and found the process very useful and interesting. I think the three of us walked out of that showing with a big sigh of relief! Knowing that, the only pressure to produce is the pressure you put on yourself and any expectations from anyone else is irrelevant.  Our dancers also got to sit in on the discussions and I think they’re beginning to understand, perhaps, that we don’t want robots, we want personality.

My dancers a speaking up more now too, giving their opinions and input to the work, sometimes I can’t get them to shut up! I love it!

12th July, not superstitious at all!

I’ve broken my piece down into three stages. I have stage one organised, stage two well developed, stage three…..well let’s just say it will be a nail bitting finish J

Went out for dinner with the dancers tonight at a awesome dumpling house! And shared jokes, mine seemed to get lost in translation……..or maybe they were just really bad, I think I have to Google some better jokes tonight, I got a lot of kudos to make up!

On the left Li Yen, Pei Ing, Hsing-Miao, Yi-Ting & Yi-Echen
Right Me, Ming Shan, Yi-Jie & Michun

If you look closely at my forehead you can see how I learnt that I’m actually pretty tall over here, when it comes to doorways.

This morning I went for a walk to this amazing run down old graveyard behind the hotel. After that photo, I tried to take a video of the dogs, but they all upped and left before I had a chance, so I walked around some more and more dogs keep poking their noses out from behind tomb stones, but not long enough to get clear shot. Guess they thought one shot was enough. Is there a Chinese superstition about dogs chillin on tomb stones? I love dogs!

Then I came across this shanty home in the middle of the graveyard and an old man (later worked out he was the caretaker), his daughter and a their beautiful cat  invited me to sit, and chat, English to Taiwanese, didn’t understand a word, but I’m pretty sure they want me to purchase a plot, they were pretty funny!

11th July Fishing Alley

Wow! It’s amazing how a weekend off can give a dancer something special! We worked on some new solo material today and they were so on it! It’s hard to describe. Anyway the work is progressing and I’m happy J Also we resolved one of the three games I’m creating for this work. All I have to do is find a way to keep track of the time so they know when it's over. One of the dancers suggested a warning sound in the music, like Count Down, haha! awesome! how annoying! Any suggestions? Something from Taiwan?

For anyone unfamiliar with the Count Down Theme click here, but be warned! It will haunt you forever!

Tonight, on my way down to my regular restaurant, I discovered a fishing hall, much like a Bowling Alley, so I’ve named it the “Fishing Alley”, you buy beer, catch fish, take it home and cook it?! There are even arcade games in the back corner for the kids! I’m sooooo up for this! Kuan like's bowling, maybe she will? Now I need a cook J

In this picture: a lot of keen anglers!

8th July, TGIF

Ahhhh! It’s Friday! I’ve got some time to think and contemplate.

Today I invested a lot more time on a theatre sport kind of game, which we have been working on this week. The focus was mainly on critical feedback from each of the dancers about the other dancers. It was a bit slow to start with! Like most of the week, no one dared to speak or give an opinion. I was listening to the sound of my own voice, trying desperately to encourage them to say something, anything! Then after about half an hour the photographer, who was there today to observe, put his hand up and said “I like what Michun and Lee Way did was very interesting.” So I said “Ok but you have to tell us why” and as a visual artists he did without hesitation, in great detail and my beautiful little dancers got a little bit kooky. Nice!

We also played a couple of games that I made up……….

So see you Monday! I’m gonna sit back and sip a Taiwanese beer with my good friend Claude and think and how awesome dancers have been this week!

Claude Aymon, runs his own company, c2a, in Marseille, South of France, he also writes his own music and takes the most amazing photos (I hope he posts some of them soon, they are much better than mine)

http://www.blogger.com/profile/13719329598865645739

Here is a short clip of what the dancers and I have been up too. and this is some of the music Ryadan Jeavons has composed for the work.
I’m having too much fun…….
In the video are Pei Ing, Li Yan, Li Wei, Yi-Jie, Michun, Yi-Chen, Yi-Ting, Hsing-Miao, Ming-Shan And of course The Father of Taiwan, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Music by Ryadan Jeavons

7th July, hOt PoT

Another great day! So far I’ve been working with the dancers, individually, on movement phrases. And if it was up to me, I would happily have kept working like this until the end of the week. However the dancers (as they always do when so young) expressed their anxiousness to Miss Chou presence in the studio tomorrow, so cute. So to humour them we played the first stage of the game and all was good and happy in TJM land.

Went for a 5.30am walk around the Lake today. It was buzzing with Tai Chi, musicians, dance groups, walkers, runners, mediation, badminton and of course tea.

Yes, this time I was invited by Big Tom and Cathy to join the Pyramid badminton team for tea and soft rice. I think I might just take a walk around the lake every time I feel hungry from now on everyone is so nice hereJ

Kuan took us to a beautiful tea house for the most amazing hot pot (I’ve had pot hot in Bejing before, but this was the best by far!) before heading out to see Polymer DMT’s debut work “I have to stay to see how the story ends” ………………visual artists, musicians, actors, dancers and more. I know they premiered in somewhere in Switzerland last year but the rest of the info I’ve managed to Google tonight is in Chinese. All I know is, I plan to go again tomorrow night!

http://www.wac.gov.tw/pda/index.php?strlink=NewsShow01&lit_id=427

6th July, lovely day for tea and revised program notes.

Today I invested time with each dancer individually, working on a new movement task I had set.  And this worked out really well! For me it broke down the language barrier, they are beginning to understand how I like to move and have begun to incorporate that into their tasks and improve (the magic of collaborative language!) which is great, because the faster we get through this learning and understanding of each other, the sooner I can get onto developing the game.

This brings me to another point.

I have already received some feedback on my program notes (excellent!) and I now realise that I wasn’t clear enough in my second paragraph. It appeared that I assumed that Theory of Mind is just anticipating other person’s thoughts, but it’s not. It’s also about empathy, or understanding (in theory) the state of mind of another person, including beliefs, desires, emotions, ect.

So as I only have 10 minutes. So my aim is (I think) this:

“My dancers and I have been investigating one aspect of this theory, the ability to anticipate. Just like a game of poker, chess or rock paper scissors, the dancers anticipate each other’s thoughts within a tactical game of movement, by strategizing, calculating, manipulating and manoeuvring themselves to stay one step ahead of the others.”

On a lighter note went for a ride this morning to Chengcing Lake and was invited for tea by John and his very lovely friends out on what I think is called a pontoon?

Right Me, John, then i can't say who is who, but the lady with the hat made all the yummy food
and the lady with the glasses is a tango dancer.

2011-IYCP Poster