it'll be a little shorter tonight, sorry. it's been a long hot day and I'm in desperate need of a shower, and SLEEP. I know that I'd promised pix of the exhibits, and I apologize for reneging, but I'll be spending a chunk of the day tomorrow at the exhibits and will get better pic than those I got from the opening gala when they were inundated with viewers.... promise.
I spent the biggest part of the day in a workshop at DAMU, the Czech National Theatre Conservatory. It was a workshop called TABLE/ABLE/BLAB/LAB, and the description made it sound kinda fascinating... it talked about the creative process and how designers need to be able to step up as STORYTELLERS and how we sometimes use outdated technologies to create new methodologies for visual storytelling... using an old slide projector to project images onto scenery or actors/ using an overhead projector as a shadow screen for puppetry... you get the idea. it sounded REALLY cool.... I wish it had been... the workshop leader is a native Pole who emigrated to New Zealand several years ago and has worked on film and theatre work there (including as a set decorator on the LORD OF THE RINGS movies). Although she was really nice, it was obvious that she was a still a little jet-lagged and disorganized, and even by lunchtime it was clear that we had no real agenda or focus. It was still interesting to work with students from all over and see what we all created, so it wasn't completely worthless. At the end of the class we went over to one of the INTERSECTION projects... part of the PQ, but run by a separate wing... this one is/was/will be for another few days.... a conglomeration of 26 rooms that were built, interconnectedly forming a junglegym/city sort of a thing on the open plaza of the National Theatre (Narodni Divadlo).
in each "box" a different designer/artist created a theatrical installation... some were simply showing films of works they've done elsewhere, another had created puppetbox installations with working lights...
still others had performers inside doing things, one had a pair of tango dancers giving lessons to people walking by... for another you had to put on a blue fur-covered bear suit in order to go in, another had wallpapered the outside of the box with men's dress shirts while a manically dressed "wedding-gown beast" loped about... it was very much installation/performance art-based work, but kinda fascinating. I think my favorite (aside from the puppet-box guy), was this sound installation, where you edged into a pitch black box, and wherever you stepped, it caused a sound cue of someone whispering something urgently in a language you may or may not know... as you walked thru, taking more steps and causing more sounds to fill the tight room... it was really kinda cool... another one had two ficus trees wired up to sensors, and it (according to it's thesis statement.. not sure I'm believing it though) would turn vibrations in the leaves into sound waves, as if the trees were "talking and responding: to people being in the room with them"... though provoking, if perhaps not scientifically sound... get it... SOUND.... sorry. I'm tired and sweaty... bad jokes are only going to multiply.
after walking thru the rooms I headed on over to Wenceslas Square, and did a little shopping before my entrtainment for the evening... the opera TOSCA at Prague State Opera House...
NOW let me show you pictures of the INTERIOR....
It truly is a Baroque masterpiece. sumptuous, beautiful, elegant. I was in a Loge just to the left of the first balcony. The opera was very nicely sung, and the set was exciting to see (as per my previous posting about Josef Svoboda). I'd seen pictures of it in design textbooks, but to actually SEE it in the flesh was really exciting for me. it was also a little sad. It was truly a marvel of 20th century stage design, and gorgeous, but the physical pieces of the set are obviously kept in a backroom and brought out of mothballs every so often... paint was peeling, edges were left raw, obvious "break-lines"-- where the scenery breaks into pieces for storage -- were left unhidden, minor alteration had obviously been made to make it easier to pull in and out of mothballs.. perfectly legitimate fiscal/logistical choices, but they were choices that diminished the overall effect that the original was intended to make. oh well... I'm still really glad I got to see it.
bad news of the day... after the opera... on my way home from the grocery, a 500 Koruna note apparently fell out of my pocket... (it's worth about $30)... irritated and frustrated with myself... but these things happen.
still, all in all a very good day... the weather, uniformly since my arrival here, has been wonderful... it rained a littel at teh airport when I arrived, and aside from getting rained on the evening of the Exhibit Completion Party, it's been really moderate, and sunny/partly cloudy, but today was decidedly warmer and sunnier... which, as I'm sitting here looking out of the Vltava, River... the storm finally arrived... windows are open... cool air is coming in.... ahhhh... comfort.
good night all.
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