Opening night is always an interesting affair. The excitement of months and months of work coming to fruition mixed with the sheer terror of months and months of work coming to fruition. I lost my keys and my wallet on separate occasions. I paid for my parking at one of those parking meter kiosks downtown. I retrieved my parking sticker that you apply to your windshield from the dispenser and then proceeded to throw the sticker in the garbage as I was walking to my car to apply the aforementioned sticker. I don’t know if this is what you classify as an out of body experience, but it was definitely in that family of occurrences. I woke up this morning strangely sore from the whole thing. Here’s a little recap:
The Kick-Off event at the capitol was sublime. Thank you Allison and Graham. It was a remarkable collision of two pretty distinct worlds: the two-stepping community and the contemporary art/performance community. But somehow it all felt very natural to be doing this thing together on the steps of the capitol. It was the perfect tonic for the craziness of the afternoon and a joyous beginning. And I think the questions it raises are good, fun ones. Like (for starters) what is this doing in an contemporary art and performance festival? How are these forms/groups/people related and how can they talk to one another? And perhaps more importantly, why don’t we do this more often? This is a blast.
Kaiji Moriyama’s The Velvet Suite was equally sublime, but could not have been more different in its shape/look/feel. The performance is fierce. Intense. Otherworldly. Terrifying. And Beautiful. One of my favorite endings ever. I mean I think I actually said “Holy shit” as it ended. And I’ve seen the piece before. The show is definitely not for everyone. A few people left, but that’s part of it.
I’m not sure I was actually at the Andrew Andrew after party. My brain was entirely fried by this point. Although I do remember that Frederick Gravel’s team of dancers were tearing up the dance floor. Shredding it. It made me really excited to see their show again. Had a lovely talk with some of Kaiji’s team outside on the patio. Nathan Green from Okay Mountain bought me a delicious beer. Thought about frito pie but couldn’t quite do it. Wasn’t sure what would happen to me. Then off to bed and slept like a fried chicken (they’re very good sleepers).
Thanks to everyone involved for a fabulous evening.