Canadian girl out and aboot

The day after my reading, I went down to the Art Gallery of Ontario to look at the King Tut exhibit. This was a National Geographic exhibit and it was utterly fantastic. It opened with a short video narrated by Harrison Ford, and then you walked into an area where you could see some of the treasures of the pharaohs prior to King Tut. Then it went to the history of the discovery of the tomb, then a tour of various rooms of the tomb and some of the treasures found in the tomb. Following this, I toured some other galleries in the Art Gallery of Ontario and looked at works by the Group of 7, Henry Moore and other famous Canadian painters. I didn't see the whole museum as the museum is huge and I can only handle museums for about 2-3 hours.

Following this, I met up with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], sarcasma and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and we went for dinner at Fresh, then a walk, and then a tour of Whole Foods because I had never been and enjoy grocery store tourism.

The next day, I took transit to the airport and hopped on the plane in record time. My flight was non-eventful, except for the fact that I was EXHAUSTED. I took a cab from the airport to my house, and ran to my last dance class. We practiced our tribal fusion piece and everyone was wearing their costumes. My costume is awesome, except I managed to snag my fishnet glove on my seashell bra during the practice. After dance class, I picked up Fergus from my friend Mari's house, and then picked up A from his bus.

The long weekend was pretty awesome- A and I watched movies all weekend, took Fergus for walks and went for Chinese food and dim sum.

Tonight is my dance recital. My friend was going to come see me dance, but her car is dead and she has no way of getting out to the recital, which is in a suburb. I'm pretty disappointed, but what can I do? It just seems to be a bad night for people. Perhaps next time.

Seriously, I've been really busy.

On Thursday, I went to see Last Train home , a documentary film created by a Chinese Canadian Lixin Fan. Fan was a broadcaster who moved to Montreal. His documentary "Last Train home" focusses on the annual trek home for Chinese New Year. Viewers are introduced to a family of migrant workers. The parents work in a factory together and send money home to their two children, who are being raised by the grandmother. Life is hard in the factory and the family communications are suffering. The daughter is torn between staying in the countryside and the life in the cities.

I won't tell you what happens, but this is quite a powerful documentary. It's disturbing to watch and gives you an understanding of what life is like for a Chinese migrant worker.

I've been working really hard the past few days and have been writing like a fiend. My brother and his Fiancee arrived late Friday night, along with my dog. So I now have to take care of Fergus in addition to my other duties. Believe me, I'm not complaining.

Saturday I did a bunch of errands and then went to see a presentation of Wen Wei Dance's Cock pit. The piece is a 70 minute contemporary dance number featuring 5 dancers. It was inspired by the 5 years that Wen Wei spent in Beijing as a Chinese dance student. Pheasant feathers symbolize the masculine in Chinese opera. In his piece, Wen Wei uses the feathers to show movement, competition, sexuality and masculinity. The piece featured 4 male dancers and one female dancer and was a moving, erotic and sexually charged piece. I enjoyed it a great deal, but thought it was just a little too long. Still ,it's been a long time since I enjoyed contemporary dance, and this was a treat.

Sunday I taught a workshop to 3 women who write for the Rat Creek press, a community newspaper on the north side of the city. We went through the basic journalism techniques and tricks and I had a really good time. Apparently I did a good job with the workshop, because I got a lot of compliments from the people who attended, which is always nice to hear.

Sunday night, I watched the Oscars (of course), which were kind of boring. I'm glad with all the wins (specifically that Avatar didn't win), but hope for a better show next year.

I will only be in meetings for two days in December, which is completely lovely. It's wonderful. I'm finding it a welcome change to be in the city. It's also good as people are hosting parties and activities and I can attend them. I still have a backlog of stories to write for work and have been wading my way through them. Yet I've also been reading, writing a new short story, watching movies and doing a whole bunch of errands and Xmas shopping type things.

Last week I went with my friend to play pub trivia. I was very excited, as I love trivia games. Unfortunately, the games were cancelled, but I still got to hang out with a bunch of new people, which was cool.

We had a blizzard on Friday. I decided that I wasn't going to drive anywhere, which was genius. I did a few errands earlier in the day, but then spent the rest of the day at home, which was divine. Fortunately it snowed a lot, so I can now start skiing! I'm going to get my skis waxed tomorrow.

I went to see "Precious" this week and really recommend it. It's a rough story, but it's really about empowerment and how people can help one another and survive. Forgot that it was produced by Oprah and go see it because of the incredible acting. (I did cry twice)

Today I attended my dress rehearsal for the dance recital tonight. My sequin bra DID NOT arrive, but I have a pretty halter top and I got some compliments on that, so I felt okay about my costuming choice. Our rehearsal went well. Unfortunately, there was a wardrobe malfunction in one of the groups ahead of us. One of the women was dancing and her nip popped right out of her bra. No one in the class seemed to notice, but a few of the dancers in the audience did. I went over to tell the teacher afterward so she could tell her dancer. I felt bad for causing some embarrassment for her, but I thought I'd better tell someone so that it didn't happen in the actual performance. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the recital tonight.

By Monday, I was starting to get a little stir crazy. The weather in Edmonton had been frightful and we had had multiple storms and one storm warning. When there's a storm warning here, it's best to stay in because it might be a crazy storm or a tornado.

So by Monday, I was getting a little down, mostly due to the weather. I drove out to do an interview only to find that my interview subject was in the hospital and the family had forgotten to tell me. It wasn't a far drive, so it wasn't any skin off my teeth. I just hopped back in my car and came back home.

To get out of my house, I decided to go see "Julie and Julia", which I found very inspirational and uplifting. As one of the reviewers wrote, "It's nice to see a movie that isn't about a woman chasing a man or having a baby." The movie is really about the creative lives of two real-life women. And Julia Child had a fascinating life!

Following this, I went out for dinner and then went to my belly dance class. I'm in level 2 now, and it was a great decision to move up. The moves are more challenging, but I can definitely do them.

Tuesday was chef's tour day! I had to get up at an infernal time (6:00) to get ready and drive across town to meet the bus. The bus contained the organizers, about 38 chefs, the foodwriter from the Edmonton Journal, and yours truly. Our first stop was at Happy Acres, a U pick operation near Spruce Grove. The owner had the world's cutest miniature horse (I took LOTS of pictures). The horse acted more like a dog and followed us around. We took a tour of the garden and she fed the chefs ratatouille and crepes, coffee and mulled cider. From there, we drove to Sundog Organics, where we got another garden tour and a talk about organic farming. From Sundog we drove to Riverbend Farms, which is a huge operation. We took a wagon ride around the farm and then had a lunch featuring produce from a number of the farms. It was insane! I took pictures of the food, but the highlight for me was a carrot pie that tasted like pumpkin pie.

Following this and a talk with various other farmers, we drove to Prairie Gardens, where we toured the farm, walked through a corn maze and shot off a pumpkin cannon. (No word of a lie). All in all, it was a fantastic day and I learned a lot about some of the local farms in the area and some of the needs of chef. I came home incredibly exhausted. I lay on the couch and watched "Hannah and her sisters", which I absolutely loved. Then I went to bed early. I've been having incredibly vivid dreams and last night's included a bear, a mountain, skis and blueberries. Yikes.

Holy crap, this week is busy and good.

Monday- Work during the day and dance class at night.

Tuesday- Work, get haircut, meet up with visiting coworkers, attend Beef Producers banquet with boss.

Wednesday- Work during the day and dance class.

Thursday- Drive to Smoky Lake, attend Grazing school for women, meet cool women and learn about composting, alternative energy sources and how to kill coyotes.

Friday- Visit with friend who I haven't seen in two years, who is in Edmonton to take a leadership training course. Hang with her. Finish assignment for school. Visit accountant.

Saturday- Take reiki level 2 course. Hang with other friend visiting from Montreal. She's an old friend from Saskatoon who is a folk singer. Attend her show in the evening.

Sunday- Go to free concert in park with Mari and dogs. Go to bbq at my friend Leah's that night.

Yesterday I participated in my first dance recital in an unknown number of years. Our piece was a veil dance that was about three minutes long. It was a great experience, as always, because I was born to perform, and I LOVE performing.

However, there were a few things I learned from this performance. For some reason, I can be incredibly modest and almost prudish in some areas. I find this really weird. I write sexy poetry and like to say off-the-cuff things, but sometimes I get really uncomfortable by other people's sexuality or nudity. For example, one time I was talking to my neighbour while she was wearing a towel, and I just felt really uncomfortable the whole time. In another instance, I was in a yoga class with a guy who wasn't wearing a shirt, and I just felt really uncomfortable and wanted him to cover up.

I don't really like wearing bikinis, so I opted for a modest tank top for my belly dance costume. BIG MISTAKE. Once I saw all the women dressed up in the pretty sparkly bras, I was really sorry that I hadn't gone that route. It was actually so empowering to see all the different sizes and shapes of women, sporting their bellies with extra padding, stretch marks, etc, not being ashamed. In my next recital, I'll definitely be rocking the bra and get over my own self consciousness.

The other thing was how incredibly lonely I felt during the performance. The attendance fee was a bit high, so I didn't ask any of my friends to come watch the show. This was a mistake. I felt really lonely and sad afterward as I was watching all my dancer friends hug their moms, boyfriends or family. It kind of sucked. Next time, I might ask a couple friends to attend. I was thinking about it this morning and realized that I would have many, many friends who would attend in a heartbeat if I was giving a reading. It was just the price that stopped me from asking people. Hmmm.

First things first- I finally had a dream about farming. I think it was because I was reading a book about bees and their impact on agriculture. Anyway, I had a dream and there was a tractor involved. I was so horrified by my dream that I woke myself up and stayed away for over an hour.


Last night I went to see the Joni Mitchell ballet The Fiddle and the Drum at the Jubilee Auditorium with my friend Mari. The first version of this was a shorter ballet, but the longer, full-length work features four new pieces. It's a really gorgeous ballet and features modern dance, lots of lifts, a video installation, and a non-traditional, non-classical ballet. The video screen and backdrop were excellently used, and the costumes featured a lot of green, and wispy outfits. Joni had a great deal to do with the performance, and the result was a ballet which encompassed hip hop and African dance, as well as some of Joni's politics about the global environment and politics. THe ballet didn't feature a lot of her famous songs- just "Big Yellow Taxi", "Woodstock" and "Charlie Angel." The dances focussed on many of her lesser known songs, which I think was actually a wise choice. Anyway, it's a great show and I'd recommend it, but only if you go into the show expecting a very non-traditional ballet.

I've been busy, but it's all good stuff. This weekend, I skiied, went to the movies and taught my class. I also managed to do a bit of editing, shopping and house cleaning, and went down to Chinatown. Chinatown was packed as it's the weekend right before lunar New Year. I've been managing to keep a solid balance of activities in my life right now, which is excellent. Tonight I start belly dancing again. I have taken 2 years off, and now I'm super excited to start up again. The time is right!

I also started a new food security class online yesterday. Here's to the new!

We had a studio showing at work today, which I decided to attend. Studio showings are intimate gatherings where an artist who is in the process of creation invites the general public (usually artist peers) to come and see the work-in-progress in the studio. Today's showing studio was a piece called "The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch", which is being created for the Chutzpah Festival in Vancouver.

The artistic director of the piece is Serge Bennathan , the former artistic director of Dancemakers, a high calibre company based out of Toronto. Serge is one of our artists in residence, and each day, he has been rehearsing this piece with actor Jonathon Young. The piece was originally a dance piece, and is now becoming an extremely physical theatre piece. This is quite a rare occurence, as dance is often inspired by text, but it's unusual to create a written piece from a dance work.

We watched the original staging of the piece as a dance number. The story is based on the holocaust, and the idea of how memories are conveyed. It was quite remarkable.

One thing I've noticed is that the creative process and the process of creation is ALWAYS discussed in dance. People always want to know how the piece came to be, and how the movements originated and the ideas.

By contrast, the creative process is rarely discussed when it comes to literary works. I think this might be because the process of creation for writing is not as interesting. It's more like- I take a walk, I surf the net, I write a few chapters, I get frustrated, I write a paragraph, I scratch myself etc. The ideas are seen as important, but the process of creation is not.

I've learned so much this year about the arts and what it's like to be a member of another artistic community. Since I was born, I knew I was a creative. Yet although I've met and bonded with a lot of writers, writers do not have a community, or speak about community as much as dancers do. Apparently this is also a North American phenomena, as my British marketing director tells me that the word "community" is rarely used at all in the UK. All quite fascinating stuff.

***
I had to take a good look at my own creative process as my publisher contacted me with the line edits for my book this week. I was nervous to open the files, but the changes she proposed to my text were minor and quite reasonable. My style is spare and polished, and her corrections were also spare. However, I did have to re-imagine and re-interpret some of my own work and go deeper into some of the poems to improve them, combine them or catch minor inconsistencies between poems that work together in a series.

Pretty interesting stuff.

One of the many good things about working at The Dance Centre is that it has given me a lot of creative fodder. After interviewing the fascinating multidisciplinary artist, Peter Chin, and talking with so many dancers, I've become quite inspired to try to create a piece blending text, music and dance. In the next few years, I may begin creating some more theatrical based work, which is pretty exciting.


I have a query for you, my gentle readers. Can you recommend electronic music that sounds a bit like Ladytron? Bonus points if it doesn't have words.