estimulerende by mafalduki

Canción ni siquiera negra

2010-07-19T13:23:00.000+01:00

Hoy se me atraganta la pena.
La tengo aquí, apretándome la garganta.

Me he levantado para ser saludada por un día gris, cuyas lágrimas presagian el invierno longevo.
Siento que hace demasiado tiempo que no saboreo un verano. Un verano para mis sentidos. Y para mi alma.

Me he levantado sacudida de nuevo por la reciente pérdida de una amistad que durante dieciséis años consideré un pilar emocional. No es tan sólo la decepción lo que duele y hiere, sino además la sensación de impotencia que le deja a uno ese carácter fortuito de la vida, que cuando menos te lo esperas se te manifiesta en sorpresas – unas veces agradables y otras tremendamente vapuleadoras.
Y tras los eventos, se me ha quedado una sensación de desconfianza, de inseguridad, de inestabilidad… de vértigo, como si estuviera al borde de un precipicio que sólo se abre ante un abismo infinito en el que se desnuda una soledad existencial extrema, probablemente esa que dicen que le acompaña a uno al lecho final.

Hoy me he levantado sin quererme levantar. Con el recuerdo de una conversación reciente divagando en mi persona:

- ¿dónde te gustaría estar el año que viene? - me preguntó Sade con sus inmensos ojos negros.
- Viva – contesté yo.
- Y sana – añadió ella.

Hoy me he levantado sin quererme levantar, queriendo tener otra vida.
Quizás una vida en la que haya más cabida para el amor, para la compañía, para el cariño, para la comprensión.

Hoy me he levantado hecha una mierda. Quizás sea también que ayer conocí al recién nacido de una amiga, y cada vez se me hace más punzante la idea de que quizás yo nunca llegue a experimentar ese milagro que es dar vida.

Hoy me he levantado echando de menos un abrazo y un hombro sobre el que llorar este llanto largo que llevo atrapado en la garganta desde hace tiempo, tanto que hoy se me antoja inmemorial.

Mañana será otro día.
Espero.

*

persecución

2010-05-31T22:39:00.002+01:00

me persigue un recuerdo.
un instante.
o varios.

y otros tantos momentos.

me siento atrapada en un lugar inexistente
... que existió ...
y se extinguió.

como si esperase a Godot
espero que vuelva lo que ya no existe.

*

the autumn leaves of our love

2009-11-22T12:23:00.002Z

our love is long gone..
and yet,
its autumn leaves
have still to be swept
by the winter wind

*

diez años

2009-10-20T12:15:00.002+01:00

hoy, o quizás fue ayer, hace diez años que llegué a esta ciudad. Aterricé en el aeropuerto, que en aquel entonces era mucho más rudimentario de lo que es ahora.
Iba cargada de mucho equipaje, un radio cassette y un novio del que nunca estuve muy segura, y la certeza de que nuestro traslado a tierras irlandesas iba a defenestrar nuestra relación.

Recuerdo que pasé meses planteándome si quería realmente aventurarme en esta empresa con
él. Y creo que acabé inclinándome por venir juntos por miedo a estar sola más que por otra cosa. No me honra, pero que tire la primera piedra quien no haya tomado en su vida alguna decisión en la misma línea.
Por supuesto, y afortunadamente, nuestra relación se fue al garete un año y medio después.

Diez años.
Son muchos.
Siento que han pasado apenas cinco. Es lo que tiene la edad, uno no siente en su interior ser necesariamente más viejo, por el contrario, yo creo que uno vive la vida sintiéndose la mayor parte del tiempo descompasado del calendario. Y sólo el cuerpo, que es el que verdaderamente decae, nos muestra que lo que percibimos como uno mismo se contradice con lo que el mundo en su rotar nos hace devenir: polvo.

Diez años.
Vine aquí persiguiendo mis sueños. Y en ese aspecto, no me puedo quejar.
Vine aquí buscando otras oportunidades, otros horizontes, otra manera de vivir.
Y cierto es que visto lo visto, tampoco me puedo quejar.
Ha sido un camino arduo en ocasiones, tremendamente difícil en otras, llevadero la mayor parte del tiempo, y a veces increíblemente fantástico.
Me maravilla mirar atrás y pensar en todo lo que ha sucedido, toda la gente que ha pasado por mi vida, todas las casas en las que he vivido, las experiencias que he tenido.. pero, sobre todo, hacia donde se ha encauzado mi camino.

Supongo que la mayoría de nosotros en alguna que otra ocasión se dice aquello de "quién me lo iba a decir". Y así me siento yo muchas veces. Si hace diez años alguien me hubiera dicho que iba a ser profesora en la universidad y que haría un doctorado en teatro contemporáneo, sencillamente no me lo hubiera creído.

Así, en esos aspectos, me siento algo así como realizada, aunque por supuesto me queda mucho todavía por recorrer para doctorarme y para, quizás, establecerme como artista y a nivel laboral.

Pero me doy cuenta cada vez más del gran sacrificio que ha supuesto: el del cariño.
El del cariño de mi familia, de mis viejos amigos, y de una pareja.
Es tiempo que no puedo recuperar, y a medida que mi camino se ha ido volviendo más solitario, siento con más intensidad esa falta, quizás porque como mujer se me van cerrando las puertas de la maternidad. Y porque realmente echo de menos ahora tener a ese alguien especial, ese alguien a quien amar y por quien ser amada.

Sin embargo, no creo que si pudiera volver atrás cambiase nada trascendental.
Porque al fin y al cabo "yo soy yo y mis circunstancias".
Así, dentro de las circunstancias que había entonces, tomé las decisiones trascendentalmente adecuadas.. desde irme de Barcelona a Madrid, a venirme a Irlanda, a
a las rupturas que fueron tan necesarias, principalmente por el absoluto desenamoramiento, pero también porque me ataban a mí y a mis sueños.
Sólo cambiaría en algunas ocasiones los modos. Pero como todos, cometí errores por falta de madurez y de experiencia. Y porque, a menudo, cuando las emociones nos desbaratan y hay otras personas de por medio, actuar con acierto es casi una imposibilidad.
Ya he hecho lo necesario en este último año por enmendar esas maneras.

Diez años
Diez años que siento como cinco.
Empiezo a pensar que esa es la naturaleza del tiempo. Uno no puede ser realmente consciente del mismo, o se volvería loco. Es mucho más fácil vivir sintiendo que hay mucho todavía por delante.. por alcanzar, por disfrutar, por saborear.. sentirse joven por dentro para llevar con dignidad la decrepitud que nos sobreviene por fuera.

Diez años..
Y que vengan muchos más, si eso significa estar viva, sana, llena de proyectos y con la esperanza de encontrar un compañero para continuar el camino.
Que vengan muchos más.

*

Let's tell lies: Vamos a contar mentiras

2009-10-07T11:09:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I was queueing in the foyer of the O'Reilly Theatre, ticket in hand, along with another 40 people that were either in my queue or at the box office collecting their tickets.
As I was entering and my ticket was torn, the doors of the auditorium were closed by the company manager before we could actually get in.

For all explanation they told us it was a policy of DV8 Physical Theatre to start their shows on time, and late comers were not allowed... I never knew someone queueing ticket in hand was a late comer, especially since no announcement was made.
Then, to those who where "delayed" because of the box office, they said they had nothing to do with that side of things. So, for DV8, once their fee had been paid, they do not care about a thing, the least their audience who had paid a non-cheap ticket to see their show in a sold-out house.

As we protested for such appalling treatment, they told us they would let us in in 10 minutes, when a sort of break was taking place. But, he added, if we kept complaining we would not be allowed in at all.
Lessons told, I learnt that for DV8 Physical Theatre (as the company manager kept parroting for all explanation) an audience queueing in the foyer with their tickets in hand are late comers. And that the door closes at the scheduled time no matter if half of the audience has not got in. And that if you complain your punishment might be capital.

Thus, the spectator is not important: the most important is that the show starts on time. Even if that means to close the auditorium door in the audience's faces, as it literally was.

I wonder about the messages of respect, tolerance and solidarity DV8's shows stand for.
I mean, it seems to me like political language: say one thing, and do the opposite by treating your audience with absolute disrespect, with utmost arrogance and absolute bigotry.

They operate with the same principle as those they accuse of homophobia in their show: things should be one way, and there is only one way and no other. In fact, any other ways must be punished because they defy their operating system. DV8 Physical Theatre are punctuality phobics, to say the least.

Their work means nothing to me at this point because of who they are. Like Nike or many of those super brands: cool top designed runners made by exploiting children in undeveloped countries.

DV8 fails.

______________

Later on that day, I went to a friend's farewell.
On my way home I took a cab. The taxi driver seemed to be a bit 'speedy', or somewhat redbulled, or most probably high. He asked me if I minded him stopping at the petrol station to buy credit for his phone. I did not, of course.
He did so. Back on track, he handed me his mobile and the top up receipt, asking me if I would mind to do the topping for him while he drove.
I did, of course.
After all he did not threaten me with kicking me out of the car.

It all reminded me of the old Spanish children's song: vamos a contar mentiras.. por el mar corren las liebres, por el monte las sardinas.
The world turned upside down.

*

both magic and work

2009-08-29T15:11:00.003+01:00

Post originally published in:

http://theperformancecorporation.com/both-magic-and-work

both magic and work

Hola, this is Noelia and my tag in the contact list for this whole Power Point project is ‘intern’, although I do little to deserve it, to be honest.

I am a PhD researcher specialised on theatrical creative processes, and I am here thanks to the generosity of The Performance Corporation. I have been following this creative process since December, and I can tell you it has been a whole trip from then to now. An insightful and wonderful one. And there is still a bit more to go!

During these months I have learnt a great deal about The Performance Corporation’s methodology and philosophy of work. From a research point of view, it is a highly interesting and unique approach. From an artistic point of view, their work is fantastic, meaningful, consistent, and of great quality.

For all these reasons they are decidedly inspiring, but they have gained all of my respect for their integrity, and bounteousness. The opportunities they give to other artists running programmes like SPACE or Simply SPACE cannot be overlooked. On the contrary, in my humble opinion, it needs to be recognised (and admired).

I am ‘a privileged’ for being allowed to sit in that unique and delicate space that is the rehearsal room. This might sound stereotypical, but it is not. The rehearsal room is a vulnerable space in where there is a constant flow of trial and error, until explorations open up a new possibility that points to an unexpected direction. It is a place where people risk, play, repeat, fail, recover.. in a constant search for that magic turning point in which things feel ‘right’.

I am a privileged, indeed, for being allowed to witness this.

I mostly take notes, or more accurately, do ‘thick description’, as the ethnographers call it, which means that I type down every single thing that happens in the room. One could find such task quite boring. Well, it is not. In fact, it is marvellous to see ‘magic’ unfold before my very eyes.

Gay McAuley (the initiator of Rehearsal Studies in University of Sydney) rightly points in her article ‘Not Magic But Work: Rehearsal and the Production of Meaning’ that behind any theatrical performance lies a lot of labour. The emergence of this field of study departs from the fact that most of theatrical analyses up to now have either focused on the final product -the performance-, or on the literary analysis of the dramatic text. But the actual making of theatre is not explained by neither of them.

The passage from ‘page to stage’ does not happen by magic, but by work. Hard work. Even as an observant I feel exhausted after rehearsal, because of the concentration, the focus and the intensity of the process. And this, plus the amount of talent concentrated in this particular rehearsal room, is what leads to magic. The magic moments in which, after all the hard labour, a line finds a new unpredicted meaning, a section uncovers its potentiality, and we all feel in the room that something wonderful just happened.

The past three days I’ve been forced to stay in bed due to a flu. And I am really missing that rehearsal room in Castletown: the great team, the fun atmosphere, the humour… But specially, I am painfully aware of all the magic moments I am failing to witness.

Thank you all for both your magic and work.

*

Decepciones

2009-08-22T21:06:00.004+01:00

Dicen que las decepciones no son más que toques de queda a nuestras expectativas.
Pero, ¿por qué uno no debería tener grandes expectativas?

Quizás a veces sean contraproducentes. Especialmente cuando nuestra propia expectativa, esa que algunos tenomos para con nosotros mismos, nos lleva a un constante estado de insatisfacción.
Soy carne de esa metralla. Sin duda.
Como de muchas otras.

Sin embargo, en parte también es la mecha que mantiene la llama de la curiosidad por la vida, por ese gran misterio que es la vida, tanto más que el hombre.

Últimamente respiro decepciones. Personales, profesionales, artísticas... Como si todo aquello que hasta ahora me mantenía en la línea de fuego, equivaliese a nada.
Me preocupa que esas decepciones, que no frustraciones, estén minando mi motivación, mi espíritu de lucha.
Me siento cansada.
De mis propias batallas.

Desanimada. Desmotivada.

Demasiados toques de queda van acumulándose en el tiempo.

Por otro lado, creo que tiene mucho que ver con todo ello este final del verano y la nostalgia de lo que no ha traído.

*

Praha and the Turtle

2009-08-03T09:04:00.003+01:00

Basilio, I call him.
In reality his name is something like Veclev, but the first day I arrived to this apartment, almost two weeks ago, I could not remember it. Thus, I 'Spanished' Veclev into Basilio.
I was instructed to feed him once a day and talk to him for a while.
The first day after training and material development, I came 'home' and fed Basilio. Then, when he was finished, I tried to talk to him and soon I realised I did not know what to tell to a turtle. After all it was my first time.
I started by talking gibberish mostly. As it often happens when I am in front of a pet I just speak Spanish. Like because it is my mother tongue I am going to communicate better with them.
Humans.

After a while talking to Basilio, which means after running out of words and ideas, I wondered for how long was I supposed to talk to him.
His overwhelming fear did not help. He was hiding most of the time, and any time I made the slightest movement it freaked out.
In a very human attempt to establish a bond with him I started talking to Basilio about my day, asking him about his. Like most pet owners, I was 'humanising' Basilio.
But that did not work either. Not for him, not for me.

Eventually I gave up.
During these 12 days I have been feeding him, I have found myself talking to him a bit like I would talk to a dog, or a baby for all I know, which is to say making sounds, sometimes in the form of words.

But mostly, I have been observing him.
Yesterday I went into google to find information on turtles behaviour, mostly to confirm some of my impressions.

Turtles can hear perfectly. They like music. And they move to it. They dance.
They also recognise voice, and anytime I come home Basilio is on his two front legs leaning against the aquarium's glass, most probably knowing that time to eat has arrived.

Basilio sometimes swims frenetically, banging his head against the glass. It seems to me he is not aware of the limits of his reality. He is not aware there is a glass between him and the rest of the world. Since he can see it, since it is there, he believes he can reach it.

It occurs to me this is a fundamental truth for human beings.
Rather than being in the dark cavern Plato proposed, I think we are surrounded by some sort of glass. We can see there is the universe (or more than one) but there is a glass between that universe and any possibility of our comprehension of it.

We are like turtles in an aquarium. Swimming in nothingness.

*

Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T11:06:00.002+01:00

A mí lo de Michael Jackson me da mucha pena. No su muerte en sí, que también, sino su vida.

Una persona que lo tuvo todo y, sin embargo, parece que nunca tuvo un atisbo de felicidad. Quizás me equivoque y en todo ello haya más de campaña mediática que de verdaderas fobias. No obstante, ahí quedan sus fotos, testigos inmutables de un deterioro que va más allá de lo físico -o astrofísico, dada su calidad de estrella-.

Es una pena que haya muerto, pero se me antoja que ya en vida vivía enterrado por sus propios demonios, devorado por su propio talento y por el uso que se hace en esta sociedad de la popularidad.

Espero que descanse de una vez en paz, libre de sí mismo y de los demás.

*

Amistad

2009-06-14T15:17:00.005+01:00

Se dice que la amistad es algo que se forja.
Indudablemente.
Y se dice muy a menudo que los verdaderos amigos se cuentan con los dedos de una mano.
También indudable.

El diccionario de la Real Academia define la amistad como:

'Afecto personal, puro y desinteresado, compartido con otra persona, que nace y se fortalece con el trato.'

Con el tiempo y los años me vuelvo más reticente con el uso de la palabra 'amigo/a'.
Probablemente porque si nos atenemos a la definición es realmente difícil alcanzar tal afecto 'puro y desinteresado'.

Debería existir una palabra para denominar a aquellas personas con las que compartimos un afecto, que no alcanza el grado de 'pura amistad', pero que tampocon entran en la fría categoría de simplemente 'conocido/a'.
Es posible que tal palabra exista pero que no esté en uso. Sería interesante averiguarlo.

¿Y qué decir de las amistades temporales, o las superflúas, o las efímeras? Obviamente, aunque hayan dejado de ser amistades, o lo sean de un modo no-puro, lo fueron o lo son a su manera.
Por supuesto podemos hablar de 'un antiguo amigo/a', o decir 'fuimos amigos'..

¿Y cómo denominar a aquellos con los que la relación no acabó del todo bien? Aquellos que nos traicionaron, o nos dejaron tirados, o viceversa... Ex-amigo suena fatal, está claro.

¿Y aquellos con los que salimos y entramos, con los que tenemos una cierta intimidad y compartimos verdades, pero con los que no podemos contar realmente?

Supongo que la amistad tiene muchas intensidades y grados. Y momentos.

Y son aquellos que permanecen a lo largo del camino los que contamos con los dedos de una mano y llamamos amigos.

Para el resto me falta vocabulario.

*

Synechdoche, New York

2009-06-08T10:48:00.002+01:00

I had got mixed opinions by different people on this film by Charlie Kaufmann. Some said it was brilliant, some said it was pretentious rubbish.
This contradiction fueled my curiosity, so last night I set to watch the movie with my friend Donna, also a theatrical mind. I am remarking the fact that we are both 'theatrical' minds for a reason.
We both loved the film, and it had to do a lot with the fact that it offered a very different narrative, closer to the ways of contemporary theatre.

I believe that in the era of world-wide technology, theatre has more to offer than film. Basically because it does not rely so strongly on technical equipment, hence it is far more versatile to incorporate the virtual immediacy of new technologies, operating within the frame of epistemological issues that are raised by our use of them.

Kaufman's film works within a new framework of narrative that is not linear and not immediately self-explanatory. He plays at phenomenological levels, where intuition plays a more important part in the perception of the story than logical thinking.
This is a great achievement in itself, since the limits of the film medium don't allow easily for finding fissures that stretch and challenge our conceptions (& the conceptions of the film medium itself).

He proved that with a film like 'Being John Malcovich', but with 'Synechdoche' his analysis of identity goes deeper and the form the film takes enhances the issue at hand: the complexities of our constantly forming identities in the face of human's fatal condition: death.

The question of truth and authenticity, of a meaningful life, of selective memory... of human condition in contemporary western society, where traditional morals do not prevail finding ourselves in a landscape where we are switching constantly patterns and partners.. how we create who we are and how we create who others are.. I could use an endless list of issues raised by the film, all to do with 'being'.

Kaufman cleverly uses the concept of meta-theatrical or play-within-the-play to express these concepts.

I can see how any person going to see the film in search of a story in a more or less conventional way might be highly disappointed. The story lies as much in what is being said and seen as in the way is told, the form the film takes.

*

Theatricality

2009-06-03T00:12:00.003+01:00

The search for theatricality, or the unique language of the stage foreseen by Artaud, is at the heart of the many innovations theatre has gone through in the past century. A self-discovery trip that started with heaving anchor away from the Aristotelian narrative of the dramatic text, to the forms that nowadays have broken up completely with unities of any kind.

Theory breeds practice and practice must feed theory. Thus, much philosophical reflection goes on about theatricality. Peter Brook anticipated the idea of watching at the core of it. Paul Woodruff has recently articulated this philosophical debate in a book which title says it all: 'The necessity of theatre: the art of watching and being watched'.

Today I was walking down my street. Since I moved to this apartment the construction works for the Luas (tram) have been bothering me: the constant noise, the everyday different pedestrian ways, the dust, the closed streets that force me to get off the cab three blocks away.. but today something was different. It was late, almost 10pm, so there was almost no one in the streets, but the construction workers were still drilling and paving. And one young fella was inclined over the fence watching the workers. Absolutely absorbed, like enchanted.
His focus was so compelling.
The interesting idea is that what was actually compelling was the watcher, not the watched. His attention.

Contemporary art is based in this idea, which Fried absolutely condemned. The experience of the object by the viewer rather than the object itself.
Theatre is nowadays trying to create that attention in the spectator through participation, through situation rather than storytelling.

The stage is turning around.. look who is looking.

*

Absoluta Estupidez

2009-05-28T12:53:00.003+01:00

Fui.
Me acerqué a la llama de recuerdos poco gratos.
Y me quemé.
Y me quemaron.
Cual bruja que no confiesa, acusada menos por sus pócimas que por los propósitos y motivos ajenos.

Mea culpa.
Fue una absoluta estupidez cambiar de opinión y asistir a la re-unión. Especialmente porque para mí no existió tal unión, nada a revivir y celebrar.

Así me fue.

*

¿Cobarde o Sabio?

2009-05-08T10:42:00.003+01:00

Creo no tener mayor problema en enfretarme a mis demonios, o al menos, en cuestionarlos. Sin embargo, últimamente no veo razón alguna por la que deba someterlos a situaciones en las que sean azuzados.

Tengo un enorme impedimento para pretender lo que no siento. Alguno diría que siendo actriz eso no debiera ser un obstáculo. A esos les contesto que no entienden la verdadera naturaleza de interpretar. Al menos de interpretar bien. Es la sinceridad y la veracidad lo que hacen de un personaje algo vivo.

Volviendo a mis trabas, vengo dádome cuenta de que mi mayor obstáculo es no saber protegerme adecuadamente de lo incómodo. Las paredes que levanto no están hechas de material impermeable por el que resbalen las influencias ajenas. Más bien están hechas de un material poroso, por el que penetran y me afectan.
Envidio a las personas con la capacidad para no dejar que lo ajeno -y posiblemente trivial- les impacte.

Así, la semana pasada decidí no acontecer a una celebración por ahorrarme la incomodidad de mi propia tensión. El esfuerzo, esa lucha para conmigo misma que es más ardua de lo que algunos imaginarían, no me parecía merecer la pena. No era la única con esta visión, pero, a diferencia de otros, yo no tenía la obligación de asistir.
No sentí que estaba perdiéndome nada. Por el contrario, disfruté de mi soledad y descansé de los demás.

No siempre es así. Hay situaciones de las que me he visto injustamente apartada y, quizás por no ser voluntario ese aislamiento, me he sentido más miserable que otra cosa.

Próximamente se me presenta una situación similar: un reencuentro de antiguas compañeras de clase. Al principio, desde la distancia espacial y la cercanía virtual, me pareció una idea divertida. Pero conforme se acerca la fecha, me parece cada vez menos atrayente.
La realidad es que si bien me gustaría ver a algunas de mis antiguas compañeras, a otras no me apetece en absoluto verlas.

En un principio lo único que me resultaba más inapetente era el hecho de no tener apenas cosas en común, principalmente por llevar estilos de vida radicalmente diferentes. Me explico: el 98% de mis antiguas compañeras están casadas y con hijos, y se me antojaba que iba a acudir a una reunión de madres más que otra cosa. Y con todo el respeto que las madres me merecen, no es un tema en el que esté versada, como posiblemente ellas no lo estén en teatro.
Sin embargo, estaba dispuesta a superar ese obstáculo confiando en mi habilidad para desviar de vez en cuando la conversación hacia otros lares, asumiendo que aparte de sus carreras maternales alguna tendrá otros intereses.

Por otro lado, el reencuentro empezó organizándose entre unas cuantas de nosotras, en su mayoría gente que no me importaría ver de nuevo. Sin embargo, empezaron a sumarse más nombres a la lista (éramos unas 37 en clase) y a medida que el número de asistentes ha ido creciendo mi apetencia ha ido disminuyendo.
Debatiéndome conmigo misma, haciendo de mi propio abogado del diablo, intentando razonar el por qué de este rechazo que me inspira el reencuentro, reprendiéndome por no saber tomarme las cosas más a la ligera, he llegado a la conclusión de que en realidad se trata de algo muy simple: en general, no tengo un buen recuerdo.

Tengo algunos buenos recuerdos, sobre todo los relacionados con las travesuras que se nos ocurrían. Y el recuerdo de esos momentos sigue produciéndome sonrisas e, incluso, más de una carcajada.

Pero no tengo un buen recuerdo en general.

Al rascar la superficie de esos traviesos momentos salen a la luz los estratos que se extienden por debajo.

No se trata de rencor, ya lo he pensado. No le deseo nada malo a ninguna de ellas ni hay vendettas de bajo calibre subyaciendo.
Es sencillamente que ninguna de ellas fue una gran amiga y, aunque era parte del grupo, jamás sentí que perteneciera realmente a él. Obviamente, mis circunstancias familiares juegan un papel importante. Quiero decir, no culpo a nadie en particular de aquellas carencias. Fueron producto de mi entorno más inmediato, de eso no hay duda.
Pero tampoco cambia que mi memoria de esa clase no sea lo que más afecto me produce.

Por algo, a día de hoy, 26 años después, no había tenido contacto alguno con casi ninguna de ellas.

De hecho, el último recuerdo que tengo de la clase no podría ser peor. Mis padres me cambiaron de colegio en lo que era entonces octavo de EGB, cuando estaba a punto de cumplir 13 años. Un día en el que en mi nuevo colegio había fiesta, decidí acercarme al antiguo a saludar a mis ex-compañeras.
Después de los saludos y las preguntas propias, poco más o menos me ignoraron. No sé bien por qué.
Me dí cuenta de que no había dejado allí un sola amiga, un solo lazo.
Y sentí un gran vacío, como sólo lo son los de la adolescencia: inconmensurables.

No volví jamás a hacer amago de contacto, ni ellas tampoco.

Dos de ellas reaparecieron en mi vida, pero esas son dos historias aparte (aunque una de ellas contribuya a mi decisión de no asistir a esta reunión).

Llámenme cobarde... o sabia... no importa demasiado.
Cada loco con su tema.

*

Educación

2009-04-30T09:50:00.001+01:00

En respuesta al artículo de Pérez Reverte: "Permitidme tutearos, imbéciles"

Este tío es imbécil y, por tanto, escribe imbecilidades.
yo dí Latín, Historia, Literatura, Geografía y demás y lo único que aprendí realmente fue a memorizar. Nadie nos enseñaba a entender el mundo, porque sólo había una visión del mundo heredada de las generaciones anteriores que lo único que aprendieron en el colegio fue que España era una, grande y libre, el catecismo y la disciplina del castigo.

El verdadero problema de la educación española es la facción conservadora que no permitó extirpar de cuajo el sistema educativo heredado del franquismo. A los gobiernos no les quedó otra cosa que intentar adaptarlo poco a poco. Recordemos la no tan lejana lucha en torno a la asignatura obligatoria de "Religión". Por no mencionar la gestión del PP de colegios bajo la tutela de "Las esclavas de Cristo" o como se quieran llamar.

Yo soy profesora en la universidad de Dublín y puedo decir que los españoles tienen un nivel bastante alto en comparación con otros países.
Vamos a la cabeza en más de una disciplina, empezando por la arquitectura.

Discursos como el de Reverte sólo crean una controversia fácil y superflúa, destinada a echar más leña al asador.
Reconozcamos los problemas para solucionarlos, y los errores para no volver a cometerlos. Pero también reconozcamos los logros y triunfos.

La verdadera educación que necesita la sociedad española no es la de los conocimientos acumulados en el aula -evidentemente necesarios-, sino la de la madurez y el respeto, cosa que los políticos de la derecha todavía no han alcanzado.

Y en eso tiene razón Zapatero, son los padres más que los sistemas educativos los que deben educar a sus hijos para ser mejores ciudadanos, tolerantes y con criterio.
El aula sólo puede reforzar eso y, muy de vez en cuando, abrirle los ojos a alguno.
Voy a poner un ejemplo muy simple: yo tuve la gran suerte de tener un padre que devoraba libros. Así, desde muy pequeña empecé a leer ávidamente. Pero la historia hubiera sido muy distinta si en mi casa, en lugar de la lectura, hubiera estado la tele encendida constantemente. Con ello no quiero decir que no haya gente que a pesar de no recibir el ejemplo necesario, no haya sido capaz de superarse.

El sistema educativo presenta muchos problemas y retos, azuzados por el alto nivel de inmigración, puesto que hay que integrar en las aulas alumnos cuya lengua materna no es ninguna de las oficiales en España. Y además hay que educarles lo que la sociedad no les educa. Esto es un fallo que ni los profesores ni el sistema educativo pueden corregir en una sociedad que arrastra el malhacer del pasado, con actitudes como la de Reverte, que sólo instigan a más insultos innecesarios.

Me quedo con el saber estar de nuestro presidente. Ésa es la verdadera educación que necesita la sociedad española, no artículos como éste.

________________

Artículo de Arturo Pérez-Reverte publicado en XL-Semanal.

PERMITIDME TUTEAROS, IMBÉCILES

Cuadrilla de golfos apandadores, unos y otros. Refraneros casticistas analfabetos de la derecha. Demagogos iletrados de la izquierda. Presidente de este Gobierno. Ex presidente del otro. Jefe de la patética oposición. Secretarios generales de partidos nacionales o de partidos autonómicos. Ministros y ex ministros -aquí matizaré ministros y ministras- de Educación y Cultura. Consejeros varios. Etcétera. No quiero que acabe el mes sin mentaros -el tuteo es deliberado- a la madre. Y me refiero a la madre de todos cuantos habéis tenido en vuestras manos infames la enseñanza pública en los últimos veinte o treinta años. De cuantos hacéis posible que este autocomplaciente país de mierda sea un país de más mierda todavía. De vosotros, torpes irresponsables, que extirpasteis de las aulas el latín, el griego, la Historia, la Literatura, la Geografía, el análisis inteligente, la capacidad de leer y por tanto de comprender el mundo, ciencias incluidas. De quienes, por incompetencia y desvergüenza, sois culpables de que España figure entre los países más incultos de Europa, nuestros jóvenes carezcan de comprensión lectora, los colegios privados se distancien cada vez más de los públicos en calidad de enseñanza, y los alumnos estén por debajo de la media en todas las materias evaluadas.

Pero lo peor no es eso. Lo que me hace hervir la sangre es vuestra arrogante impunidad, vuestra ausencia de autocrítica y vuestra cateta contumacia. Aquí, como de costumbre, nadie asume la culpa de nada. Hace menos de un mes, al publicarse los desoladores datos del informe Pisa 2006, a los meapilas del Pepé les faltó tiempo para echar la culpa de todo a la Logse de Maravall y Solana -que, es cierto, deberían ser ahorcados tras un juicio de Nuremberg cultural-, pasando por alto que durante dos legislaturas, o sea, ocho años de posterior gobierno, el amigo Ansar y sus secuaces se estuvieron tocando literalmente la flor en materia de Educación, destrozando la enseñanza pública en beneficio de la privada y permitiendo, a cambio de pasteleo electoral, que cada cacique de pueblo hiciera su negocio en diecisiete sistemas educativos distintos, ajenos unos a otros, con efectos devastadores en el País Vasco y Cataluña. Y en cuanto al Pesoe que ahora nos conduce a la Arcadia feliz, ahí están las reacciones oficiales, con una consejera de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía, por ejemplo, que tras veinte años de gobierno ininterrumpido en su feudo, donde la cultura roza el subdesarrollo, tiene la desfachatez de cargarle el muerto al «retraso histórico» . O una ministra de Educación, la señora Cabrera, capaz de afirmar impávida que los datos están fuera de contexto, que los alumnos españoles funcionan de maravilla, que «el sistema educativo español no sólo lo hace bien, sino que lo hace muy bien» y que éste no ha fracasado porque «es capaz de responder a los retos que tiene la sociedad» , entre ellos el de que «los jóvenes tienen su propio lenguaje: el chat y el sms» . Con dos cojones.

Pero lo mejor ha sido lo tuyo, presidente -recuérdame que te lo comente la próxima vez que vayas a hacerte una foto a la Real Academia Española-. Deslumbrante, lo juro, eso de que «lo que más determina la educación de cada generación es la educación de sus padres» , aunque tampoco estuvo mal lo de «hemos tenido muchas generaciones en España con un bajo rendimiento educativo, fruto del país que tenemos»
Dicho de otro modo, lumbrera: que después de dos mil años de Hispania grecorromana, de Quintiliano a Miguel Delibes pasando por Cervantes, Quevedo, Galdós, Clarín o Machado, la gente buena, la culta, la preparada, la que por fin va a sacar a España del hoyo, vendrá en los próximos años, al fin, gracias a futuros padres felizmente formados por tus ministros y ministras, tus Loes, tus educaciones para la ciudadanía, tu género y génera, tus pedagogos cantamañanas, tu falta de autoridad en las aulas, tu igualitarismo escolar en la mediocridad y falta de incentivo al esfuerzo, tus universitarios apáticos y tus alumnos de cuatro suspensos y tira p'alante. Pues la culpa de que ahora la cosa ande chunga, la causa de tanto disparate, descoordinación, confusión y agrafía, no la tenéis los políticos culturalmente planos. Niet. La tiene el bajo rendimiento educativo de Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno, Cajal, Menéndez Pidal, Manuel Seco, Julián Marías o Gregorio Salvador, o el de la gente que estudió bajo el franquismo: Juan Marsé, Muñoz Molina, Carmen Iglesias, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, Ignacio Bosque, Margarita Salas, Luis Mateo Díez, Álvaro Pombo, Francisco Rico y algunos otros analfabetos, padres o no, entre los que generacionalmente me incluyo.
Qué miedo me dais algunos, rediós. En serio. Cuánto más peligro tiene un imbécil, que un malvado.

insuppressible nature

2009-04-22T15:29:00.002+01:00

I often find myself in a situation of self-accusation whenever I speak my mind, or I stand up for myself or for things I believe in.
It is not a nice feeling, and I keep repeating to myself that without people like me things wouldn't change... this is my sort of self-help approach to what I believe is my "insuppresible nature", borrowing the idea from the tale about the Scorpion and the Frog.

I guess the same can be said about politics and institutions, confined by the "insuppresible nature" of the human beings that create, govern and manipulate them.

It seems like a cul de sac. All these "insuppresible natures" competing with each other.

I am coming to the conclusion that mine should not be combined with those of institutions: the mix tastes like a really bad cocktail that explodes in your stomach.

And, by the end of the day, in any competition there is only one winner. In this particular case it is obvious an individual cannot defeat the system. And why should one try? It is not particularly intelligent.
Nevertheless, I feel often like a scorpion.
I can't help myself, so I end up biting the frog, which in this case survives while I don't.

Hence, perhaps the best approach is to stay away from those situations in which I can't help being myself for my own good.

*

To Let Go

2009-03-20T19:42:00.004Z

It is true that forgiveness is a way of letting go.

Resentment is the perentory form of the pain caused by loss.

When one holds no more grudges, bonds and ties break free. Nothing unites you any longer to cause, because painful consequences have become accepted circumstances, which only obey one law: the lawless flow of life.

It is difficult to forgive. It takes time to get used to new circumstances. And it requires courage to let go. Because, as a friend of mine once said, it's like a death: a definite goodbye once and for all.

Forgiving, in this way, is a way of killing.

*

Silencio

2009-03-03T10:32:00.001Z

"Cuando una poesía está escrita se termina, pero no acaba; empieza, busca otra en sí misma, en el autor, en el lector, en el silencio."

Pedro Salinas

"Hay pocas cosas tan ensordecedoras como el silencio"

Mario Benedetti

*

A deep instropectional journey

2009-02-08T00:11:00.003Z

I didn't know when I arrived into that train station that my life was about to turn. Not in a dramatic way. I mean, it wasn't one of those journeys that change your life forever. It was more about looking back at the tracks I had traveled so far.
And probably that was the turn. Turn on your heels and look back and try to figure out which rails do not fit really together. And then find out why. And then try to think through how to patch things up.
At first sight I thought the job was not such a tricky one. I had the perspective of the young one: nothing seems ever too far, too unattainable.
In fact, things seemed at hand.
And so I thought: "things are at hand. Just tick the boxes and get on with it."

But it is not that simple.
There are cracks, through which this nonsensical existence makes me insidious questions I don't have answers for. But the present (and the future) seem to depend on those, forcing me to do the repair-service.
And, jesus, it's hard.

This not-so-unexpected journey back is a digging of the track line.
Our aim is to make it solider, hence better. And then keep the journey forward.
We'll see. ..

What the fuck.

*

times

2009-02-07T00:38:00.003Z

Times change.

We change.

It is amazing to look back and see how much your point of view on certain things has altered. The same story has acquired another nuance; and you tell it differently.
You find yourself talking about it in an unlike way.
Many years later, things have been nuanced by experience.

I question now some decisions I made. Not that I regret. I made them and here I am. But I question the grounds on which I made them. And I think it is healthy to question any certainties from time to time.
Because if one stays for too long with a certainty, one risks confusing it with a truth. And the danger of truths is that we think they are universal, and everybody should embrace them.

I look back and, things make a different sense to me.
And I will, hopefully, look back again in a few years and another sense will be added to it.

As hard as things are to take in, I also have the strength of another point of view.

*

Resolutions

2009-01-07T13:23:00.004Z

While I do kind of believe in resolutions, they don't necessarily need to happen around the clock. Nevertheless, a given point of inflection is always a good reminder, calling for some evaluation.

I have recently made a resolution out of an experience I had this Xmas.
It happens to coincide with the calendar and, perhaps, it is the right time for this type of thing.

My resolution has to do with the fact that I have come to realise in a particular instance that I cannot demand from someone else something I am not able to do myself. Hence, I should first do whatever I have to do before I can even suggest to anyone they should think about doing the same.

*

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T12:06:00.004Z

There are so many expectations around the calendar.
In an attempt to make-believe that we have some sort of understanding (or perhaps some sort of control) of the workings of life, wishes and resolutions are made.
It is as if we pretended that the wheel of fortune has agreed with us to stick to the Gregorian calendar.

We need hope.

In New Year's eve I had, for the first time in years, a great time. It felt so promising to start the year having something more than fun.
The danger is that you built up an expectation: you feel it is a promise of what's to come in the next few months.
And that is not the way life works.

Life doesn't work around a calendar.
There are just moments. Good, bad, average, great, fun, sad, happy... moments.

I had a fun & happy moment and it felt like a good start.
Then, there is reality waiting around the corner.
Responsibilities, duties and problems have not vanished with last's years almanac.
And promises might or not follow through.
And there is always the unexpected.

Within its possibilities, I wish everybody many happy moments in 2009.

*

La Soledad Cerrada | The Closed Solitude by Gabriel Celaya

2008-12-09T13:37:00.002Z

Mil dolores pequeños a veces me anonadan.
La noche me recoge fatigado y me abraza ;
pero vuelvo, y aún vuelvo, y vuelvo todavía
violento y desnudo, joven con el día.

La vida me alimenta; yo quemo la alegría.
La luz es resplandor de espadas. que combaten
y creo en la ráfaga, en los gritos
que aún no han muerto en pensamientos.

No importan mis angustias, no voy a confesarlas.
Basta para vencerlas la inocencia dorada
de las fuerzas primeras que crean y destruyen.
Basta la obediencia

a las verdades primeras,
a la tierra y el fuego, al viento libre al mar,
a la tromba y la sangre, y también
al pequeño jazmín que crece entre la hierba.

Extracto de Con las Fuerzas Primeras, 1947

____________________

One thousand small pains sometimes dumbfound me.
Night picks me up, weary, and embraces me;
But I come back, and yet I come back, and I still come back
Violent and naked, young with the daybreak.

Life nourishes me; I burn happiness.
Light is the swords’ glare, fighting
And I believe in the gust, in the screams
That haven’t died yet in thoughts.

My anxieties don’t matter, I’m not going to confess them.
The golden innocence of the primal forces that create and destroy
Is enough to defeat them.
It is enough the obedience

To the first truths,
To the earth and the fire, to the free wind, to the sea,
To the whirlwind and the blood, and also
To the small jasmine that grows in the grass.

Extract from Con las Fuerzas Primeras, 1947

*

Hopelesness or Spe Vivitur

2008-12-08T19:59:00.005Z

A few weeks ago I was soaking under the heavy rain.
My umbrella had been broken by the strong wind, and I still had a good 20 minutes walk to get home. I was passing by McGuinneys in Talbot St. when I saw these big raincoats on sale, for ten euro each.
They were a bit oversize but I had no other option: oversize fisherman style navy raincoat or pneumonia.

After completing my purchase, I put the oversize raincoat on and head home.
I had a completely new experience of walking under the rain.

I thought to myself how on Earth in nine years living in this country it had never crossed my mind to buy a raincoat.

The truth is that it is unusual in Dublin to pour rain. You have your showers and a bit of heavy rain from time to time, so you normally cope with your semi-rainproof jacket and a hat.
Umbrellas have proved to be highly inefficient since they break so easily in this city of winds and bridges (bad combination for cheap umbrellas). Nevertheless, I have had probably a good number of them throughout the years.
Mind you, umbrellas are like lighters, you don't buy so many of them, they are more likely to change owners by strange and uncertain wills.

All the same, the fact I hadn't bought a raincoat in nine years of Irish residence struck me.
And I realised that in this country there is a saying that summarises the essence of the Irish, which I seem to have well adopted: We Live In Hope.
Spe Vivitur.

You live in the hope that it might not rain tomorrow. Or later on.

You live in hope through denial.

It is a hopeless hope. And it represents our hopelessness as human beings.
We are hopeless in nature.
And in condition.
There is no hope for any of us.
And yet, we live in hope.
And what else can we really do?

Spe Vivitur

*

what's to dream

2008-12-07T15:15:00.002Z

Every once in a while a little miracle happens and it feels like a little door opening. Behind, there are unknown promises with the taste of old fashioned fairy tales written in glittering paper. And I can feel the anticipation… illusional anticipation.

Then the door slams in my face and disappears, like thin air.
Deception.
I am a fool, I know.
I fool myself.

But it is true that for the brief moment the door was ajar, the promises filled me so strongly that it reminded me of what I want or, more acutely, of what I dream of.
Life is a dream, as said Calderon.

For a minimal time I felt again alive, with a feeling of happiness and expectation I hadn’t had in a while; a while that seems so long that I forgot what it is like.
Slam.
The door is closed.

The memory of the moment stays.
A reminder, at least, of what’s to dream.

*

Bonjour Tristesse

2008-11-19T01:17:00.003Z

I remember reading the book by Françoise Sagan in my late teens, after reading another book by Emilio Lledo where Bonjour Tristesse was mentioned as an example of nihilism.
Today I went to see the film Sagan. The approach or angle the film takes seems to indicate that she wrote at 18 years of age the epiphany of her life.
But one couldn't say her life was sad. I think that would be a judgement made from a certain conservative perspective.
Rather, a feeling of sadness seemed to surround her.
It seems to be the sadness of an eternal lack of love.
And it seems it wasn't meant to be any other way, because she was who she was and made her choices.
But also, because life for her worked out like that. Chance.

She died practically alone, which apparently was what she most feared.
Those who meant something for her had died, or departed from her life.
And she refused to let her son in her deathbed. They have been apart for long.
She died holding her carer's hand.
Lonely.

Ironically, I am sure her funeral was crowded.

*

Real loss

2008-11-06T12:10:00.010Z

This summer I went to my cousin's wedding down in the southwest of Spain, in the village where my mum comes from. I was looking forward to it.
Things did not turn out to be as happy as expected. Just two days before the big event there was a fight, to which, unfortunately, I was a witness the same day I arrived.

So my cousin's family carried that bitter taste during the wedding day, which permeated, inevitably, the atmosphere.

Selfishly, I kind of regretted having going through all the hassle to be there.

But life and its ways, prove always to enlighten situations and, since yesterday, I have come to realise how important it was for me to be part of it.
My cousin's grandfather, my great-uncle, Eulogio, just died.
And that wedding was the last time we were all together.

He was my favourite granduncle. Always cheerful and loving, with a bit of a soft spot for me as I had for him. Every year, when I arrived in the summer, I'd go to visit him or he would come quickly to our house as soon as he heard I was there.
He never left his village except to go and fight in the civil war. He didn't really fight, since he was never at the front. He was sometimes teased by others when he mentioned he went to the civil war, but I was always on his side. A war that did not make sense to many people, especially to farmers to whom nobody asked their opinion, and who were recruited by whatever faction dominated the territory they lived in.
They didn't want to kill anyone, not get killed either.

After the war, most of the nine siblings left the village escaping from starvation, and went to Barcelona in search of a job in a gloomy factory. They were countryside people who left behind their sunny lands to spend half of their lives in an ever-consuming, fuming darkness.

But mi tío Eulogio stayed.
He never went to Barcelona to visit his siblings and the rest of the family. He hardly ever left the village unless he had to go and visit someone in hospital.

For years, he asked me the same question: "and when are you getting married? If you get married I will come to your wedding wherever it takes place. I have never been in Barcelona, but I will go if you get married there. I promise."
Indeed, he made me laugh.
And then he added, pointing his finger at me as if in warning: "I don't want to die without seeing your wedding."

Obviously, that did not happen.

As time passed by he stopped a bit his usual joke, probably because at this point most of them have given up on me.

This summer things were slightly different. With all the wedding hassle I could not see him before the day. As soon as I saw him, I also saw what my mum meant when she said he was noticeably declining. I approached him with the usual cheer. I could see he was confused but I thought he was overwhelmed by the big day, emotional and excited. And then I realised he thought I was someone else. In surprise I just didn't think twice and spontaneously said: "Pero tío, ¿no me conoces? ¡Soy la Noelia, la hija de la Mari, la de tu hermana María!" (I am "the" Noelia, the daughter of "the" Mari, the one of your sister María; that's the way they speak and I happily adapt to their incorrect way).
I realised I made him embarrassed, and I regretted not having been a bit more agile and, hence, tactful. He was 88 and his memory, discernibly, was failing him.
So he said: "Of course I recognise you! How wouldn't I!"

But he didn't make his usual joke.
Instead, he asked about my children.

This summer, I thought I would have been better off not going to that wedding.
Now, I feel so glad I did. It was the last time I saw mi tío Eulogio. The last time I talked to him, I kissed him, I hugged him and we had a laugh.

It wasn't my wedding, but at least we were at one together.

*

Pérdidas | Loss

2008-05-12T01:56:00.005+01:00

If for a few months last year there were a few appearances in my life, or to be more exact, re-appearances from the past, that thankfully disappeared again in the horizon of vanishing memories, the past few months have seemingly been a time to enrich that same horizon with more recent memoirs.
People that for years had a prominent role in my life, friendships once I thought to be perpetual, have been dying in the past few years, not without a certain degree of pain or even, at times, agony. Like with a terminal disease, the attempts to fight against nature’s will have been futile and, realising of that, acceptance along with resignation have been a must.
When defeat is imminent it’s time to surrender. Especially when defeat comes from a long way back and it only needs the slap of a feather to knock us down.
So there is one person that for a few years here in Dublin was probably the one I trusted the most. I guess our friendship got damaged when we lived together. We overcame at some point our difficulties. But they left scars and a weakened version of what that friendship once was. For a period of time we both tried to manage to keep things in a fragile balance but soon it proved too much of an effort. The appearance of a third person did not help and, eventually, distances became bigger and bigger. So big that, recently, the elastic band that tightened things together has given in, breaking in two. I feel sad, I have to say, with my end of the band falling from my hand, reaching the ground in loneliness, all curled with a broken end.
Similarly, one of the persons that for years was a referent in my life back in Madrid seems no more to be present in my days. We have not resisted distance. We have lost both ends of the thread.
Who knows if we might find it again. Or perhaps a new one.

I guess lots of people come in and out of one’s life. Many stay for a while, some stay longer.
And just a few stay.

*

2008-04-27T14:52:00.006+01:00

"Es ridículo no protegerse de la propia maldad, lo cual es posible, y hacerlo de la de los demás, lo que es imposible."

Marco Aurelio

"Nunca se puede regresar a nada. Pero hay que regresar para saberlo."

Carlos Pujol

"Vuelvo porque fatiga
mirar atrás
y nunca
reconocer la infancia"

Mario Benedetti

__________________________________________________

"It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to protect himself from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to protect himself from other's badness, which is impossible."

Marcus Aurelius

"You can never go back to anything. But you have to go back to know it."

Carlos Pujol

"I come back because it's exhausting
to look back
and never
recognise childhood"

Mario Benedetti

*

Far from Dahab

2008-04-21T11:02:00.000+01:00

It's always interesting to observe when different people who hadn't known about each other's existence before, all of a sudden become a group fortuitously. Its random nature always comes up with a unique formation, in which each one of us plays an idiosyncratic role related to Orteguian circumstances.
Different situations, different groups, different people, different roles.
I was happy this time I was not playing Edwina's role. Sometimes I've been, in my idiosyncratic way, the one who does not fit. Or does not find her place anywhere.
I was also happy not to be the jinx, which this time was a role Lynn seemingly took over. Because I have also been a few times the one who attracts many mishaps.

With adversity looking at other's, I was selfishly happy to be just me in that particular moment playing my random role, which was quite a nice one this time. And that made of my experience an inspiring time. So in the end I got a few answers to whatever has been troubling me lately, learning at last that there are no straight answers but perhaps a frame of mind, an attitude towards things and life. Perspective it's the best ally to it, so Dahab proved to be the right angle to look at my epicentre. I thought it was going to be a watchful task, a trip to the inner self. In fact it was the opposite. I went to my south-west gradient and the immensity of the dessert extended itself between me and myself.

No one is so important and nothing is so important, except death, and only for our own small unimportant life. In the big picture, it is just the way things are. Unbearable for vainly creatures that always try to put themselves at the summit of all universal existence.

In a practical level, I confirmed that sometimes it all depends on who you are with or who are you not with.

*

Back from Dahab

2008-03-18T22:19:00.005Z

Back from Dahab, with no connection flight to Dublin until the next day, I arrived to my B&B in Gatwick and ended up having dinner in a suspiciously fake tapas restaurant with Portuguese staff. The suspicious became fact, although it was miles better than the one on Thursday, after our trip to the desert, at Yalla.

Next morning I had English Breakfast, while reading my book surrounded by beautiful green trees and grey drops of rain.
I did not miss the falafel but the Turkish coffee.
Then I headed to the airport where I had to repack my suitcase three times, until I complied to Ryanair rules and I did not have to pay extra money for an already expensive flight.

I arrived to a surprisingly sunny Dublin, where many people were honouring St. Patrick's with extravagant green garments, especially tall hats.

Once home, I was glad my house-mate was not in to welcome me. After unpacking, spending an hour in front of my computer wasting time, and talking to a couple of friends on that quickly forgotten device called mobile, I went for a nap around 7pm, intending to meet a friend afterwards for a drink and a chat... but I woke up this morning at 6am... Yoga time in Dahab!

Today I did not leave the apartment other than for buying milk and some other stuff in the Marks & Expensive across from the Square.
I finished preparing one of the exams according to all the European and UCD policies at hand, which deadline was last Friday. Hopefully tomorrow I will be done with the other one, which is driving me crazy because of my boss: an intelligent woman with no managerial skills who always changes her mind without realising she does so.

I agreed to be part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with a piece of my own creation. I agreed without thinking and without hesitating: just as it came the possibility I went for it, like getting on a train you did not expect to pass by at the precise time you are wondering where to head to.

I got a phone call from Brussels. A friend of a friend I haven't seen in a couple of years called me to invite me to my friend's surprise 30th birthday party in Malmedy, a small town in the border of Belgium and Germany... a place of my delights. My rusty French proved to be enough of an excuse to attend the celebration and lubricate the langue.

Now I am having my dinner: grilled sauté pepper chicken with pasta, crowned with pesto sauce, parmesan shavings and rockett salad, baby spinach leaves and watercress.
A recognisable taste.
I love my cooking, I have to say.

I found Alex's book in the internet and I wonder if I should buy it through Amazon or through Signal Books.

And I am going to go to bed now. And here is where Dahab comes into full sight. It's not only I'm going to bed still measuring the hours by Egyptian local time (unusually early for my Dublin nights), it's also the lack of emergency and obligation of Egyptian psychological time.

No nail biting these days: my nails are the longest I have seen in years.

It might be the yoga though.

In any case, I hope it lasts a bit longer than my tan.

*

Niebla

2008-02-14T16:58:00.002Z

Calma gris.

Grisáceas calmas.

Bocanadas de niebla.

Días menos cortos
que pasan igual de presurosos.

Condensación en los cristales de la existencia.

Lluvia que no acaba de caer.
Días que nunca llegaron.

*

Desavenencias

2008-02-14T12:11:00.001Z

Desoigo y difiero.

Entre recovecos y fisuras,
silencios,
gritos,
ausencias,
soledades,
deseos.

No se hablan entre ellos.

*

Two Months

2008-02-03T03:20:00.000Z

It's been almost two months since I last wrote an entry.
Unlike previous years, this one I didn't bother sending emails or making entries wishing the usual Merry Xmas or Happy New Year.
I sent a few texts, though.

Not that I did not wish everybody I know (and everybody in the world) to have the best of times.
I simply didn't feel like it.
I guess lately I haven't been in that sort of mood. If for a couple of months I had many things to celebrate, and I did, at Xmas I didn't feel there was anything to really toast for.
Well, yes, there is the hope that things will improve. But actually you are not quite sure yourself. Maybe you toast for hope to come back. You are in the hope of hoping for. You hope for hope.

Being at home for three weeks didn't help either.
Don't get me wrong. I love my friends, I love my family, and I miss many times being closer to all.
But, if sometimes you go home and its like a re-encounter and it's all happy times, sometimes you go home and it's a total "disencounter". You feel disconnected. You feel there are no bridges to access the other side of the river.

This time was a mix of both. There were great times, not so great ones and, definitely, a couple of "disencounters".
In general, deep down in my bones, I felt far away.
I felt I don't belong there, although it is the place I come from and where most people I love are.
At the same time, I don't feel I belong to here either, yet it is the place where my life is. This is my other side of the river.

None of them are new feelings. On the contrary, they are recurrent feelings for any "emigrant", even if we've emigrated by choice rather than need.

It's a strange feeling, a "no man's land" of sorts.

I'm coming to the conclusion that it is not only a question of identity. It is a question of belonging. Not belonging to anywhere really. And, increasingly, to no one.
Deep down, if I think of it, that's what I crave for: belonging.
I feel in an island, which, in fact, not only geographically, I am.

Obviously, it's not only about physical distances.
It's about many things.
Past, and present, and possible futures. Burdens, luggage.. call it what you like. You bring with you your experiences, and those configure the present and the aims for, hopefully, many more to come.

It's also about the natural cycle of life.
Naturally, things are not like when you left. Life goes on. People change, they settle...
Many of my female friends have decided to have a baby. And I am glad for them that they feel ready to take that step. But that makes me feel even farer. And makes me question my own situation, my choices, my desires.
Social pressure I guess. Homely social pressure. In Dublin I don't feel that sort of pressure, at least not in the same way. I guess I don't feel the pressure of other's expectations.

All this "I want to be a mother" bloom among my closest friends has made me realised that, actually, biologically it's a choice I won't have for ever. And, while it is a choice, it doesn't bother me. But then I wonder that the time is closer to when it won't be any longer a choice; and that makes me think and reflect.
And I ask myself: what do I want?
And I have no answer.
Because, in the end, life is like it is.
It's the way it is. No other one.
And given my circumstances the only choice is to make the most out of what I have. For sure I won't get very far thinking of what I haven't got.

Yet, lately, I have lost enthusiasm.

*

This was the highlight of the past two months. My graduation on the 10th of December.

*

Context

2007-12-07T10:51:00.000Z

Yesterday I had my first début as an actress on TV.
Previously, I had done a minor intervention in a TV series, but in this one I was playing one of the main roles.
The programme is called Anonymous. It's a stunt programme and, basically, they disguise celebrities, they sent them off into the streets to do the most crazy things and, finally, they are set to interact with other celebrities that know them.

Since it's quite confidential until it goes on air in February, I cannot reveal many details. All I can say is that I was an Argentinian TV director. I was supposed to speak no English and understand nothing (so I had a translator), and my presenter was the celebrity. He was supposed to speak Spanish, which he didn't at all, but he was really good at pretending; and he spoke in broken English.
We had a turbulent relationship since we had been lovers for a while and now our fling was over.

I put an Argentinian accent to the best of my abilities and with practically no preparation. It really didn't matter because Irish audiences are unlikely to identify my real accent. But since I was supposed to speak no English and understand nothing, I decided to go for the accent in order to have somewhere to put my focus, not only to help getting into character, but especially to avoid speaking in English or react to a language I obviously understand.
Apparently, I didn't do very badly since the make up girl was from Barcelona and she thought I was really Argentinian. But I am sure any person from Argentina would have caught me straight.

So off we went to interview 5 different celebrities. The interview started normally, but, throughout it, personal problems between my ex-lover and I became noticeable.
We really took the piss but everybody swallowed it, except for one person who had been already in the programme as a disguised celebrity and recognised the stunt immediately.

The rest thought this was for real. It was amazing to see how people went for it and their reactions. At times it was extremely funny and once I thought I was really going to crack up. But I didn't. When the stunt was disclosed, two of them came personally to tell me I had really tricked them, and even congratulated me!

Conclusion: if you set a context for anyone and get a few players to make it believable, you can trick most people.

Just like politics and religion.

*

Benedetti

2007-12-02T16:38:00.000Z

"Ellos tienen razón
esa felicidad
al menos con mayúscula
no existe
ah, pero si existiera con minúscula"

De "Soledades", Poemas de otros (1973-1974)

"Los ojos cambian
nunca la mirada"

De "Nunca la mirada", Preguntas al azar (1986)

"Ayúdate secúndate solázate
búscate en la quimera de los otros
inventa tus estrellas y repártelas"

De "El aguafiestas falta sin aviso", Despistes y franquezas (1990)

"La soledad es una paz oscura
una suerte de luto sin orgullo"

De "Mi pozo", Poemas del hoyporhoy (1958-1961)

"Tiendo mi mano a veces y está sola
y está más sola cuando no la tiendo"

De "A ras de sueño", A ras de sueño (1967)

"La gran proeza
la mejor hazaña de la memoria
es olvidarlo todo"

De "La hazaña", Contra los puentes levadizos (1965-1966)

*

Exámenes II | Exams II

2007-11-30T09:53:00.000Z

Ayer acabé los exámenes orales en la universidad. En total examinamos alrededor de 200 estudiantes.
Mis estudiantes del nivel avanzado tenían que preparar una presentación a elegir entre 4 temas. Uno de ellos consistía en elegir un país al que les gustaría ir de Erasmus. Tenían que dar información tal como datos geográficos, políticos, históricos, culturales, etc., las razones por las que les gustaría ir a ese país y a qué ciudad en concreto.
Algunos eligieron España. A continuación cito algunas de las afirmaciones dadas por 3 estudiantes distintos:

1. El régimen de Franco era comunista y facha.

(reacción de las examinadoras: saltar en sus asientos ante la palabra comunista, mirarse entre ellas para corroborar que habían oído bien y apretar fuertemente los labios para no descojonarse de la risa.)

2. En España todo el mundo duerme la siesta de 2 a 5 de la tarde todos los días. En San Sebastián todo el mundo habla euskera y no se entiende nada.

(reacción de las examinadoras: alzar las cejas).

3. Diálogo examinadora (yo) - estudiante (Peter, nombre ficticio):

- Peter : Las fiestas... las fiestas... las fiestas... las fiestas me guston mucho las fiestas. Las fiestas en España son el mejor. (Todo esto con gran énfasis y pasión).

- Examinadora: Sí Peter, las fiestas en España están muy bien, pero háblame un poco de España, su situación geográfica, su cultura, a qué ciudad te gustaría ir... (interrupción del estudiante)

- porque las fiestas en España son incredibles. Es.. (mucho movimiento de brazos y gesticulación) es... es... (interrupción de la examinadora)

- Sí Peter, pero ¿qué ciudad de España escogerías para ir de Erasmus?

- En Valencia las fiestas son con fuego y todo es loco, loco. Mucho loco.

- Entonces, ¿te gustaría ir a Valencia?

- Sí, sí, mucho loco.

__________________________________________

Yesterday we finished the oral examinations in college. In total we did around 200.
My students from advanced level had to prepare an oral presentation. They had to choose from 4 topics. One of them was to pick a country where they would like to go as Erasmus students. They had to give information about its geographical situation, culture, history, politics, etc., and the reasons why they would like to go to that country and to what city. Some of them chose Spain. Please, see below statements made by 3 different students:

1. Franco's regime was communist and fascist.

(examiners' reaction: jump on their sits when hearing "communist", look at each other to they had heard correctly and press the lips very tight in order to avoid cracking up.)

2. In Spain everybody sleeps the siesta in between 2 and 5pm every day. In San Sebastián everybody speaks euskera and you don't understand anything.

(examiners' reaction: rise brows)

3. Dialogue between the examiner (me) and a student (Peter, fake name):

- Peter : Las fiestas... las fiestas... las fiestas... las fiestas I like much... las fiestas... Las fiestas in Spain are the more good. (All this with great passion and emphasis).

- Examiner: Yes, Peter, parties in Spain are great, but tell me a bit about Spain, its geographical location, its culture, to which city you would like to go... (interrupted by the student)

- Because parties in Spain are increible. It's (lots of gesticulation and arm's movement) it's... it's... it's... (interruption by the examiner)

- Yes, Peter, but tell me, to what city would you like to go with the Erasmus programme?

- In Valencia the parties are with fire and it's all loco, loco, loco. Much loco.

- Then, would you like to go to Valencia?

- Yes, yes, much loco.

*

Les Luthiers

2007-11-22T13:01:00.000Z

"Tener la conciencia limpia es síntoma de mala memoria."

"Los honestos son inadaptados sociales."

"Errar es humano ... pero echarle la culpa a otro, es más humano todavía."

"Hay un mundo mejor, pero es carísimo."

"La mujer que no tiene suerte con los hombres ... no sabe la suerte que tiene."

"Felices los que nada esperan, porque nunca serán defraudados."

"Lo triste no es ir al cementerio, sino quedarse."

"No te tomes la vida en serio, al fin y al cabo no saldrás vivo de ella."

*

Exams

2007-11-15T01:24:00.000Z

Problem:
1. A 3-kg object is released from rest at a height of 5m on a curved frictionless ramp. At the foot of the ramp is a spring force constant k = 100 N/m. The object slides down the ramp and into the spring, compressing it a distance x before coming to rest.

a) Find x.
b) Does the object continue to move after it comes to rest? If yes, how high will it go up the slope before it comes to rest?

Memoria III

2007-11-14T14:15:00.000Z

Como decía Juan Bonilla, a veces hay que dar la vuelta al mundo para volver al lugar en el que uno estaba. Aún así, nunca es el mismo lugar. “Nadie se baña dos veces en el mismo río” decía Heráclito. Ciertamente no es el mismo lugar porque nosotros no somos los mismos. Ya que, por muy memos que seamos, un viaje alrededor del mundo produce algún tipo de cambio en cualquiera, alterando, consiguientemente, la perspectiva.
Algunas cosas se siguen viendo igual.
Pero otras no.
Otras ya nunca podrán volver a verse del mismo modo.
Hallándonos en perpetua pérdida, como Sísifo, perdemos lo que fuimos para ser lo que somos. Parte de lo que fuimos se queda con nosotros. Parte se va para no volver a estar, que no ser.

En los últimos meses he vuelto a lugares de antaño. Mi memoria se ha visto confundida y confrontada con las realidades que recordaba. Alterado el recuerdo, me he visto de modo diferente en el espejo del pasado; el espejo del pasado me devuelve una imagen que difiere de la del presente; mi reflejo confrontado ha sufrido esa alteración llamada perspectiva.
No sólo son los signos de la edad en mi frente, sino, especialmente, los cambios en recónditos rincones, bastante menos visibles.

Todo cambia, o como decía Lecoq, “todo se mueve”, en un eterno vaivén en el que las partículas elementales, nosotros, desaparecen y son restituidas por otras.

Sin embargo, hay cosas que no cambian, aunque dejemos de ser lo que éramos para ser lo que somos. Como dice Paul Auster, también somos lo que éramos, no sólo lo que nos hemos forjado sino también lo que se nos asigna en un azaroso cruce de átomos.
Así, tampoco cambian ciertas situaciones.

A veces uno da la vuelta al mundo para volver al lugar en el que estaba y ver que todo sigue exactamente igual a como era, no sólo los sitios físicos, sino también las personas y las situaciones. Y lo único que ha cambiado es uno mismo y la capacidad de ver las cosas de manera distinta, y por eso mismo, también de abstenerse de intentar cambiarlas.
Hay cosas que sólo pueden ser como son. Y de ninguna otra manera.

*

Picasso's Women - Gaby

2007-11-11T13:09:00.000Z

"But Pablo. He was different. Pablo took his demons and impregnated his women with them. He put his women under a curse. His curse.
He looked for a weakness, then like a little boy torturing a butterfly by pulling off bits of its wings, he would wait and watch to see how long it was before you would fail to fly.
And when you failed to fly you were of no further use.
But of course I speak in retrospect. Back then, I only had pieces of the puzzle.
(...)
But you never know at the start, do you? You only see the gifts, the smiles, the endearments. You don't want to know, do you? Always you are thinking: this will be... perfection... You find a hundred excuses for every lapse. Your ingenuity is such that you could take up a career as a novelist, exploring the motivations, the anxieties, the little tics of your protagonist. You want to understand him, don't you? And of course, aren't you the only one who could unlock the cabinet of his heart...
Ahhhhh!
(...)
He never quiet could fathom me, could Pablo. He kept on expecting that I would bow to his will. After the first day in Saint-Tropez, he casually tossed down a copy of the Marquis de Sade. Juliette, I think. I offered to tie him up and stick pins in his penis.
He whitened. Visibly.
Strange, isn't it: he had never actually considered that the sadism might be applied to himself!
I told him that I had read the book when I was fifteen, and gave him a lecture on the modern readings of the Sade in relation to Freud.
That stopped him talking about the Sade.
(...)
Pablo was fine when he was trying to please. When he was making an effort. And he made an effort for me. He was besotted. He wanted to possess me, to take me over, to put me into a little box and gloat over me. To take me out whenever it suited him. To fuck me whenever he felt the need - if he was becoming bored, or irritated, or if he couldn't sleep. He would never understand that I had no intention of becoming subservient. Why should I be an appendage when I could be an equal?
(...) a little bit of me wanted to believe, wanted to think that this 'great man' really did find me special; really did wish to spend the rest of his days ensconced only with me. (...)
'What use are words if you don't mean them?'
(...)
One always likes to have a little... indulgence... a little secret compartment, in the cabinet of the heart, where one can dream of what might have been.
And yet I know, if I had chosen Pablo, he would have deconstructed me like one of his cubist portraits. Without mercy."

"Gaby", Picasso's Women by Brian McAvera

Amnistía Internacional

2007-11-11T12:49:00.000Z

un pasito pa'lante, un pasito pa'tras

2007-11-10T00:59:00.000Z

Pues eso.

Columpiándome hacia delante.
Columpiándome hacia detrás.
En un columpio de polvo.

A veces rozo los cielos.
Aire.

A veces rozo los infiernos.
Y me ahogo en una nube de polvo.

Curiosos vaivenes en el tren de la vida.

*

Swinging

2007-11-07T21:46:00.000Z

All I want now is to look ahead, not behind.
Yet I keep swinging back and forth.
In a swing of dust.

*

Messing Around

2007-11-07T10:41:00.000Z

mess around:
1. to waste time doing something without a particular purpose.
2. often used in the not mess around to act with a serious purpose.

mess around with someone:
1. to have sex with someone other than your husband, wife, or usual sexual partner.
2. to treat someone badly.

mess around with something:
to amuse yourself by doing or saying something that is likely to cause trouble.

*

Manu Chao

2007-11-05T22:44:00.000Z

Yesterday I was at Manu Chao's concert. It was great. Although I think he has not created anything new or especial in a while, what he does itself is especial and the great energy he creates in his concerts is fantastic.
A shot of fun full of adrenaline.

I went only because my friend knew the organisers and got free tickets for many of us, plus access to the VIP area after the concert. For a while it was like a big deal to get into the VIP area. And since I was already in I had to wait what it felt like a long time on my own until they let the rest of my friends in.
So there I was sitting in a kind of waiting room in a white prefab with no music. Everybody behaved in a sort of tense way, like when people try to look important.
I was sitting on my own on a stool, drinking free beer and thinking that it was ironic that people were fighting outside to get in when I was feeling like I wanted to get out of such a boring place with no one to talk with.

But then, finally, they let my friends in as well. And we had fun. But because we are friends, not because we were at the VIP area of Manu Chao's, although I have to say he provided the free beer and for that he deserves well.

As they say, it's not where you are but who you are with.

*

Slattery's

2007-11-04T14:06:00.000Z

Yesterday I was in a place I hadn't been in for the past four years. The way I ended up there was fortuitous.
Life keeps bringing the past to my present, I'm not yet sure why. Maybe there is no reason at all, just facts. Paraphrasing Paul Auster in The Book of Memory, like everyone else, I crave a meaning. Like everyone else, my life is so fragmented that each time I see a connection between two fragments I am tempted to look for a meaning in that connection. The connection exists. But to give it a meaning, to look beyond the bare fact of its existence, would be to build an imaginary world inside the real world, and I know it would not stand.

Nevertheless, I was in that place last night. It used to be my favourite pub. It is my favourite pub in Dublin. Slattery's in Rathmines. My ex used to work there and since we broke up I stopped going.
Places define us.
For many reasons Slattery's is a pivotal place of my life in Dublin. It represents so much...

At the beginning I didn't realise of how impacting it was to be back there, to see old faces, to be looked at by those who recognised me and knew who I was.
But then, slowly, like dampness soaking bones, the familiarity of the place started to captivate me, bringing up memories.. sensations.. flashbacks..
moments.. so many moments..
I was in several points of time at once. Dispersed. Fragmented.

In this precise moment of my life when I am so confused and lost emotionally, I realise how meaningful and metaphoric it was to be back in Slattery's. To be confronted with certain realities that defined so much the place I am at in the present. All my contradictions together at once.
Like going in a reversed trip, back in time, from the last memory to the first one.
When I arrived. 8 years back.
Going back to Slattery's was like completing a circle.
Symbolically, I am in a new place ready to start drawing the next.
But I am not sure if parts of my past should be left behind. Or if I should take some things at the point where I left them before it was too late.

I am an absolute beginner. I don't have a clue of what's going on with me. With all the things life is bringing back to me.

As the Irish say, when you don't know what to do, do nothing, which Saramago puts down as: sometimes waiting is the only possible answer.

*

Limits

2007-11-02T11:48:00.001Z

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."

Albert Einstein

*

Respuestas | Answers

2007-10-29T22:11:00.000Z

"Las respuestas no llegan siempre cuando uno las necesita, muchas veces ocurre que quedarse esperando es la única respuesta posible."

José Saramago, Ensayo sobre la ceguera

"Answers do not always come when one needs them; many times it so happens that to keep waiting is the only possible answer."

José Saramago, Blindness

*

Volver

2007-10-25T13:42:00.000+01:00

Recuerdo el primer libro de Juan Bonilla, un libro de cuentos cortos titulado El que apaga la luz. Uno de ellos comenzaba con una frase que me llamó enormemente la atención, y que luego constituiría el principio de su novela Nadie conoce a nadie (llevada al cine de manera algo desastrosa). La frase en cuestión venía a decir:

"Hay dos maneras de volver al lugar en el que estabas: volver sobre tus pasos o dar la vuelta al mundo."

Últimamente tengo la sensación de que después de haber dado una metafórica vuelta al mundo, estoy volviendo a muchos lugares del pasado. Revisitándolos.
Remodelando la memoria.
Es una sensación extraña.
Complejo proceso el de la retrospectiva. Los males y los bienes pasados nos constituyen en el presente. Los hayamos aceptado o no.
Son parte de nosotros.
Reconfigurarlos puede resultar catártico. Y lo catártico conlleva consigo una perturbación.

Duress

*

Change

2007-10-23T22:33:00.000+01:00

"Yes, it is possible that we do not grow up, that even as we grow old, we remain the children we always were. We remember ourselves as we were then, and we feel ourselves to be the same. We made ourselves into what we are now then, and we remain what we were, in spite of the years. We do not change for ourselves. Time makes us grow old, but we do not change."

Paul Auster, The Book of Solitude

Memory II

2007-10-22T21:30:00.000+01:00

"Memory: the space in which a thing happens for the second time."

"Every morning for the several weeks of his visit, he would wake up and say to himself, I must make time today to see S., and then, as the day wore on, invent an excuse for not going to see him. This reluctance, he began to realize, was a product of fear. But fear of what? Of walking back into his own past? Of discovering a present that would contradict the past, and thus alter it, which in turn would destroy the memory of the past he wanted to preserve? No, he realized, nothing so simple. Then what? (...) It was then he realized he was living in a state of extreme duress."

Paul Auster, The Book of Solitude

Soneto

2007-10-21T18:29:00.000+01:00

" Desmayarse, atreverse, estar furioso,
áspero, tierno, liberal, esquivo,
alentado, mortal, difunto, vivo,
leal, traidor, cobarde y animoso;

No hallar fuera del bien centro y reposo,
mostrarse alegre, triste, humilde, altivo,
enojado, valiente, fugitivo,
satisfecho, ofendido, receloso;

Huir el rostro al claro desengaño,
beber veneno por licor suave,
olvidar el provecho, amar el daño;

Creer que el cielo en un infierno cabe,
dar la vida y el alma a un desengaño,
¡esto es amor! quien lo probó lo sabe."

Lope de Vega

*

Eight Years

2007-10-18T11:44:00.000+01:00

Following the subject matter of never say never, I remember when I arrived to this city, today eight years ago.
I came initially for six months to "see". Back then, I remember when I met other foreigners and they told me they had been here for four, nine, ten years..
I used to say: "I could never live in this country for so long".
They used to look at me with half a smile and say nothing.
But once one of my teacher's in Cervantes said to me: "I used to say the same. It depends on what life offers you and of what you want from it."

You never know what's around the corner, especially if you are open to things, if you are lost, if you are trying to find a new way but you don't have a clue of which or how or what, as I was when I came to Dublin.

Eight years today I cannot believe what I have achieved, how differently and unexpectedly things have worked out for me. And, as many others, if someone had told me that my life would be what it is, I would have never believed them.

I will always be grateful to this city and this country for having given me the opportunity to find my path. For now.

*

Never Say Never o Plegarias Atendidas

2007-10-18T00:20:00.000+01:00

I remember the first time I came to this apartment, a bit longer than two years ago. Back then I thought I wouldn't like to live here.
Basically because I'm used to live in houses with gardens, which in the end I never enjoy because it's always raining. Thus, at the time, I looked around this apartment block and thought it wasn't my cup of tea.
Nice apartments, no doubt, but no better than a house with a garden.

And now here I am. Living in the very place I once said I wouldn't choose.

It goes with everything.
Never say never.

The person I thought I would never forget, I forgot.
To my amazement.
And the person I thought I would never forgive, I forgave.
To my stupefaction.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

*

"Se llora más por las plegarias atendidas que por las no atendidas."
Santa Teresa

"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers."
Saint Theresa

*

Lies

2007-10-17T12:12:00.000+01:00

Worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves, believing them.

*

Place & Identity

2007-10-16T22:43:00.000+01:00

According to quantum physics, in universe there is more space than time.

Our lives might be defined by time and mortality.
Existence.

But our beings might well be defined by the places that inhabit us. We usually think we inhabit space without realising we're rather part of it.

We are just something else in space. Space itself is everywhere and inhabits everything.

The same way, some strata of our identity are defined by the places we inhabit. And that inhabit us.

Geographies define ways of living, of naming reality, of thinking, dictated by necessities.
Social organisation. Culture.
It permeates the individual.

At another level, places alter our moods and our ways of behaving and being.
Adaptation.
Survival.

Lecoq used to say that we don't walk the same way around a Romanesque Church than around a Gothic one.
We adapt.
We adapt to climates, to seasons, to circumstances, to places.

Our identities shift which each new place we experience and live, being those places emotional or physical ones.

*

Moving in

2007-10-16T00:19:00.000+01:00

I cannot find the book I was reading.
I cannot find some of my clothes.

Everything is scattered around my room, in piles.
I'm confronted, face to face, with all my materialities, the material expression of myself.
I'm such a hoarder.
But it is time to throw soooooo many things away.

Giving up cigarettes as well..

Let go.
It feels good to do so.

A new stage (and never better said).

Moving in.
Moving on.

*

Moving out, moving on

2007-10-14T23:51:00.000+01:00

Today I closed for the last time the door in Parnell Road.
It's painful to close doors, to let go, to put things behind.. But it has to be done when it is time to move on.

I hope my new place will bring me smiles, and peace of mind. And the necessary energy to focus on my new projects and challenges.
And the strength to keep doing what I believe is right and good for me.
And keep away from what makes me suffer deeply. Even if keeping away is part of that deep suffering.
Catharsis.
Everything moves, as Lecoq, closely to Heraclito, said.
Everything changes. Now I have to look ahead. Leave behind.
New beginnings in more solid buildings.

I am wrecked after a year of great achievements and strange surprises. I hope I will have at last, in this new place I am at, some rest.

Tomorrow will be another day.

*

"For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning." Kahlil Gibran.

*

Ivanov o el Rosario de la Aurora

2007-09-30T21:49:00.000+01:00

Ivanov is a personal tragedy and a social comedy.
It is the play that made Chekhov famous in his country.

Ivanov is an antihero, a tormented soul who can’t help himself. It would be easy to judge him, but we can’t, because he is so human.
And we can’t condemn him for that.

Ivanov cares about the fact he doesn’t care any longer. He is tortured. Everything he thought he wanted doesn’t seem to matter anymore. The person he married. His state. His life.
And there is no other reason than precisely that, life.
Yet, he keeps asking himself:
“What is the matter with me? What is the matter with me?”
He is so aware of being unlike himself: he suffers. He is so distressed.
Being confronted with one’s contradictions, hurts.
Being unable to help oneself, hurts.

Ivanov wants to go back and be the person he was… back to when he was happy.
He can't. And he knows.
Consciousness. Absurdity.
But unlike Sisyphus, and like most of us, he cannot smile before his stone and his mountain.
He wants to love.
I don't want to.
He wants to go back to hapinness.
I don't want to go back to a time and a place that hurts so much.

Different stories.
Opposite, perhaps.
But same contradictions. And same question: what is the matter with me?
Life runs before and after us.

Ivanov cries on stage so soundly… so vulnerable, so helpless.

What is the matter with me?

He wants to go back to that place where he still has respect for himself.
I do not want to go back to the very place where once I lost all respect for myself.

Ivanov finishes badly. El Rosario de la Aurora.
I’m trying to avoid that. I don’t want to be one of those who runs into the same brick wall for a third time.

Staged by Hungarian company Katona József Theatre, it is one of the best stagings of Chekhov I have ever seen, by Tamás Ascher, as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
And the acting was superb. Of the highest standards I've seen so far.
Ermö Fekete is incredible as Ivanov. But also are the rest. Especially Ervin Nagy, who apart from being extremely attractive, has an incredible presence on stage and performs outstandingly his character, Misha.
I was truly amazed by the whole production. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me think and reflect.
Chekhov at its best.

*

More Lessons

2007-09-30T11:44:00.000+01:00

Last Tuesday I attended my first lesson in contemporary dance.
My first and my last.

I was truly excited about it since dance is the one thing I love, if only because it sets my mind apart from everything else. Basically, when I dance I don’t think. It switches off my mind. It’s my sort of meditation, so to speak.
Before enroling, I talked to the staff about my level. As there are no tests, which is what they should have, they decided that given my background I should join the advanced level. I wasn’t sure about that, but since I’ve been doing postmodern dance and performance in the past years, I thought I'd have a go.
So I did.

When I arrived I told the teacher I was there to try, that I wasn't sure about my level. She said it was fine. I soon realised I wasn’t in the right class.
It was all about choreography and steps I haven’t learnt in my life. And since it is the only advanced course they offer, some people have been doing it for years.
So there I was trying to keep up with them, but after a while I decided to give up.
It wasn’t my level. It is not the type of thing I’ve done before. It's like putting somebody with a strong background in ballet in a flamenco advanced class.
Hence, when the class finished, full of frustration, I went to the teacher and told her I was going to change level. She agreed.

One of the good things about age is that you know a bit better about yourself: I realise where my limits and limitations are. Thus, since I am quite aware at the moment that in some aspects I am still a beginner, I decided there is no point in trying out things that are beyond my capabilities, and because of that they make me feel frustrated and anxious.
They make me feel bad.
The point of joining the dance lessons was to enjoy them, not to suffer with them.
Consequently, I made the wisest of decisions.

I won’t give up on dancing, but I will find the level or the style that suits my capabilities, my own needs, and me. The one I enjoy while learning.

In the end, life is already too complicated to push oneself towards things that make us unnecessarily distressed, frustrated and unhappy.
At least where choice is possible.
There, I prefer to focus my energy on something that makes me feel good. And smile.

*

Lessons

2007-09-26T23:57:00.000+01:00

If I waved at my thirty-fours quite happy with my achievements, I started my thirty-fifth birthday realising that I still have many things to learn about myself.

The past few months I’ve been travelling back to past periods of my life through different coincidences. Those trips to memory have been in their own ways quite illustrative. Our memories and that of others do not always match.

The past few months I went back in different directions and for different reasons. My memories, all of a sudden, were altered by those of other people or by unexpected news. News and happenings that came out of chance; or out of the logic of time.
Life goes by.

In unequal measure they all have had an insightful impact on my life, on my memory of the past, myself and others. And some of those anchored remembrances have consequently changed by looking at them through other’s eyes. Or looking at the past through the eyes I had then, not now. And vice versa. Those alterations, though, rather than shaking my foundations quite reinforced them somehow.

It was the very moment I was turning thirty-five that I learnt the biggest of lessons about it. And the foundations were shaken.
I have been in denial for a long time.
And I knew I was, but I had convinced myself to believe on my own imaginary safety jacket.
So at turning thirty-five the most surprising of alterations came out of no other but myself: I had been killing for so long a memory I had almost believed it never existed.
But it did.
And, since it's been awaken, it is so vivid and so present I cannot be in denial anymore. It would not make any sense.
So I have to be honest with myself. At last.
And I think that I’ve been waiting for a long time for it to happen.
Paraphrasing Amy Winehouse, "I cheated myself like I knew I would".

Now I know the lesson is there for me to learn, but I don’t have a clue what’s the real one I have to take out of this, apart from the obvious "pride hurts" and "don't lie to yourself".
Or maybe it is just that I have finally forgiven and I can look at things with different eyes?

The positive outcome is that I am aware of it at last.

I might have a masters in theatre, but I'm still a beginner when it comes to life and myself.

*

Serendipias

2007-09-25T01:25:00.000+01:00

"Una serendipia es un descubrimiento científico afortunado e inesperado que se ha realizado accidentalmente" Wikipedia

O como dicen otros, "¿Casualidades? No, serendipias."

Yo soy más austeriana y me fascinan las casualidades, lo puramente contingente. Run Lola. Tiempos y destiempos en miles de caminos que se cruzan y descruzan entre multitud de variables.

Sin embargo, también es cierto que a veces las cosas no son tan casuales como parecen.
O quizás sea que la vida tarde o temprano le pone a uno ante sí mismo para su sorpresa.
No sé si hay alguien o algo que juega a los dados con el universo.
A veces parece que sí.
Otras quizás no es todo tan casual como parece, sino consecuencia.
Y cuando las causas se hallan exclusivamente dentro de uno mismo, puede resultar jodido preguntarse por ellas.

¿Serendipias? Combinaciones de factores que en el mundo de lo probable nos habían parecido imposibles.

Para serendipias con carcajadas el Gran Wyoming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAKDNUCet0k

*

Bach Cello Suites

2007-09-20T01:25:00.001+01:00

Recently, for one reason or another, I'm meeting many musicians.
Just by chance.
But the most amazing one has been a virtual encounter with a cello player, through an internet community. I am only subscribed to one, to be honest, and it's not like I am very active, quite the opposite.
But all of a sudden I got this email from a cello player.

I have always loved the Bach Cello suites. Music that can only be felt, never described.
Cello has this beautiful sound... ineffable.
Melting life. The beauty of sadness. Sad beauty.
And the indifference of ice.
Absurdness.

Anyway, the cello player I have virtually met has a much beautiful analogy about playing Bach's cello suites.
He says "everything you play is the branches of a tree, and bach cello suites is the root..."

And he says you can only play the cello suites well when you are fifty, since they require that depth achieved through years of playing, of getting to know every single nuance of a sound, and feel life through those nuances.

Bach's Cello Suites.

Beauty. Ineffably sad beauty.
You want life to last. But it doesn't.
You want beauty to stay. But it goes.
Mortality.

The root of a tree.
Bach's Cello Suites.

*

Buenas Noticias Master | Good News MA

2007-09-18T10:59:00.000+01:00

hola,

no es por fardar, que quede claro, pero quería compartir con todos las buenas noticias, sobre todo porque me habéis estado sufriendo el proceso Master de una manera u otra.
Mis notas para el master para los cinco módulos son: tres sobresalientes, un notable alto y un notable.
La tesis está de momento entre notable alto y sobresaliente. La confirmación me llegará en octubre.
Todavía no he asimilado la noticia, la verdad... estoy como anonadada... No siempre uno obtiene frutos por trabajar duro... PERO CREO QUE ESTE FIN DE SEMANA HAY ALGO MÁS QUE CELEBRAR QUE MI CUMPLEAÑOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Y QUIERO PONERME A DAR BOTES AHORA MISMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y hoy he recibido una llamada de mi supervisor preguntando si ya he preparado la tesis para publicación...

Bueno, gracias a todos por estar ahí, algunos en cuerpo y otros en alma : )

Besos,

Noelia
_______________________

Hi there,

it's not like I want to show off, but I thought it would be nice to share with you the good news since most of you have been suffering my MA process in one way or another.
So my marks for my five modules during the MA have been: two second class honours and three first class honours.
My mark for the thesis is in between a second and a first, I will know for sure in October.
I haven't assimilated the good news yet, to be honest... I'm a bit speechless... you don't always get to reap what you sow... BUT I THINK THIS WEEKEND THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO CELEBRATE THAN MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I WANT TO JUMP AROUND THE PLACE THIS VERY MINUTE...........

and now I got a call from my supervisor asking if I have prepared my thesis already for publication...

ok, thanks to everybody for being there, in body or soul : )

xx

Noelia

*

Olvido

2007-09-16T18:51:00.000+01:00

"No olvida el que finge olvido
sino el que puede olvidar"

Mario Benedetti
"El olvido", Yesterday y Mañana (1988)

Si para Anne Bogart la memoria es una forma de existir cuyo acto
"nos conecta con el pasado y altera el tiempo", el olvido es un acto que quizás intenta desconectarse del pasado, alterando también el tiempo, pero para intentar borrarlo, eludirlo, quitarle de algún modo su existencia en nosotros.

La memoria trata de retener un tiempo pasado. El olvido trata de deshacerse de él.

Fenomenológicamente hablando, el olvido no es posible. Toda vivencia queda registrada en algún rincón de nuestro corpóreo ser, asimilada.
Y del mismo modo que un olor o un sonido despiertan en nosotros, de repente, una antigua sensación inefable pero recónditamente arraigada en recovecos internos, todo aquello que vivimos queda impreso en el ente corporal que somos, a través del que la experiencia es posible.

El olvido voluntario es un mecanismo racional accionado por el instinto emocional de supervivencia, supervivencia ante el dolor.

El olvido que trae el paso de los años, es un signo de nuestra mortalidad. Estamos condenados a no permanecer.

A veces fingimos el olvido, para sobrevivir, hasta que el dolor es asimilado, neutralizado. Y otras, sencillamente olvidamos. Porque cada día que pasa vamos muriendo y, con nosotros, nuestra memoria.

*

Birthdays Celebration

2007-09-15T14:29:00.000+01:00

La Casa Azul

2007-09-14T23:56:00.000+01:00

Based on Frida Kahlo's life, La Casa Azul is written by Sophie Faucher and translated by Neil Bartlett. This production by Mephisto Theatre Company Ireland makes a difference.

It's brought together by an original staging by Aoife Spillane-Hinks that takes Fridas's ironed, slivered aching body as a set that is alive itself.
A metallic structure that echoes Frida's twinges and pangs, Rivera's painter studio, Frida's bed, the blue house, a Mexican tablao. A metaphysical no man's land where questions about existence, politics, art, fates, and especially love, are posited with beautiful pain, conveyed by delightful words that captivate the ear and the soul, as much as by physical visual images.

On stage, Frida's discomforts haunt the spectator with harshness and lightness.
To be appraised is the performance by Caroline Lynch, who carries very convincingly Frida throughout the journey. Her Frida.

The only low key is the lack of exploration of stillness, the one that kept Frida anchored to a bed for the most part of her life. But this production has to be acknowledged in its context: in Fringe festivals resources are scarce and provided by the artists themselves. If you want to make it happen you gotta produce it (i.e. finance it) yourself. The American way.
Given the circumstances, it is a great job I would say, or a good attempt as Franc McGuinness would say.

Runs until tomorrow at the Player's Theatre, Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College.

http://www.fringefest.com/shows/37

*

Nine Days Back

2007-09-13T01:20:00.000+01:00

Nine days I’m back. Nine days go fast. I mean, life goes fast.
On the Monday I arrived (or may I say on the Tuesday since it was only at 2am my delayed flight landed?) Dublin looked bleak after 17 days of sun and a shot of much needed affection.
First thing I did was to check my emails looking for unheard news from work. Nothing to be found in my inbox. No one in the airport to welcome me back. Too late in the morning to call anyone.
The feeling I've been complaining about all way long during my trip was reinforced: in Dublin I feel very lonely.
So, a Monday week ago back in Dublin I wanted to pack and go back to Spain. Sun and hugs. Swims.
But then on Tuesday Dublin started to wave at me. I woke up on my wonderful bed. I spent the day on the phone and email, organising work, theatre events, AND my leisure time. For the first time in five years I allowed myself to have 2 free evenings a week. And so I joined a contemporary dance course. And I joined Equity, a sort of actor’s, directors, etc., Union. I made an appointment for a massage. I made my laundry. I called a photographer for shots.
I stayed home and rested.
I had long conversations with friends on the phone. I decided it was time to move out. Aya offered a solution: to take over her apartment while she lives in San Francisco.
The most enjoyable of being freed when one has been shut off for a while, constrained to obligations, is the sense of spontaneity one can afford to have. One can accept life as it comes and go with the flow. And I was still on holidays.
So Wednesday I had a work meeting and then a wedding where I met my classmates. Thursday I met Evelyn for lunch (when was the last time I could meet someone for lunch?), and met dear old students for dinner. Friday I met Caroline for tapas and (bad) theatre, bumped into a musician friend, Red, who invited me to a jam jazz party (incredible) and ended up being out until 4. Met some people interested in similar projects. Exchanged phone numbers.
Saturday I left to Sligo, one of my favourite parts of Ireland. I spent the weekend with Miss Colleary, and we had reminiscences of the masters, the thesis writing process. And my stress levels went back straight up. The memory of it made me feel sick again with anxiety. And I realised how hard it had been.
But there we were, sharing it, knowing how it had been like, accepting it.. a slow digestion one might say, with walks down the beach to wash it down.
Chats before the fireplace discussing the new challenges ahead, within the tiredness of it all. I’d say it was a sort of ritual. (Mr. Turner? Mr. Schechner?)

Back in Dublin traffic fumes made me appreciate nature’s preciousness. Fresh air is a luxury.

One day left of holidays.
More emailing. More phone calls. Back.
I met Chris for both a great time and burger in Jo’s in Rathmines.
Yesterday I stayed home. I decided, after my supervisor’s advice, to trim my thesis and send it for publishing in a journal. More work. More stress. And moving out next month… can I not stay quite for a little while?

I reorganised a few things: sent my notice to the landlady. I printed my thesis to read it out (although I haven’t got the time or strength yet to do so).
Today I started work. I confirmed my moving out. I bought utensils for my job (in certain markets one has to look professional to be thought as a professional by the rest, that’s the truth). I did some shopping and cooked a nice lunch for myself. Had a nap. Got invites I had to decline. I contacted people I hadn't seen in ages. And organised meetings for theatre projects. Met Ana for dinner. Tomorrow and Friday more work meetings, more theatre, more friends to meet. And so Saturday.

And the rest of my next 6 weeks are quite booked already, not only in terms of work.. my birthday… Lalita is coming over on Wednesday... the Fringe is now in town and the Theatre Festival is coming straight afterwards... then a trip to Paris with Aya... maybe a trip somewhere (Sardenya?) with someone I cannot name ;)
Moving out... Visiting my family in Spain...

Above my buzzing life in this city, I realise that during my trip home I kept saying something quite unfair about those in Ireland who are here for me, who are my friends: if I feel lonely it might not be they are not there but it might more be that in a long time I had no time for anyone.

*

September 11th

2007-09-11T15:25:00.000+01:00

Since Al Qaeda’s attack in New York in 2001, it goes without saying this date has a new significance worldwide. At the time, I had only started working in Siemens as a web designer when it happened. I remember the head of the department bringing a TV in, so we could all see what was going on. It took me more than a minute to understand that the images I was seeing were real, although I was not surprised: if you attack a country the least you can expect is that they are going to attack back. And it's always civilians who pay the fucking price.

Before those events, September 11th had been for me a Catalan celebration, la Diada as we call it. The celebration of Catalunya’s never achieved independence. Paradoxes.

But since last year, 2006, September 11th has a new significance for me.
The day we started the M.A.
It’s hard to believe that today it’s a year I walked down Smurfit Campus in Blackrock to meet those who were going to be my classmates and my teachers.
I recall the excitement I felt. I worked very hard on my application to get in, as it is a very competitive postgraduate course, with only ten places per year in the Directing strand.
I had been suffering all summer waiting for a letter that arrived only by mid August. By late July I had been confirmed on the phone I was in, but only when I had the printed letter in my hands I was able to breath, to believe it was really happening.
And walking down the aisle surrounded by trees, I was full of anticipation, half aware that it was only the beginning of a very hard year.
After three or four weeks I had a meeting with my mentor, telling her I felt incapable of completing the programme.
One of the hardest things was the issue of language. Reading academics in Spanish is hard enough, no matter in English.
The first few weeks in some lectures I often did not have a clue what they were talking about, and not because I didn't know anything about the subject or hadn't done my homework, but because I did not understand some vocabulary and especially some of my lecturer's accents.
It was highly frustrating for a perfectionist like me. And frustration is not always productive, no matter what they say.
It can knock you down.
And it knocked me down many times. Only God knows (and some of my classmates, friends and mother) how much it took out of me to keep going; how difficult it was for me to break the wall through, not to give up.
Because after some of those lectures I really felt like giving up.

Then, there were other issues, especially that of money, as since it was a full time programme I had to turn down jobs, particularly my greatest achievement after five years: teaching in University. It was a tough decision to make. But it had to be done.
Financially, without my mother’s help I could have never coped. Gracias mamá.

A year later I definitely think it was worth it, although I am still recovering from the stress and the effort; it will take another while until I really am back on track.
I know I am not the only one.
It’s probably been the hardest and most challenging year of my life. Undeniably, I have gone through harsh experiences in life, but of different nature.

But today, a year later, I feel I have achieved something. I am starting to even allow myself to be proud of what I’ve done. I feel more confident since I have learnt so much, and I’m willing to start creating projects in theatre, which is what I am at. Doors are there to be opened and I am going to try my best.
We are.
Because one of the most positive aspects it’s been to meet those excellent classmates without whom I would not have got through. Not a chance.
We have created a bond that lies in our knowing how hard we have worked and how important it has been to have each other’s support. I have made great friends. And I am grateful to have been part of that particular class with those particular people. Any other year it would have been a different case. Chance.
And many know that throughout the previous four years studying theatre I had unpleasant experiences with classmates, basically because they were 12 years younger and had a very different approach to theatre. They wanted to be stars. I wanted to learn as much as I could to get in the MA and be where I am now.

But it was worth it. Not only I have accomplished a goal, but I have become part of a group of some of the nicest people I have ever met. Thanks guys for accepting me as I am and making room for the morning grumpy Spaniard, making me feel part of it from the very beginning.
Now we have new challenges ahead.

And we will all remember September 11th 2006 as something of a date in our lives.

*

VOID

2007-09-05T00:51:00.001+01:00

Postpartum depression metaphorically applied.

I remember the last week as full of shadows. Lack of sleep. Eyes in front of the computer for 16 hours a day at least. A hiss increasingly taking over lucidity; and one goal in mind: to finish.
Just that.
No more time to analyse, think or reflect. Just do it and get over it. Survive.
I remember the very last day as a running clock, speeding up, with no piety.

And, at last, the binders.
Last minute decisions. Spelling mistakes. Panic attacks.
And finally meeting up with all my classmates for a great dinner and lots of wine. We were the only ones able to understand each other’s state. And it was something of a state.
We had given birth.

The adrenaline generated by stress had taken over all of us. A strange mix of euphoria, tiredness, bewilderment, confusion and exhaustion.
And an indescribable high.
Like when a performer finishes a show.
To wind down takes a while.

I had a flight the next morning at 6 am. Again, I only got 2 hours sleep and dragged myself from bed when the cab rang me from outside my place. Still drunk, didn’t want to take a coffee in case I could go back to sleep on the plane. The airport was incredibly full for that time of the day. Holidaymakers in the worst summer registered in Ireland since 1914: 50 days in a row of solid rain.
I was not the only one looking scruffy, hangover and with dark circles under my eyes. But surely I was the only one who could feel my brain sizzling away, trying to keep focus on the essentials: don’t loose your passport, your boarding card, or your wallet. Then you’ll be fine.

The clock was now running with impious slowness.
I refused again to take a coffee in case I could sleep. I ambled around the terminal, trying to keep myself awake.
And then, all of a sudden, it invaded me.
I had to run to the toilette.
An unexpected physical emergency: tears.

It’s curious that we need to hide them in toilettes, as if they were shit or urine.

I couldn’t stop crying and I tried to suffocate the increasing sobbing. I felt such tiredness, such sadness and such void, that I could not even think of anything to calm me down. I could just let them out.

The past few months had taken so much out of me. Intellectually, emotionally, psychologically..

And now it was all gone.
The void.
That’s how it’s called when actors, after having work for weeks on a character - getting into it, preparing it, rehearsing it and performing it- face the fact that it’s finished, it’s gone forever, they will never live, they will never be, that character again.
Postpartum depression.

So there I was, in Dublin airport on my way to Madrid, snivelling away. I pulled myself together when the last calls for my flight were announced and got on the plane. I couldn’t sleep. Obviously.

The void had seized me. I closed my eyes and stayed with that feeling during the flight, tears coming down my cheeks, hidden behind my oversized sunglasses.

I felt other voids.
Of those who had let me down.
Of those who had played with my strength.
The void left after the powerlessness felt over life's contingency. Powerless to change other people’s lives, circumstances and decisions that were affecting me without being my choice or having even looked for them. I was just a receiver of other's inexplicable behaviour. I had been caught in a spin I did not choose.

The void felt before life and its ineffability. Chance.

And all that strength to keep going. Just to keep going.
And what for? And where to? And why?
Just keep going accepting there is no answer. Nothing else to be done.

Void.

*

Finished! | Se Acabó!

2007-08-14T16:54:00.000+01:00

I thought this moment would never come. But.. I got there. It's done! It's finished! Below, list of acknowledgements.

________

Pensaba que este momento nunca iba a llegar. Pero.. lo hice. Se acabó! Acabé.
A continuación podéis ver la lista de agradecimientos.

*

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to:

Eamonn Jordan, Suzanne Colleary, Neil Pearson, John Meany and Sheila O’Reilly for their constant support throughout the year.

Caroline McSweeney, Katrine Boegh Nielsen, Ditte Laumann, and Tora Balslev Jespersen for letting me be part of the process and be in that private and special place that is a rehearsal room.

Thanks to all the Drama department in UCD and the rest of my classmates for a year of learning and intelligent discussion.

And finally, more than thanks to all those who have always believed in me:

Janet, Santi, Papá y tata, y a mi familia materna.

In alphabetical order: Ana Coca, Angela Jimeno, Aya Uehara, Boris Ruge, Chris Rooney, Deirdre McDonagh, Demian Matute, Donna Niko, Eduardo Calvo, Eugene Daly, Evelyn McGrory, Javi Martín, Julio Ciganda, Lalita Bolonio, Maia Berasategui, María Vargas, Matteo Destro, Natalia Muñoz, Oscar McLennan, Patxi Bueno, Ruth Hennessy, Sergio Muñoz, Tony Kelly y Víctor Martí.

And to many other people that have helped me throughout the way.

*

DNI | ID

2007-08-13T19:49:00.003+01:00

Me acaban de pedir el DNI para comprar tabaco. A seis semanas de cumplir 35 tacazos, no me lo he podido tomar más que como uno de los mejores cumplidos recibidos en los últimos tiempos.

__________________

I just went to the shop to buy cigarettes and they asked for my ID. Being only six weeks away from turning 35, I can only take it as one of the best compliments I have been paid lately.

*

Anochecer

2007-08-13T09:28:00.000+01:00

Solo ayer me di cuenta, al mirar por la ventana, que ya anochece más temprano.

*

Absurdity

2007-08-11T16:39:00.000+01:00

' The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.
The absurd is essentially a divorce.
It is that divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints, my nostalgia for unity, this fragmented universe and the contradiction that binds them together.'

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

*

El Gran Wyoming

2007-08-03T18:04:00.000+01:00

Obviamente echo de menos muchas cosas de las tierras íberas de las que provengo. Principalmente, familia, colegas, clima y comida.
Lo que menos echo de menos es el sistema laboral español y la fuerte mentalidad fachoide.
Pero, tengo que añadir a mi lista de añoranzas al Gran Wyoming.
Recientemente, una colega me puso al tanto de que en YouTube podía acceder a algunos de los sketch más sonados de El Intermedio.
¡Menudo descubrimiento!
En estos últimos días de la etapa master, se está convirtiendo en mi única fuente de liberación y descarga. La cantidad de carcajadas diarias que me regala El Gran Wyoming no tiene precio. Gracias a todos los que se dedican a subir los sketch en YouTube.

Este hombre es un genio.

*

About Hard Work, Smiles, a Bento Box, a Massage & a Glass of Red Wine

2007-08-01T14:23:00.000+01:00

We say in Spanish "Quien siembra, recoge"; in English I think the equivalent is "You reap what you sow".
Although, I think in many occasions, unfortunately, it is not the case; or as a friend of mine usually says: life is not fair.
Just take a look at world politics, and the way so many lives are affected unfairly by them. And the way certain politicians get away with it.

Or the way certain people work very hard all their lives and get very little compensation.
Or none. Or exactly the opposite.

But sometimes after hard work you get certain reward. And it feels nice.

Still, I have a few battles left to fight in this round. But it looks like the bull is well fought so far. Of course, unpredictability is always around the corner, let's not tempt chance; and the bull might defeat me. But so far, we have established a good relationship.
Even more, it looks like, if I choose so, I could keep opening doors in the arena and fight more bulls in the academia. Not to kill them, that's not the point. Just to fight-dance with them, capoeira style, and then shake hands.
(But let's not tempt chance here either. Politics are a huge part in that area).

In any case, right now it feels nice. And I have back my smile.
The best of it: it is a smile that comes from knowing that my hard work has been fruitful.
So it does not depend on others.
It is mine. The one I've earned for myself.

So... It treated my smile:

I had my favourite affordable lunch in town: a Bento box in Yamamori (while reading an article from a theatre journal relevant to my thesis).

And then I went for a massage. (Thinking of titles, and other decisions to be made in my editing. I'm 10,000 words above of the limit!).

And then I went to find out about the binding. (I highly dislike the fact it has to be with golden letters).

And now I'm back home smoking illegal substances (ups! I mean, those illegal substances cigarettes contain and manufacturers refuse to stop using) and a nice glass of red wine. (Rioja, since my pocket cannot afford Ribera).

And after finishing this I'm going to have a loooong shower and go for a nap.

And...

wake up in a couple of hours and keep working. Hard.

And.. all of this with MY smile.

(For now)

*

Same Same But Different - III

2007-07-30T16:10:00.000+01:00

The production got great reviews except for this one. And I replied. My answer is after the review. It's also published at
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/arts/avoid-notsogreat-danes-1047114.html

Avoid not-so-great Danes by Emer O’Kelly
Sunday July 29 2007 – Sunday Independent Newspaper

"To transpose The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus of Albert Camus to the stage, and end up without any vestige of existentially heightened awareness, takes some doing. But Locus Theatre Company, in association with Teater TaTar Denmark, have achieved it with Same Same But Different at the Project in Dublin.

Apparently the piece is also "inspired" by a Lars von Trier film, but not having seen that, I can't make a judgment as to its survival at the hands of this production.

It's a physical piece performed by three women who start out miming things like painting houses and cleaning windows, then falling down dead from the plague. For ages. Then they do the "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" bit. Then they bury the dead. For ages. Then they play with water from a (presumably) tainted well. Then they visit the graves and talk to the dead. For ages. Then they panic, as well they might, as the last people left alive. Then one of them clears up and dances with the bric-a-brac of the set, for no reason one can imagine other than an impressive display of weight-lifting: three chairs, a wheelbarrow, a child's tricycle, and a bucket full of shoes (don't ask.)

There is not an iota of pain, of terror, of sense of loss. Nor is there a sign of Brechtian alienation, which might excuse the lack of them.

It plays an hour and 10 minutes, but feels endless. Dramaturgy is credited to Miriam Frandsen, who is presumably responsible for the leadenly trite dialogue. The minimal score is by Denis Clohessy. The messy direction is by Caroline McSweeney, and the performers are Katrine Boegh Nielsen, Ditte Laumann, and Tora Balslev Jespersen.

Best thing about it, if there can be said to be a best, is Marcus Costello's lighting.

From the programme acknowledgement logos, there seems to have been triple funding; from Dublin City Council, the Arts Council, and Culture Ireland, believe it or not. It's a mystery why, because it is clearly an extremely economical piece to stage, which I suppose is some kind of plus, even if evidence of cutting edge international artistic co-operation isn't remotely evident."

Response by Noelia Ruiz:

I recently attended a seminar by a well-known Irish playwright. At some point, after a participant’s question, he highlighted that in Ireland, differently to London, we do not have professional theatre critics.

Although I normally try to take generalisations with suspicion, I am afraid this particular review of Same Same But Different might be the case. It is obviously coming from a non-professional theatre critic. Furthermore, it is highly astonishing that an established newspaper publishes such an unprofessional review.

I would not enter the matter of liking or disliking the play. In the end, that is personal, subjective.
But as a professional, a theatre critic must be able to analyse with certain objectivity, make points argumentatively, do proper professional research, and acknowledge the reaction of an audience.

Emer O’Kelly obviously disliked the production. She is on her own right. But her statements are of sensationalistic personal nature, and do not build up on any serious argument in terms of proper theatrical analysis.
Even when bringing up the issue of Existentialism, she hasn’t done her proper research and falls into clichés. Aesthetically speaking, Camus, especially in The Myth of Sisyphus, supersedes Existentialism and replaces it with Absurdity. There is a slight difference in emphasis. But I would leave it to Emer O’Kelly to decide if she wants to be a real professional and do her proper research on the matter.

Also on the matter of research, if she had done it, she would know the production has received no funding from the Arts Council. If the logo is in the programme is because Projects Arts Centre is founded by the Arts Council. And the funding offered by Dublin City Council would not even pay for the props. Culture Ireland has provided funding, which compared to the funding the Arts Council gives to some companies, amounts to little (not saying that both funding from Dublin City Council and Culture Ireland is not welcome and necessary).
Also, Culture Ireland is funding the show to be staged in Denmark. And that is why in Denmark can be staged for two weeks, instead of five days like in Dublin.

I would also love to know what does Emer O'Kelly mean by “cutting edge international artistic co-operation”, which the production, according to her, also fails to be.
And I wonder why international artistic co-operation should be cutting edge, which is what seems to be implied in her statement.

More outrageous is even the title of her review, “Avoid not-so-great Danes”. Substitute the word “Danes” for any other nationality or ethnicity and create racist uproar.
A professional journalist or critic has an ethical responsibility towards thousands of readers, so should know better.

Finally, the review is not only an insult to professional theatre criticism, especially because of its language and tone. But it is also an insult to audiences that enjoyed the show, which were many.
What is she calling us all with such a review?
In that sense, I think Emer O’Kelly owes an apology to the public.

Noelia Ruiz

Sprint Final | Last Sprint

2007-07-29T11:23:00.001+01:00

Creo que es un fenómeno conocido el que, cuando los corredores de una marathon están a punto de alcanzar la meta, sienten que les fallan las fuerzas. En Londres (y quizás en todas las marathones) lo llaman 'la pared', los corredores se dan un golpe contra ella y la única manera de vencerla es atravesarla.

Me quedan dos semanas para alcanzar la meta y mucho por hacer. Hay momentos en los que siento que me quedo sin fuerzas, como ayer.
Como en muchos momentos durante las últimas semanas, en las que distracciones inesperadas han venido a alterar mi capacidad de concentración, teniendo que librar varios combates al mismo tiempo, pero sobre todo el de forzarme a sentarme ante el ordenador, ante los libros, en este campo de batalla que tengo montado en casa.

Sin el soporte de mis más queridos compañeros de clase y amigos, no hubiera sido posible. Y de mi madre.
Espero que no me fallen las fuerzas en este último sprint. Espero atravesar la pared. Lo necesito. Y tengo que.

_______________________

I think it's a common phenomenon when marathon runners are about to reach the end and they feel they cannot carry on. In London (and perhaps in all marathons) this is known as 'the wall'. Runners hit the wall and the only way is to get through it, then they are able to finish.

Two weeks to go and reach my goal, and lots to do. There are moments when I feel I cannot carry on, moments when I feel I'm hitting the wall. Especially during the past few weeks, in which many unexpected distractions have come to alter my ability to concentrate, to focus. I had to fight several enemies at the same time, especially when forcing myself to sit in front of the computer, before books, in this battlefield I have set up at home.

It wouldn't have been possible without my dearest classmates and friends' support. And my mother's.
I hope I'll be able to carry on in this last sprint. I hope I'll get through the wall. I need to. I have to.

*

Waves

2007-07-28T11:47:00.000+01:00

Waves by Blancmange in a version by Nouvelle Vague

Waves - and then goodbye
I live in a wafer thin dream.
I - I can't cry
you know the time
time's not kind.
But I remember the
way we were
the slow
slow sad love.
I wonder
do you miss my love
I know you can't

It's just a wave
passing over me.
What are these waves
they're coming over me
it must be my destiny.
Waves
goodbye - goodbye - goodbye.
What are these waves
they're coming over me
it must be my destiny.

*

miracles - II

2007-07-25T13:51:00.000+01:00

It seems that miracles can last for a very short time.
Well, at least I had my smile back for a couple of days.
I guess it's better than nothing, I mean, than not having had it at all.

*

miracles

2007-07-24T18:06:00.000+01:00

I was recently told a story, which was in Irish newspapers the past month. A man with severe diabetes had an appointment in hospital to get one of his legs amputated. Not nice.
The day before the appointment he went to a famous shrine to pray. Next day, when the nurse was taking off the bandages in order to prepare everything for surgery, she found that the leg had healed.
She called the doctors who, astonished, publicly acknowledged the issue as a miracle. An off it went on to the press.
Obviously, they all believed it was the visit to the shrine that made it. And I am no one to discuss faith. Especially if it has good effects.

I have recently experimented a little miracle in my life. Obviously, nothing of the sort. But still. Life sometimes seems to give us a hand when we make the right choices.
Or is it just me trying to find a teleological explanation to everything?
Perhaps.

Still, I have my little miracle to make me smile.

*

Hay que joderse | Shit happens

2007-07-17T10:45:00.000+01:00

Como decía una antigua amiga mía, en esta vida hay que joderse.
Creo que venía de un gag de Faemino y Cansado.

Y, así es. A veces, hay que joderse.

A veces hay que hacer lo correcto, aunque hiera.
Aceptar las cosas como son; la vida que corre por delante y por detrás nuestro.

Joderse y punto. Y tirar p'alante.

Aunque sólo sea por conservar el respeto por uno mismo.

Y, precisamente por eso, uno mismo, en estos casos, es el peor enemigo.

Batallas duras de librar, las internas.

________________________

Shit happens. Life, at times, sucks.

Sometimes we have to do the right thing. Even if it hurts.
Accept things as they are. Life runs before and after us.

When shit happens, we have to do the right thing and keep going.
Even if only to keep some respect for one self.

And, precisely, that's why in these cases, oneself is one's worst enemy.

Tough battles to fight over, the inner ones.

*

Quitarse el sombrero [extendido]

2007-07-15T23:18:00.000+01:00

Nunca me ha gustado demasiado la expresión, 'Quitarse el sombrero'.

Quizás porque, personalmente, la asocio con un sistema jerarquizado, lleno de códigos y símbolos que realzan la supremacía de unos sobre otros.
El gesto del soldado ante el superior. El gesto del esclavo ante el amo. El gesto del lameculos ante el objeto de su interés.
De nuevo, es una asociación puramente personal, que me lleva a visualizar un determinado tipo de comportamiento.

El gesto de quitarse el sombrero parece, bajo mi punto de vista, conllevar trampas tras él.
No me parece sincero en esencia, sino un gesto que asocio en origen a códigos nacidos de los sistemas que yo considero equivocados. Por supuesto, todos los gestos derivan de un código adquirido y convenido. Pero en este caso, el código implícito contiene, para mí, demasiadas implicaciones, que en determinados casos pueden ser equívocas, es decir, esconder diferentes intenciones.

En cierto modo, me parece un gesto falso.
Obviamente, no tiene por qué serlo. Si la intención no lo es.
Pero aún así, en mi inconsciente lo asocio a ese origen en el que unos se arrodillan ante otros.

También sé que la expresión lingüística intenta ir más allá de ello. No pretendo establecer con esto una teoría universal acerca del gesto de quitarse el sombrero.
Es puramente subjetivo. Y por eso precisamente escribo aquí, para decir lo que yo pienso, desvarío o despienso. Lo llaman libertad de expresión.
Así pues, me expreso.

Volviendo al gesto.
En teatro se buscan esencias, y, especialmente, en teatro físico la esencia del gesto es fundamental.
Podemos desmitificar un gesto precisamente porque está codificado, manipularlo porque ya está manipulado, convenido. Asociado. Intentamos captar su complejidad, expresarla, a través de su esencia. Desfamiliarizarla. Brecht es un buen ejemplo. Gestus.

Con cambiar el tempo de un movimiento podemos expresar cosas completamente distintas. Una vez hemos encontrado la esencia de ese gesto y, muchas veces, lo que significa, de fondo, en una cultura.
De dónde procede. Por qué. Cómo. Su trascendencia en espacio y tiempo.
Siempre se empieza por ahí en teatro. Se busca a fondo, se destripa todo y se extrae.
Por ello el deconstructivismo ha sido una de las filosofías más influyentes en el escenario.
Así, el resultado es siempre subjetivo, en el sentido más postestructuralista, que viene a decir que cada uno entiende lo que quiere como buenamente puede.

En la realización de un proyecto, se dan una combinación de subjetividades: la del director, escenógrafo y compositor si viene al caso. La de cada actor con su personaje, la de cada actor con los demás actores, individualmente a la vez que como grupo. La de esos personajes que interpretan los actores. La del director y los actores/personajes. La del escenario y la de cada espectador que se encuentre entre el público.
Múltiples subjetividades en un mismo espacio formando parte de un único evento.

Peter Brook llama 'deadly theatre', teatro moribundo al teatro falso. No por comercial, sino por consolidar gestos como el de quitarse el sombrero.
Por eso me gusta él y también su teatro. En una entrevista reciente dijo: "El misterio que me interesa es el hombre." Se le pueden reprochar algunos experimentos interculturales, pero sin olvidar el hecho de que ha hecho muchísimo porque en Occidente haya un teatro sincero. Con sus contradicciones.

Lo falso no tiene más esencia que su falsedad.
La pantomima usa lo falso para crear lo grotesco. Esperpento.

Pero hay gestos que no pueden manipularse: los sinceros.

Volviendo al sombrero, si alguien es digno de mi admiración y quiero realmente expresársela, sencillamente me acerco y le doy la mano. Un apretón de manos. De persona a persona. No de cargo a cargo, de esclavo a amo. Sino de tú a tú.

El estrecharle la mano a alguien, por implicar un contacto físico, es directo.
Un tú a tú sin un usted jerarquizado de por medio. En ese contacto podemos percibir lo que se le escapa a la palabra, o al gesto mediatizado.
Por supuesto, hay estrechones de manos que son pura fórmula. Especialmente los políticos. Y son manipulables. Y quizás su origen esté asociado con el pacto. Comercial, de paz, de alianza.. No siempre ideal. Pero quizás más de igual a igual. Con todas las complejidades que las relaciones de poder conllevan.

Aún así, cuando individualmente experimentamos contacto físico, nuestro cuerpo realiza su propia lectura, nos habla por otras vías que no son las estrictas del pensamiento. La sola presencia puede llegar a tener ese poder. De ahí que en teatro contemporáneo, sea teatro físico o danza teatro, aboga más por la fisicalidad, la presencia, el movimiento, que la pura declamación de textos.

Recuerdo el pasado Festival Internacional de Teatro aquí en Dublín. El director berlinés Thomas Ostermeier dio una conferencia. ¿Qué puedo decir? Creo que es suficiente destacar que pensé que si algún día me casaba con alguien tenía que ser con él :) Mente privilegiada. Políticamente activo, sin miedo a decir lo que piensa con una simpatía entre reservada e irónica. Un gran sentido del humor, inteligente por supuesto. Y un genio del escenario.
Y, también, en parte por todo ello, muy atractivo.
Y, sobre todo, algo que realmente admiro, carente de toda pretensión.
Como dicen los anglosajones, one among a million.

Teníamos entradas para ir a ver su producción al día siguiente. Es lo mejor que he visto en teatro convencional.

Así que, al acabar la conferencia, y sin haber visto su producción todavía, me dirigí a él, le estreché la mano y le dije: 'that was very enjoyable, thank you.'
Tal fue la admiración que me causó.
Y me fui pitando.
Más que nada porque son cosas que no suelo hacer casi nunca y cuando las hago me siento bastante ridícula.
La gente, periodistas, organizadores y demás VIP's, me miraba algo extrañada, como '¿Y esta quién es?' :)

En cualquier caso, prefiero el estrecharle la mano a alguien al gesto de quitarse el sombrero.

¿Qué le hubiera parecido a Ostermeier si me hubiera quitado mi gorra de pana ante él?
Quizás hubiera pensado: 'Esta chica se dedica a la pantomima'. Lo cual es oblicuamente cierto.

Creo que estrecharle la mano fue mejor idea.
Es más cálido.
Y sincero.
Tú a tú.

*

Same Same But Different - Dos

2007-07-15T00:18:00.000+01:00

So here comes a nice story about how I came to do theatre.

Five years ago I was at a crossroads. I had broken up with the someone I came here with, after living together for almost two years. A sort of divorce. Nasty one.

I had finished my project as a web designer in Siemens, and it was closer to summer time, so teaching jobs had terminated for a few months.
My Cv was rejected either for being over-qualified or under-qualified. Whatever way, I was in no man's land.
Paradoxically, everybody praised my CV but nobody gave me a job.

Hence, I, resentfully, went on the dole.
I spent four months going mad, celebrating life every night, sleeping out more than in, trying out many things I hadn't before. I became the dancer I always wanted to be. In the most strict sense. Dance to good music. I think Mr. Rooney is quite responsible for that. (Seriously, thanks for playing music I love to dance to.)

But then, it came the moment to stop and think. All the drugs came down at once.
And I was at a loss. The place I had moved to since my "divorce", sharing with four other people, was becoming a nightmare and I wanted to move out.
I was having so many affairs I was an emotional wreck.

I considered going back home. But, what the hell for? Shitty jobs? I felt I had escaped many times before, but this was the one it was stupid to escape from.
Survival is easier in these lands.

But, yet, I resisted somehow going back to an office and teaching jobs were not enough to pay the rent.

So, someone told me about courses you were entitled to take after being for a certain amount of time on the dole. After doing some research, and since I had done web design, a multimedia course sounded interesting enough, creative, and with career perspectives, so I applied for a few.
But I was late for deadlines.
Only one place called me for an interview.
Ringsend.
Quite Tolkien.

A few days before the interview, I told a friend of mine about it. She got very excited when she found out about the institution that was running the course, because they were running also a theatre course she wanted to do, but practical reasons were on her way. She said, almost jealous, "I wish I was in your position, I'd love to do it".
I told her I had to think about my career and didn't have time to waste doing theatre.
As we say in Spanish: no se puede hablar. I've been eating back my own words since.

As it goes, I went to the interview for the multimedia course and, once there, they seemed quite confused about my presence.
They saw me to a waiting room and, there, I waited.

After a while, trying to kill time lightly -I mean, it's not the sort of situation where you are going to start reading a book, and there were no newspapers or magazines around- I started flicking through the school leaflets.
And there was the theatre course information. Foundation year in Theatre Studies.
And I found myself quite interested in the subjects, especially in contemporary dance, theatre history, AND writing for performance.

After another while, someone came in and told me that there were no interviews scheduled for that day and they were trying to find out about 'me'.
So, I kept reading the theatre course leaflet.

In the end, another third person came in and apologised for wasting my time. Apparently, the course in multimedia had been cancelled and they had tried to contact me to tell me so, without success, of course.
The day before the interview, I was still in London taking exams with the Spanish Open University. Apparently they called me several times that day. I never knew.
Chance.

So there I was, sitting in a waiting room for an interview that was not going to happen.

And then, out of an impulse, I asked: 'and what about this theatre course?' pointing to the leaflet in my hand.
He said he wasn't sure, but, as far as he knew, auditions were taking place until Friday. It was a Wednesday. So he took my number to give it to the director of the course.
I left.

On the way to the bus stop I felt disappointed about the media course. I was thinking of my career, of course.

I got on the bus laughing at myself thinking about me doing "theatre". What I needed to do was to pull myself together!

And then, still on the bus, I got a phone call. It was the director of the course, Caroline, inviting me to attend an interview.
It was so out of the blue, so quick, that I found myself agreeing to it. Still, with a bit of resistance, I only agreed for an interview, not for an audition.
The next day I was again on the same bus I had not taken ever before, but that I would spent the next 10 months jumping on.

I was absolutely honest to Caroline: I don't know if I want to do this. I'm just lost. I was really applying for the multimedia course.

Of course, I always had an interest in theatre, initially more developed from literature than from actual performances. My years in Madrid could not be told without Lalita (and by extension her family). Student in RESAD (Royal Academy of Dramatics Arts) we met in a tangential way and became the great friends we still are (despite our tempers! She is finally coming to Ireland for my birthday. Esa va por ti, mi niña.)
Lalita opened a fantastic world for me. I remember how many nights we spent talking about theatre and philosophy (which are twins).
She always had free tickets to go to the National Concert Hall, to plays, to events. But then, I was still focused on my career.
Back in those times in Madrid, I had a "good job", lived on my own in a duplex in the heart of the city, had my car (a shitty one though).. still, I wanted to go abroad, I felt something else was missing. I attended all sort of courses : creative writing, radio broadcasting.. In fact that's how I met Lalita, when I was collaborating in a cultural radio program. And her influence made me think a couple of times in taking a theatre course, like some sort of hobby you do three hours a week.

But theatre is not something you can take as a hobby. I mean, you can. But you have to engage with it fully to understand it. It sounds cliché, I know. What I mean is that theatre, like any other art, absorbs the artist.

And that's what Caroline tried to convey to me during our interview. She picked on my creative side, on my desire to leave behind corporate business and find my own voice. So she said: 'Give it a go and see what's about, that's why it's called foundation year, to give you a flavour of what's theatre about.'

The next day, again on the same bus I had never got on before, I was back for auditions. It goes without saying I was scared. She made it very easy for me. She saw all that fear, which is so usual. Auditions are a scary shit.
I told her during the interview I was running at the time a cultural radio-program in community radio Anna Livia Dublin. So she set the improvisation like if it was a TV program and I was the interviewer. Maybe she didn't do on purpose, I never asked her, but I think she did to give me confidence.

After the audition I was utterly exhausted. Again, it might sound cliché, but I think now, from the distance, that something was awaken.
My gipsy side? Well, whatever was always there and made me move from city to city, country to country, in search of something else I quite didn't know what it was.

Writing had always been my dream but practicalities had been the priority, especially for someone who left home quite early and had to pay bills.
I mean, I never worked in corporate business because I liked it. And I didn't sacrificed all those years in the open university doing a degree in philosophy to become the chairman of google.

Going to the point, obviously I got a place. The audition took place on a Friday and I found myself all weekend nervous about a phone call meant to be on Monday.
And when it came, I was truly excited.

Honestly, it was fucking hard at the beginning.
I was about giving up many times. But something kept me in there, despite the bunch of freaks I had by classmates. It was Caroline's inspiration.

She once told me that, before she read my journal (it was part of our assessment to write a learning journal weekly which they read at the end of the semester), she thought she had made a mistake with me.
I sat there every day for three months and I never moved from my chair. Painful.
Teachers tried to encourage me in all sorts of ways. But there was no way.
Stubborn as a gipsy like me can be.
I never went on stage.

So many times I wanted to leave. But I didn't. Because one part of me didn't want to. I was learning something different.

I have always thought somehow out of the box, but here I was learning how to look differently at the world.

On stage you can create your world, or reflect on it, or make something meaningful.

So, after the journal, my teachers realised that rather than giving me the option they had to fight my resistance by forcing me to go on stage. And they did. Especially Caroline. She pushed me bloody hard. To my limits.
I'm telling you, it was not easy.
I fought back. But I had no choice.

I could go on and on about the many obstacles I had to deal with at that time, but it would make no difference.

I think that if things hadn't happened so quickly, if I had got the time to think twice about it, I would not have done it.
I remember my friends being surprised when I told them. 'A theatre course? Where is that coming from now?' I think some of them thought I had lost it completely.
I guess my family was the least surprised, knowing me as they do, but still, quite worried. I was about turning thirty.. time to settle down not to start theatre courses! In fact, the first day of the course was my thirtieth birthday. Symbolic?

By the end of that Foundation year I was the lead character in the final show.
I was accepted in another theatre school to take a diploma, and I was part of the Dublin Fringe Festival with a piece I wrote as part of the subject of Writing for Performance. Thanks Oscar McLennan, another critical point of reference in this path. He taught me how to create my own work, to combine my passion, writing, and performance.

I think the fact that I never wanted to be an actress but rather to become a drama teacher and, maybe, to direct, gave me a different focus than that of the rest of my classmates, most of them younger and with big dreams of becoming stars.

So, despite all the difficulties I thought: Ok , this is something that engages me fully. I don't know where it leads, but it's better than corporate business.

For now.

It has been bloody hard at times. Many difficulties, tears, disappointments, financial problems.. five years working my ass off, attending college full time and working every day afterwards. Leaving home at 9 in the morning and going back sometimes at 11 at night. Thank god I love my job. When many times friends have told me: 'I don't know how you do it, I couldn't', the only answer was that, I love it. It engages me.

I still don't know where it leads, maybe I have to go back eventually to an office, especially if the pressure of stability makes me go for a mortgage. Permanent teaching jobs are hard to get.
But if so, I know I can always create, make theatre.

For now, here I am finishing my Masters, and writing my thesis about Caroline's last devised show. It's been good timing and it feels right to do so, like closing a circle with gratitude.

Thanks Caroline for offering me a place in Ringsend.

The future, as usual, remains unknown.
I'm considering a PhD, though.

*

Same Same But Different

2007-07-14T20:42:00.002+01:00

So here goes the press release for the devised physical theatre show I'm observing as practical case in my thesis. I helped out with the writing and I'm even a testimonial of it! ;) and guess the Camusian input?

Same Same But Different
Project Arts Centre
25th - 28th July - 8pm

A plague has spread across the planet. In the last surviving town, we see three people survive this epidemic of death. What do they do to cope in a society that is now essentially a graveyard ? How do they each keep the memories alive of those they have lost?? Who will be the toughest? Which one of them has what it takes to be the sole survivor and be the last person on the planet?

Same, Same But Different is a comically absurd and deeply poignant physical theatre production brought to you by Locus Theatre Company in association with Teater Ta Tar Denmark. It looks at how these three characters cope with both grief and survival instinct, the loss of those around them and the drive to win the challenge of a lifetime and live out the ultimate fantasy: If I was the last person on the planet…

Locus Theatre Company, established by director Caroline McSweeney in 1994 has a history of creating exciting and often surreally comic devised works. Under McSweeney, Locus actively seeks collaborations across art-forms and in forging international links. McSweeney is Devising Tutor in the National State Teaterskol in Copenhagen and is very much sought after in Denmark, Norway, Iceland , Finland and in her chosen field of Devising and Viewpoints.

Same, Same But Different is a collaboration between three physical theatre performers from Denmark and will take place in Dublin and Copenhagen. This unique and stunning production with it's visceral phyicality and haunting imagery is inspired by Albert Camus' The Plague, the Sisyphus Myth and the films of Lars Von Trier. Directed by Caroline McSweeney. Performed by Ditte Laumann, Katrine Boegh Nielsen, Tora Balslev Jespersen. Set/lighting by Marcus Costello and music by Denis Clohessy.

For further information & images please contact Kerry Mulligan @ 087-986-9651 or by email, gracie8282@gmail.com

Some testimonials on Same Same But Different:

"What struck me about the piece only seconds into it was that I was sitting forward on my seat, the performers had an immediacy and/or presence in their physical opening. The piece was immediately distinctive and exciting as a result of this presence or more specifically how they physically responded and listened to each other." – Mary Kelly, Actor/Writer

"The nature of this piece facilitates a spontaneity that is mesmerising." – Noni Stapleton, Actor

"Comic and clownish moments collide seamlessly with the tragic capturing of emotion." – Marie Kelly, Casting Director, Abbey Theatre

"Having seen some of Caroline’s excellent work over the last number of years, this is more impressive again, assisted by the enviable talent of the performers at her disposal." -Eamonn Jordan, Theatre Lecturer/Critic

"It was deep and meaningful, combining the elements one often associates with good writing: irony, drama, humour, sadness, hope, gaiety... Watching it was incredibly refreshing and one got the feeling it was what theatre is all about or should be all about. " – Noelia Ruiz, Actor/Director

http://www.project.ie/cgi-bin/eventdetail.pl?id=600

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The Harder Ships of the World

2007-07-13T17:41:00.000+01:00

I'm going to take it as part of the process of writing my thesis. I mean, some days you do lots, especially when deadlines approach, and some days you do absolutely nothing.
Regardless, I spent my days at home, if only to feel less poignancy. So, as I cannot move my ass and go out dancing, I waste all those hours I should spend typing chapters (I mean, one needs a break, obviously, but I seem to take extremely long breaks) just writing nonsense in this blog and listening to music. Amazing for someone who barely listens to music at all.
Probably because I'm seldom here, at home, during the academic year. And I don't do ipods.

Still, I'm a fan of silence.

Nevertheless, I'm lately filling my solitary existence with the company of books, journals, computer(S), blogging, and a songwriter I have come to discover recently, Keren Ann.
Sort of darky and velvety. Israeli born, Dutch-Javanese mother and Russian-Israeli father, lived in Paris since she was eleven and now lives in New York. Interesting mix.

Nouvelle Vague's versions of Depeche Mode, Tuxedomoon, PIL, New Order, and many other, are also great company. Hypnotic. I saw them recently in Dublin and the performance of those women is awesome, any man would enjoy it ;) Sexy in a very French, sensual way.

Lower in the scale, but very playful is Candie Payne 60's style.

And then my usual mixture of different music: Matthew Herbert, EA, Bach, Jazz, David Gray.. another discovery, through a friend's Myspace has been Murcof and his album Utopia. If you like electronica listen to Ultimatum.

The odd time I pick The Book of Solitude by Paul Auster. But reading something that is not purely academic makes me feel guilty. So I listen to music or type entries here. Ironic, isn't it? The nature of guilt.

But my favourite at the moment is Keren Ann. It's hard to say which is my favourite song from her album named after her. It's All a Lie, It Ain't no Crime, Between the Flatland and the Caspian Sea. Perhaps, The Harder Ships of the World:

"We sail the harder ships of the world to the greater grieves of the land.. and we get closer to nowhere."

A grandes males, grandes remedios.

*

Foolish

2007-07-12T17:48:00.000+01:00

Intellectual intelligence does not prevent anyone from being foolish.
In fact, many people with not an incredible intellectual ability are capable of the most intelligent actions.
There are many types of intelligence. I envy people who have that sort of calm approach to life, an intelligence that lies in a deeper level of understanding.
I admire people who know how and when take the right step, forward or backwards.

We all have our moments, of course.

In a strict sense, our personalities play a huge part of the game within the unpredictability of life. Some of us are more impulsive, visceral.
Others just know how to take it easy.

I have learnt many things from the Irish: to be more laid back and less judgemental. To laugh at myself. To make mistakes and don't over punish myself.
That's what has kept me in this country for almost eight years: the constant opportunity to learn.
Not that I behave like it night and day.
Culture adds to personality.

But I still have to learn from the Irish how to take it easy, which is of great help to avoid being foolish and fooled.

*

Failure

2007-07-12T15:38:00.000+01:00

"It is important that the most terrible thing that can happen, the most important thing we all have, which is awful when it gets taken away, is our right to fail and our necessity to fail. If that is taken away then we are not free anymore."
Anthony Shrubsall

"Celui qui invente le langage, ce n'est pas moi" Artaud
"Artaud is talking about written language here. And saying that its preexistent forms condition the everyday persona, which can only take them on reluctantly and which in so doing gets the feeling that it is somehow losing touch with the real 'me'. Language in this sense is the property of others, it defines you in spite of yourself, it says what you don't want it to. Beckett knows all about this. And so does Lecoq."
Ralph Yarrow

*

MAfalDuki MADfalduki

2007-07-11T17:59:00.001+01:00

I think sometimes my gipsy genes like to play their own way

*

Yoga Trips

2007-07-10T11:51:00.000+01:00

They are becoming very fashionable. Nothing against Yoga and trips as such. On the contrary.
But one should consider the Western tenets behind these things.

In intercultural theatre discourse, there is a breaking away from the rationalist forms of theatre at the beginning of the 20th century in search for the primitive, the ritual, the myth, "the therapeutic" as Marranca calls it. Universal Phenomenological embodiment. Grotowski, Barba, Brook, Schechner.
Edward Said called it "Orientalism". Within the context of post-imperialism, Intercultural discourse is no other than the ideology of globalisation.
As Rustom Bharucha points out, if Imperialism appropriated forms and traditions from other cultures blatantly, Post-Imperialism tries to approach the issue more ethically, but as it is in contemporary politics, only in appearance, using terms like "exchange", "barter", etc., that have the same meaning as "democracy". Ask Chomsky.

It's a western call, purely ethnocentric. Universality as we understand it. Not as "they", "the Other" might understand it. Especially taking in account who is in power, i.e., who makes the decisions, who decides when and how those "exchanges" take place.
It is not we should not attempt to understand "the Other", but a different thing is to make business with their traditions and rooted sense of culture.

Take for example the case of Yoga. "Yoga is a group of ancient spiritual practices originating in India, intimately connected to the religious beliefs and practices of the Dharmic religions. In the West followers of yoga have taken a less spiritual approach and focusing more on the physical part of it that is stretching and breathing. While Yoga is a religion to many, most practitioners in the west separate yoga from its spiritual goal, seeing yoga strictly as an exercise/fitness regimen, or an overall program of keeping physical and emotional wellbeing." (Wikipedia).

A paradigmatic case in the USA is Geshe Michael Roach, who has openly contradicted the principles of Yoga and has been made publicly persona non-grata by the Dalai Lama's Office. (Visit http://www.diamond-cutter.org/ for more info)

Moreover, the principles of Yoga cannot be sold but taught. It's non profitable:

"Yoga piracy refers to the practice of claiming patents and/or copyrights on yoga postures and techniques found in ancient treatises originating within India by persons residing in foreign countries, often of other nationalities. The ongoing debate centers around those who profit by creating legally proprietary systems of yoga in countries other than India using information generally felt by Indians to be within the public domain. Cases of Yoga Piracy often center around fitness instructors of non-Indian origin who claim patents and copyrights on asanas (yoga poses), pranayama techniques and sequences, and ayurvedic medicine in their home countries, the most notable example being the case of Bikram Yoga in the United States. This has become a lucrative international industry, with some estimates for the yoga fitness industry in the United States as high as $3 billion annually.

In response, the Government of India has initiated the documentation of 1,500 yoga asana or postures - from the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to present times - and is storing them in the Digital Traditional Knowledge Library to be made available to patent offices worldwide." (Wikipedia)

Again, nothing against Yoga trips, but it is clear who is making money out of it.
the Usual Suspects.

*

Back | De vuelta

2007-07-09T11:59:00.000+01:00

Back in Dublin.
It rains.

Unpacking.
Unleashing.

The familiar noise of the washing machine.
The familiar smell of home.
My morning coffee.

Pay the rent.

____________________

De vuelta en Dublín.
Llueve.

Deshago la maleta.
Desato.

El sonido familiar de la lavadora.
El familiar olor de mi casa.
Mi café matutino.

Paga el alquiler.

"In a Manner of speaking
I just want to say
That I could never forget the way
You told me everything
By saying nothing
In a manner of speaking
I don't understand
How love in silence becomes reprimand
But the way that I feel about you
Is beyond words.
O give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me nothing
O give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me everything.
In a manner of speaking
Semantics won't do
In this life that we live,
we live, we only make do
And the way that we feel
Might have to be sacrificed.
So in a manner of speaking
I just want to say
That just like you I should find a way
To tell you everything
By saying nothing.
O give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me nothing
O give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me everything."

"In a manner of speaking" Nouvelle Vague version of the song by Tuxedomoon

*

Copenhaguen

2007-07-08T23:01:00.000+01:00

¿Qué sucede cuando una noche un irlandés y una española se emborrachan juntos en una ciudad desconocida, Copenhague, se van a un festival de jazz donde se hacen colegas de los músicos, siguen la fiesta en otro garito, conocen a una argentina no menos ebria y a dos españoles que resultan ser del pueblo de al lado de donde proviene la españolita, úsease, Sant Cugat del Vallés?
Pues sucede que se van todos de borrachera.

A veces, la vida es así de sorprendente y divertida. Especialmente en ciudades desconocidas en las que uno está abierto a lo extraordinario, inesperado. Donde los límites se desdibujan.

Curiosamente, los más divertidos de la noche no eran los lugareños.
Hay algo intrínsecamente aburrido en estos países nórdicos.
Al menos, bajo el punto de vista de celtas, íberos y demás salvajes que nacimos en otras latitudes del mundo.

___________________________

What happens when one night an Irish guy and a Spanish woman get drunk together in an unknown city, Copenhagen, go to a jazz festival, make friends with the musicians, keep going to the next bar, and meet an Argentinian woman no less drunk, and two Spaniards that happen to be from the neighbouring town where the former Spaniard comes from, i.e., Sant Cugat del Vallès?
What happens is that they go mad.

Sometimes life is surprising and fun. Especially in unknown cities where one is open to the extraordinary, unexpected. Where boundaries blur.

Curiously, the ones having most fun were not the locals.
There is something intrinsically boring in these Nordic countries.
At least under the point of view of Celtic, Iberians and other savages born in different latitudes.

*

Sin hueso

2007-07-08T12:27:00.000+01:00

"De la vigilia al sueño
hay varias sendas, y
no todas tienen dueño,
dispón de mí.
y encárgame otro exceso,
destila la verdad,
entre coces y besos,
sin hueso mi ansiedad.
sin hueso mi ansiedad.
sin hueso mi ansiedad.

Mi castigo es tu premio,
el premio duele al final.
¿estás jugando en serio?
Ataca sin piedad.
Quiero que lo hagas preso
quiero verlo gritar!

Alíviame este peso,
ataca sin piedad.
Exprímele los sesos,
delicia y tempestad,
entre coces y besos
sin hueso mi ansiedad,
sin hueso mi ansiedad."

"Sin hueso"

Los Enemigos - Album: "Tras el último no va nadie"

*

Creativity | Creatividad

2007-07-05T19:58:00.000+01:00

"Creativity is first of all an act of destruction." Pablo Picasso

"How else can we express feelings but by entering deeply into them? How can we capture the mystery of anguish unless we become one with anguish? Shakespeare lived his life stunned by its majesty, and in his writing attempted to seize what he felt, to capture this passion in symbolic form. Lured into the intensity of living, he re-presented this intensity in language. And why? Because beauty stunned him. Because the soul can not confine such feelings." Brian Swimme

"A large part of our excessive, unnecessary manifestations come from a terror that if we are not somehow signalling all the time that we exist, we will in fact no longer be there." Peter Brook

"Art, like life, is understood through experience, not explanations."
Anne Bogart

"Fascist art glorifies surrender and exalts mindlessness." Susan Sontag

"The only possible development (for an artist) is in the sense of depth. The artistic tendency is not expansive, but a contraction. And art is the apotheosis of solitude." Samuel Beckett

"Art is the lie that tells the truth." Pablo Picasso

_________________

"La creatividad es ante todo un acto de destrucción." Pablo Picasso

"¿De qué otra manera podemos expresar sentimientos sino entrando profundamente en ellos? ¿Cómo podemos captar el misterio de la angustia a no ser que nos convirtamos en la angustia misma? Shakespeare vivió su vida asombrado ante su majestuosidad, y en en sus escritos intentó asir lo que sentía, capturar esa pasión en forma simbólica. Atrapado por la intensidad de vivir, re-presentó esa intensidad en el lenguaje. ¿Y por qué? Porque la belleza le impresionaba. Porque el alma no puede restringir tales sentimientos." Brian Swimme

"Una gran parte de nuestras excesivas e innecesarias manifestaciones provienen del terror a que si de algún modo no estamos constantemente señalizando que existimos, de hecho ya no estaríamos aquí." Peter Brook

"El arte, como la vida, se entiende a través de la experiencia, no de explicaciones." Anne Bogart

"El arte fascista glorifica la rendición y exalta el sinsentido." Susan Sontag

"El único desarrollo espiritual posible (para un artista) está en el sentido de la profundidad. La tendencia artística no es expansiva sino una contracción. Y el arte es la apoteosis de la soledad." Samuel Beckett

"El arte es la mentira que dice la verdad." Pablo Picasso

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Sin Marca | Unmarked

2007-07-04T10:55:00.000+01:00

Hace un par de meses, en una de nuestras últimas clases del master, el tema central de la sesión se centraba sobre el concepto de lo "desmarcado" o "sin marca"(unmarked) de Peggy Phelan. Lo desmarcado como nuevo, como aquello que todavía no ha sido marcado por la sociedad y, por lo tanto, no pertenece al ámbito de lo codificado en una cultura.
¿Podemos realmente crear en el escenario algo que no esté marcado/codificado? ¿Podemos desmarcar algo transformándolo, como hacía Tadeusz Kantor?

Nos asignaron un pequeño proyecto. Intentar realizar una acción que no estuviese "marcada" y explicarla al resto de la clase a la semana siguiente. Yo no tuve oportunidad de llevarlo a cabo porque solapaba con otro proyecto de dirección que tenía.
Pero mis compañeros, cuya especialidad no es dirección escénica, lo hicieron.
Dos se sentaron en el puente de O´Connell durante una hora, con capuchas sobre sus cabezas, sin hablar y sin mirar a nadie, en un intento por desmarcarse de lo que eran. Pero, lo cierto, es que aunque ellas intentaran desmarcarse de lo que eran, para la sociedad estaban marcadas, porque la primera suposición de cualquiera sería que eran un par de junkies.
Así, a pesar de que ellas se vieran desmarcadas de sus identidades, la sociedad las marcaba, aunque erróneamente.

Hay, en el ser humano, la necesidad de asignar categorías en un afán por darle significado a nuestro entorno y a nuestras vidas.

Otra compañera, cogió una flor y la dejó sobre el parabrisas de un coche. Analizando su acción, era difícil convenir si estaba marcada o no. La flor estaba fuera de contexto y en sí no tenía mayor significación. Sin embargo, quedaba saber si el dueño/a del coche lo habría interpretado así.
Cada persona encierra un mundo difícil de descifrar. ¿Y si el dueño/a del coche andaba enamorado de alguien y lo interpretaba como una señal? ¿Cuántos sueños se esconden tras las aparentes impenetrabilidades que todos llevamos como una máscara ante la sociedad?
¿Y qué consecuencias puede tener un acto aparentemente carente de importancia para el ejecutor?

Entonces, contaron una historia basada en una novela cuyo título y autor no recuerdo.

En un pueblo irlandés, dos chicas adolescentes para el día de los enamorados deciden enviarle una postal al solterón del pueblo, un hombre entrado ya en años, solitario, introvertido, tímido y dedicado por completo a su granja.
Para las chicas es sólo un juego, una broma, pero cuando el hombre recibe la postal anónima en ese día de los enamorados, empieza para él un viaje sin retorno.
Es tal la soledad que le acompaña desde tiempo inmemorable, que la postal se convierte en la razón de su existencia.
Su imaginación empieza a desbordarse con posibilidades, empieza a barajar probables "enamoradas". Pero no hay señales claras. Sus días se convierten primero en búsqueda, después, en espera. Piensa que quizás las condiciones de la persona remitente no le permiten hacerse pública todavía. O que una tremenda timidez se lo impide. Decide que, sea cual sea el caso, cuando esa persona aparezca, él tendrá la puerta abierta para que entre.
Es tanta su soledad, que se enamora de la persona que se esconde tras el acto. No le importa como sea físicamente, ni sus circunstancias, lo único que cuenta es esa postal que cada noche, al llegar del trabajo, le espera. Y él espera a la persona que se esconde tras ella y que le ha dado un nuevo sentido a su vida.
Pasan meses y sigue aferrado a su sueño. Y cuantos más meses pasan, más crecen en su imaginación los detalles que la vida real le niega.
Finalmente, un día, las adolescentes le gastan una broma verbal, de esas crueles que sólo las niñas adolescentes son capaces de gastar.
Y él, entonces, entiende.
Ha sido víctima de un juego aparentemente inocente, pero cruel.
Al cabo de un par de días, lo encuentran muerto en el establo, colgado de una viga.

A veces, no somos conscientes de que nuestros actos y palabras pueden tener una transcendencia impredecible e incalculable en la vida de otros. Quizás porque asumimos que todo el mundo se haya en el mismo espacio mental que nosotros mismos. Pero hay mundos, universos enteros, escondidos tras la aparente impenetrabilidad de los demás.
Es una cuestión de actitud personal el ser sincero, el intentar no emitir señales equivocadas que puedan ser malinterpretadas. El respeto por los demás se manifiesta de muchos modos, pero empieza por una actitud personal que no asume sino considera al otro, el otro como ser ético y fenomenológico.

_____________________

A couple of months ago, in one of our last lectures, the subject matter was around the concept of “The Unmarked” by Peggy Phelan. The unmarked as something anew, not yet marked by society, and hence, not belonging to the code system of any given culture.
Can we really create on stage something not marked/codified? Can we unmark something transforming it, like Tadeusz Kantor used to do?

We were assigned a small project: we had to try to carry out an unmarked action and tell it to the rest of the class the following week. I didn’t have the chance to do it because it overlapped with on of my directing projects.
But my classmates, those who are not in Directing, did it.
Two sat in O’Connell Bridge for an hour, with hoodies, not talking to each other and not looking at anyone, in an attempt to unmark themselves of what they are. But, the fact is that even if they tried to unmark themselves of their identities, for society they were marked, as the first assumption of anyone, even if wrongly, would be they were junkies.

There is a need in human beings to assign categories in an attempt to give meaning to our surroundings and our lives.

Another classmate took a flower and posited it in a car’s windscreen.
Analysing her action, it was difficult to agree if it was marked or not. The flower was outside context and in itself did not have signification. Nevertheless, we could not know how the car owner might have interpreted that way. What if s/he was in love with someone and understood it as a sign? How many dreams do people hide behind the seemingly impenetrabilities we all carry like a mask before society?
What sort of consequences can an act that apparently lacks any importance for the executer?

Then, they told a story based on a novel which title and author I cannot remember.

In a small Irish town, two teenagers, girls, decide to send a postcard in St. Valentine’s day to the bachelor of the town, a middle aged, solitary, introverted man, absolutely dedicated to his farm.
For the girls it’s just a game, a joke, but when the man gets the anonymous card it starts for him a no return journey.
Such is the solitude accompanying him since time immemorial, that the card becomes the reason of his existence.
His imagination overflows with possibilities, juggling probable “lovers”. But there are no clear signs. His days become, first a searching, then a waiting. He thinks perhaps her circumstances don’t allow her to show her identity yet. Or that a terrible shyness is in her way. Hence, he decides that, whatever the reasons, when that persons decides to show up, he would have his door open for her to enter.
Such is his solitude, that he falls in love with the person behind the card. He doesn’t mind how does she look like, or her circumstances, the only thing that matters is that every night after work that postcard is there, waiting for him. And so he is waiting for the person how hides behind it and that has given a new meaning to his life.
Months pass by and he clings to his dream. The longer the time, the more his imagination fills with the details real life denies him.
Finally, one day, the girls make a verbal joke in front of him, one of those cruel jokes that only teenagers are capable of.
And then, he understands.
He’s been the victim of a game, apparently innocent, but cruel.
Two days later, they find him dead in the stable, hanging from a beam.

Sometimes, we are not aware that our acts and words can have an unpredictable transcendence in the lives of others. Perhaps because we assume that everybody is in the same mental space. But there are worlds, whole universes, hidden behind the seemingly impenetrability of the other. It is a question of personal attitude to be honest, trying not to give the wrong signals that can be misunderstood. Respect for the other can be shown in many ways, but it starts with personal attitude that does not assume but considers the other, the other as an ethical and phenomenological being.

*

Run Lola Run | Corre Lola Corre

2007-07-04T00:25:00.000+01:00

Run Lola Run, or in its original German title, Lola Runs.
If you have never seen the film, it's a must. And the soundtrack is great.
A Paul Auster concept told in a German way by Tom Tykwer.

Haruki Murakami in Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land.

We run after life, and at the same time it is life who is running after us. Chance.

Albert Camus said that if human condition is unfair, then, there is only one way to make it fair: be fair ourselves.

But, yet, life keeps running before and behind us. Chance.

____________________________

Corre Lola Corre, o en su título original en alemán, Lola Corre.
Si nunca habéis visto la película, teneís que. Además, la banda sonora está de puta madre.
Un concepto a lo Paul Auster contado a la alemana por Tom Tykwer.
Haruki Murakami en la Tierra de Nadie de Danis Tanovic.

Corremos tras la vida y, al mismo tiempo, la vida corres detrás nuestro. Azar.

Albert Camus dijo que si la condición del hombre es injusta, sólo hay una manera de superarla: ser justos nosotros mismos.

Pero aún así, la vida sigue corriendo por delante y por detrás nuestro. Azar.

*

Memory | Memoria

2007-07-01T23:53:00.000+01:00

In her essay called 'Memory', Anne Bogart says: ‘inside every good play lives a question. A great play asks big questions that endure through time. We enact plays in order to remember relevant questions; we remember these questions in our bodies and the perceptions take place in real time and space. (…)
Reading the play, I touch the question with my own sensibilities. I know that it has touched me when the question responds and provokes thought and personal associations – when it haunts me. Presently, everything I experience in daily life is in relation to it. The question has been unleashed upon my unconscious. In my sleep my dreams are imbued with the question. The disease of the question spreads out.
(…) In rehearsal we try to find shapes and forms to contain the living questions, in the present, on the stage. The act of remembering connects us with the past and alters time. We are living conduits of human memory.
The act of memory is a physical act and lies at the heart of the art of the theatre. If the theatre were a verb, it would be ‘to remember’. ’

Greetings from Denmark. Here I'm again, in Copenhagen, doing more research for my thesis.

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En su ensayo llamado ‘Memoria’, Anne Bogart dice: ‘dentro de cada gran obra de teatro vive una pregunta. Una gran obra de teatro hace grandes preguntas que sobreviven en el tiempo. Re-present(e)amos obras con el fin de recordar las preguntas relevantes; recordamos esas preguntas en nuestros cuerpos y las percepciones que originan se producen en un espacio y tiempo real. (…)
Al leer la obra, toco la pregunta con mis propias sensibilidades. Sé que ella me ha tocado a mí cuando me responde provocando reflexión y asociaciones personales – cuando me ha embrujado.
Desde ese momento, todo lo que experimento en mi vida diaria sucede en relación a ella. La pregunta ha sido desatada en mi inconsciente. Cuando duermo mis sueños están impregnados de la pregunta. La enfermedad de la pregunta se propaga. (…)
En los ensayos intentamos encontrar formas y configuraciones para esas preguntas vivas contenidas en el presente, en el escenario. El acto de recordar nos conecta con el pasado y altera el tiempo. Somos conductos vivientes de memoria humana.
El acto de la memoria es un acto físico y yace en el corazón del arte del teatro. Si el teatro fuese un verbo, sería “recordar”.’

Saludos desde Dinamarca. Aquí estoy de nuevo, en Copenague, haciendo investigación para mi tesis.

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Drogas | Drugs

2007-06-30T12:16:00.000+01:00

Las pruebas, les gustas (te sientan bien) y te gustan.
Y ahí empieza el peligro de quedarse enganchado.

Sean duras o blandas, la adicción es igualmente peligrosa y el desengancharse exige un gran esfuerzo de voluntad.

Cuando uno es joven, el peligro de engancharse es mayor.
Y con la madurez, el esfuerzo por desengancharse relativamente más fácil, pero, en cualquier caso, hay que pasar el mono.

Una vez, alguien me escribió en una hemorsa carta que yo era su droga favorita y que no quería desengancharse. Quizás, por eso, nos acabamos destruyendo.

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You try them, they like you (they suit you) and you like them. And then there is the danger of getting hooked.
Hard or soft, the addiction is equally dangerous and it requires great effort of will to unhook.
In youth, the danger is greater.
Maturity makes the effort of unhooking relatively easier, but, still, you have to go cold turkey.

Once, someone wrote me a beautiful letter saying I was his favourite drug and he didn't want to unhook. Probably that's why we ended up destroying each other.

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Job

2007-06-28T23:47:00.000+01:00

¿Qué pasó el día que Job perdió la paciencia? ¿Se puso a cosechar inconsistencias? ¿O a desechar imposibilidades?

What happened the day Job lost his patience? Did he start harvesting inconsistencies? Or ruling out impossibilities?

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