blimey, what a day

Spray-painted my new Migritude suitcase red for Vienna.

Confirmed a performance in Milan on March 22nd.

Confirmed an interview on SABC (South African TV station) on Tuesday morning.

Ate three-quarters of a bar of Dagoba 59% dark chocolate, spiked with lime and macadamia nuts.

Visited Bill in hospital.

Learned that Bullets and Butterflies has been nominated for a Lambda Award.

Didn't get through anything on my To-Do List.

Didn't make the calls I intended to 2 friends going through tough times - and now it's too late at night.

Didn't exercise. Didn't rehearse. Didn't write the two pieces for Pambazuka that I'd scheduled for today.

Didn't hit my target bedtime of 10.30pm.

5am wakeup tomorrow. Rehearsal from 8am - 11am, and I've done less than 50% of what Kim asked me to work on this past week. Feel like a guilty schoolchild who hasn't done her homework. Except that I always did every scrap of my homework and more, when I was in school. OK then, feel like a slacker adult who masquerades as an artist, eats chocolate and blogs when she should be honing her craft.

how do you make the gods laugh?

Tell them your plans.

So this is the official announcement: I'm moving to New York in spring of 2007. There.

Now listen to the gods chortle in the background.

anything of importance

My friend Bill Mandel is in hospital right now, recovering from being hit by a car several weeks ago. At 88, Bill has been a leading activist for social justice and human rights in this country for over 70 years. His testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1947, and his scathing attacks on the vile Senator Joe McCarthy, are still alive in the memories of all those who lived through that shameful period of America's history. Bill's autobiography, Saying No To Power, has taught me more about the real history of America in the 20th century than almost any other book.

Right now, Bill can't perform the most basic functions for himself. Yet, his mind is still alive and wide-ranging to an extraordinary degree; his curiosity and interest in the world, deep, probing, and as always, referenced by a huge wealth of knowledge and depth of analysis. His capacity to be larger than his circumstances awes and humbles me.

Yesterday, on the phone to me from his hospital bed, he said:

The notion of not expressing my views on anything of importance is utterly foreign to me.

Dance, Memory, Meaning

Read my latest piece for Pambazuka News, My Dance Is Nothing More Than An Attempt To Remember My Name

I wrote it as a "found poem", harvested from a discussion with Congolese choreographer and dancer, Faustin Linyekula, at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center last September.

my favourite yoga asana

ardha matsyendrasana, the half-spinal twist. I have to make myself come out of it, and guard against giving it way more time than the other asanas. Today, I almost fell asleep in it. It puts me in a place of stillness and balance I rarely find anywhere else.

Rain sings on my roof

in Oakland tonight. I want to gather every vital drop and send it to Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti. Two years of drought, 11 million people facing starvation. Blame global warming, blame corrupt governments, misguided aid policies, environmental devastation, Cold War arms dumping, neoliberal World Bank /IMF thuggery masquerading as "structural adjustment" - the list goes on. The words in my head tonight are from John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath:

"There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize."

On the phone from Nairobi this morning, my father talked about the water rationing in Nairobi. About the clouds that "gather every afternoon - and then they go away, without giving rain. The heat is intense - Nairobi has never been like this."

I've always loved to fall asleep to the sound of rain. Tonight, it's a dirge.

how to procrastinate on doing your taxes

1) Snack on cucumbers - they're too juicy to have near your computer or paperwork.
2) Snack on anything that's too juicy, messy, wet, crumbly, to have near your computer or paperwork.
3) Watch Sex and the City - because you might as well do something while you're snacking.
4) Watch the second episode of Sex and the City - because you still have 2 bites of your cucumber left when the first episode ends.
4) Begin at 10.35pm, after the second episode of Sex and the City.
5) At 10.45pm, tell yourself you're too tired to work effectively, and you'll be way more efficient in the morning.
6) Begin a blog entry about how to procrastinate on doing your taxes.

impeach bush?

In the past week, I've read several pieces making the case for impeaching Bush. All impeccably argued, impressively referenced and supported with facts and documentation. I don't disagree with any of them. My question is - and then what?

To put energy into impeaching Bush is to focus on a symptom of a disease to the exclusion of the disease. The real malady is a broken electoral system that offers 200 million Americans no choices beyond a pair of corporate-funded players in a closed duopoly. As Arundhati Roy puts it, it's like being asked to choose between two brands of detergent, when Proctor and Gamble make both.

Impeaching Bush will not restore democracy to America - it will simply divert more resources away from it. It won't restore the lives lost or the annihilation unleashed on the people of Iraq. The most effective way to impeach Bush - and prevent future Bush-clones - is electoral reform.

rehearsals

are a Smaug's cave. There's the treasure - when a piece goes well, when I tap a new level of emotional truth in a piece and bring it up in my body, when it flows and the energy comes through. Then there's the dragon on top of the treasure: the huge unfinished chunks of production - sound, lighting, set - the how of getting the work onto stage.

something like love

something like hope
something like beautiful
something I wrote
but postcards from Paradise
rarely sent to me
postcards from Paradise
weren't meant for me

the lyrics of Himalayan Project's Postcards from Paradise have been running through my head all day. You can hear it on their website - click on Sounds.

I first heard it at Artwallah last summer. I bought the CD, Wince at the Sun (you should too!) and played it several times on the drive back up from LA to Oakland.

Everything about this track sings Migritude to me. Right down to the line: paisley pattern teardrop in the Arabian sea. It's the track that lifts me up and drops me back into the heart of my creative work.