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| | Shows That Won't Be Touring the USA
Posted on 6/8/2010 by Isabella
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Todd Various says, "Have you seen the German fire show? It kicks ass." There's no good place in my schedule, so when I see them start up, I walk away in mid-conversation and start pushing to the front I'll sit on the ground, which Macedonians won't do, so I might as well get to the inner circle. It's easy to get through, because the crowd is moving backwards.
Rapidly.
Because Eddie Egal, head German, is backing them up WITH A FLAMETHROWER.
Now, if you're a busker fan, or hang out with hippies, you've probably seen a fire show in Canada or the USA. Usually, the crowd is safely back, fire permits have been issued, fuel is stored separately from the equipment, and the equipment is only lit up once a safe boundary is in place. Then some greasy dreadlocked guys spin poi, girls in leather bikinis wave some fire fans, they all pass the hat and go smoke up backstage.
The Germans have set up a mad scientist's lab with fireball tubes on a 14-foot high scaffolding proscenium, a fire cannon on the stage left side pointed mostly up but a little towards the audience, and Eddie Egal and two sidekicks in lab coats with clipboards moving through the whole steampunk setup. THERE ARE PROPANE TANKS EVERYWHERE. You know, the ones where in the states you can't smoke a cigarette within 15 feet? And while the female "scientist" is checking levels and setting fire to a watering can, and the male "scientist" is inspecting with a large magnifying glass and testing buttons that fire flames 25 feet up, Eddie is striding through tanks and pointing the FLAMETHROWER! IT'S A FLAMETHROWER! With a steam whistle! Mostly up but also sort of at the audience to get them to move back. Which they do. I sit in the front row while Eddie drops flaming pellets on the ground two feet in front of the audience to mark the line. Children poke at the pellets until Eddie waves the FLAMETHROWER! OH MY GOD IT'S A FLAMETHROWER! at them.
The show is a long buildup to one stunt. There's an open shower with water tubes that fire into the center, and flame cannons that blow fireballs through the center. They water down the female scientist, mask and glove her, and set her up in the shower. Fire, water, awesome trance music, she's overcome, strips out of the lab suit, and does a sexy dance in a thong bikini while water and fire rain over, around and through her. The fire cannons shoot. I think there's another flamethrower section. Then they pass the hat.
After the hat pass, Eddie says, "Wednesday night, anyone who wants can try the fire shower."
I say, "I'll bring my bathing suit." |
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| | Chai Make You Cool
Posted on 6/7/2010 by Isabella
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Here, it's Macedonian. It's very Macedonian. Which means, maybe we have a show and maybe we don't. Maybe it's on this pitch, maybe it's over there, maybe a giant stage with folkdancers moves into the plaza. Maybe we should run up hill to make it to a 2PM meeting, since it's 2:10, or maybe Pane will meet us eventually which gives us time to order iced coffee, listen to the band, and learn to say, "I'd like to order_____" in Macedonian.
Tonight, two shows, back to back, at Aerodrom and the plaza. Aerodrom is 20 minutes away. This year, I do not freak out. I don't even bring it to Natasha's attention until mid-afternoon. And sure enough, after meeting with Pane, we are shown to a delightful, shady courtyard in the Old Market, to do what will be our only show tonight. The courtyard is an exact microcosm of Skopje that side is the Macedonian bistro, with hanging pot plants and couples in ironwork chairs eating sopska salat. This side is Albanian, with a men-only crowd playing backgammon and cards over tiny glasses of tea.
We set up the rig, it's an important show tonight, Pane is partnering with an NGO (A charity? A folk group? We can't tell) to bring the festival to more of the local people. Some Albanian men finish their card game and drift over to us. They don't speak a ton of English, but one of them used to live in Germany, and helps us translates our hat line from German (which I have handy from last year) to Albanian. This excites me. I'm already caffeinated. And midway through, Gandhi, Hadji and the Guy Whose Name Starts With an N, tell me in three of the four languages, "[Albanian meaning chill the heck out]! Ne arbeit on Saturday! Chai!".
N is dispatched for boiling hot tea in shot-like glasses with miniature lemon wedges on the saucer. "Chai make you cool, good for hot." And over tea, I learn to thank the audience in Albanian, via German with an Austrian accent and Macedonian with an American accent. The men confer over phrasing and argue semantics among themselves. Unlike Macedonian, in which everyone sounds angry all the time, their eyes crinkle and the sounds of Albanian are softer in the back of their throats. I promise to practice, and we stash our gear bag in the backgammon restaurant, and head out to eat and change. |
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| | Older Than Keeping Time
Posted on 6/5/2010 by Isabella
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Ahhh, Eastern Europe. Where time is fluid, indoor plumbing still in the pre-mastery stages, girls are girls (don't lift that suitcase) and toilet paper a rare and precious resource. Always check before you sit.
The trip, after only two hours crying at the Air France counter (they WEIGH your carryon) was otherwise smooth Toronto, Paris, Sofia, Skopje, we've done this before. Sure, we'll drop our bags in a tent in the main plaza and head to the wine bar for mystery soup! Yeah, we'll swing by the hotel before deal-making back at the wine bar with Albanians! Todd Various is sitting in the fountain! There's popcorn!
It's a great group this year we traveled from Sofia with an Italian jazz/folk band full of hot Italian jazz/folk guys, and our friends Figo the Scottish magician, Andy the angry Montreal acrobat, and Dorothea the klezmer clarinetist have all returned. Most of all, we're less uptight. Sure we have a show at 7pm in one part of the city backed with a show at 8pm across town! Yeah, we only have one show on three midweek days! But you know what? Nobody cared last year, and nobody cares this year. There will be a sign-up sheet for bonus shows, Natasha (NA-ta-sha) supervising a huge penciled-in grid with a harried expression as buskers point and lunge, "Can I have that spot?" Nobody's expecting it all to run perfectly.
There's wifi at the wine bar, and I sit on the edge of the restaurant deck, buskers chatting in seven languages, the band on the upper level belting out uncanny Peter Gabriel, Alanis, Tracy Chapman, Bowie. The purple sky is blotched with clouds, laptop on knees, the stones beneath my feet older than Jesus, older than keeping time. I'm in the old market, and for a thousand years buskers have come here to do shows, with crazy schedules and Muslim-Christian tensions and people who must be bribed or coaxed or shown the benefit to them to have us here.
Us.
Here. |
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| | Macedonia: The Language Bridge
Posted on 06/02/2009 by Isabella
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Macedonian is more difficult than any language I have ever encountered, and I m including Czech and Japanese. For starters, it s written with the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russian, and there s just enough letters that look like the Roman alphabet to make it confusing.
This afternoon, I prevailed on the patience of festival coordinator Natasha, and some surrounding volunteers, and pieced out our hat pass line in Macedonian. Then I spent an hour with a very patient eleven-year-old boy, Datz (nickname " It just makes him shake his head sadly when I try to pronounce his real name), learning to speak it. About half way through, another performer overheard me mangling the tongue of Alexander the Great and said,
I can tell it s your first year, trying to learn your hat line in Macedonian. Good luck with that, eh?
I did not say jaded much? and punch him. Instead, I smiled sweetly and went back to Datz patiently correcting me on a word that sounds like the mating of a laundry mangle and a toaster and means choosing. Like, Choosing to come out to the festival. Like, Choosing to be a part of something real and alive with us and with your friends and family.
Second show, I had it as good as it was going to get today, so I climbed the silk, knotted, sat, and pulled out my piece of paper. Read the line " people smiled at my pronunciation. And then they clapped really hard at the end, when I say they are a beautiful audience and Skopje is the best. And when we passed the hat, it was better than before " and the next show, better still.
And there s always tomorrow.
For the curious " phonetically, in the wrong alphabet:
Dami y Gospodin, samo ushteh neshto (there s a not-quite glottal stop on that last o).
Vo ova vremeh, koga tookuh minoguh
Loogyeh pominouvade nogu maklu vremeh sosebeh pret TV illy komputer,
Fala vinacete shto doidovte tookuh shto odwoochifteh (that s where I get really lost) do odvoiteh malku vremeh de spodeliteh neshto viztinsko y jivo,
Sonas, sovashiteh priatehlee y familia.
Vieste prekrasnah publica.
Skopje nydobra!
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| | Macedonia: The Language Bridge
Posted on 06/02/2009 by Isabella
Category:
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Macedonian is more difficult than any language I have ever encountered, and I'm including Czech and Japanese. For starters, it's written with the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russian, and there's just enough letters that look like the Roman alphabet to make it confusing.
This afternoon, I prevailed on the patience of festival coordinator Natasha, and some surrounding volunteers, and pieced out our hat pass line in Macedonian. Then I spent an hour with a very patient eleven-year-old boy, Datz (nickname It just makes him shake his head sadly when I try to pronounce his real name), learning to speak it. About half way through, another performer overheard me mangling the tongue of Alexander the Great and said,
"I can tell it's your first year, trying to learn your hat line in Macedonian. Good luck with that, eh?"
I did not say "jaded much?" and punch him. Instead, I smiled sweetly and went back to Datz patiently correcting me on a word that sounds like the mating of a laundry mangle and a toaster and means "choosing." Like, "Choosing to come out to the festival." Like, "Choosing to be a part of something real and alive with us and with your friends and family."
Second show, I had it as good as it was going to get today, so I climbed the silk, knotted, sat, and pulled out my piece of paper. Read the line people smiled at my pronunciation. And then they clapped really hard at the end, when I say they are a beautiful audience and Skopje is the best. And when we passed the hat, it was better than before and the next show, better still.
And there's always tomorrow.
For the curious phonetically, in the wrong alphabet:
Dami y Gospodin, samo ushteh neshto (there's a not-quite glottal stop on that last o).
Vo ova vremeh, koga tookuh minoguh
Loogyeh pominouvade nogu maklu vremeh sosebeh pret TV illy komputer,
Fala vinacete shto doidovte tookuh shto odwoochifteh (that's where I get really lost) do odvoiteh malku vremeh de spodeliteh neshto viztinsko y jivo,
Sonas, sovashiteh priatehlee y familia.
Vieste prekrasnah publica.
Skopje nydobra! |
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| | Are We There Yet? - So a shout-out to my peeps at the BWI Microtel for listening to our sad story about the no hot water until two AM and then not just giving us a credit but a full refund. Thank you, Brenda, you've restored my faith in American commerce.
I drove in m
| 10/29/2006 | | | Paid to play - So Just Vince tells me this wonderful quote over the phone from a story on a Colts player:
"I'm paid to practice. Playing is what I'd do for free. That's the fun part. What I get checks for is all the time I spend preparing to play."
I'm misquoti
| 10/19/2006 | | | Riders and Rock Stars - We're making our Rock Star list.
You know, that list of things that should be provided for you at a gig? It's usually called a "rider" because it's an extra page (or two, or five) of your contract. Of course, there's the bare minimum - a dressing/wa
| 10/02/2006 | | | Now you're leaving...now you're not. - Got a last-minute switcheroo on a gig that got canceled, and they wanted to use us another date instead - OK, so I wrapped my head around leaving on a different day and then rearranged a bunch of stuff and asked other performers to rearrange stuff an
| 09/14/2006 | | | On the Road Again...Just can't hate to be on the road again... - I love being on the road.
I hate being on the road.
I love meeting people and doing fun shows and seeing new places.
I hate not sleeping in my own bed and sad calls from my guy who misses me and being around the same three people (who I love) 24-7
| 09/08/2006 | | | Amsterdam, we're here! - Yay - we touched down in Amsterdam yesterday after only 14 hours of travel - or in Vince's case, 26, since he had to go to the Detroit airport at 5AM with the rig. We're able to take the rig, but not many planes that are big enough to carry it leave
| 07/06/2006 | | | Wow. Just wow. - I'm finally in bed at 4:45 after driving Luna back to Chicago after our street performing in Holland. Food today: bowl of cereal and some cheese and crackers, eaten in underwear; apple with Nutella, eaten in a rush; convenience store egg salad sand
| 06/30/2006 | | | Robo-Wrist - I went in to see the orthopedist today (Angels aficionados, she's the lady standing on Spike's backbend in the DVD) and showed her my wrist - she thinks I may have torn the meniscus, ack, and definitely strained a muscle in my forearm. However, with
| 06/07/2006 | | | Dun-Dun-Done-Das - So the Dundas Busker Festival closed with a Sunburn Sunday, plus a barbecue for the buskers hosted by Busker aficionado Rachel Peters. Thanks, Rachel, for taking over your friends' house and hosting us ravenous, slightly grubby street performers! T
| 06/05/2006 | | | Late...so late...in Dundas... - It's pushing 2Am, but all I can say is, so far Dundas rocks. We're doing the Dundas Busker Festival, and we just had our first show tonight. Huge crowds that surrounded us without us hawking AT ALL, kind applause, riotous laughter, and we even sold
| 06/03/2006 | | | Wait...they don't sell fireworks in Illinois, do they? - Memorial Day Weekend in St Louis was something else! We had a great time, tried out a TON of new material including new partner balancing, and had little Ruby guest star one show on cloud swing! Ruby was so awesome and cute and we loved having her i
| 05/30/2006 | | | St. Louis is So Cool - Our first weekend back at the St Louis Renaissance Festival was fantastic! So good to see a lot of the same faces, and we're starting to feel that "third-year magic" - the deal is, the first year you perform at a fair, the audience says "Who are the
| 05/24/2006 | | | Hey, Tatiana...and other people who want to learn silk - OK, so we get a message through this site, from Tatiana in Omaha. She wants to know how long it will take to learn aerial silk, because she "doesn't have much time."
Ummm...doesn't have much time? Like you promised to be in a show next week, or you
| 01/04/2006 | | | Best Halloween Ever - Spike and I and my friend Lindsay the playwright from Toronto got all gussied up in our gargoyle costumes and did the human statue thing on the lawn tonight for all the trick-or-treaters. It was so much fun! A lot of people didn't realize we were re
| 01/01/2006 |
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