Inarticulate before the sublime

[Karen writes]

I've had the most awful few days of expressing myself. Meaning many opportunities to do so, and little wit on my part. I was pooped. Last week I had to a) finish building a drum b) prepare for a conference panel discussion on artist spaces c) tech, dress and perform Mythos d) prep the space for and host the JAST New Year party, and, natch, e) keep teaching, administrating and planning. I was a bit sleep deprived, guilt-ridden about neglecting play time with Bugsy (the dog) and just plain addled from trying to hold too many disparate thoughts and aims in mind. Of course, if the dog complains, I'll say "just look at the laundry and you'll know what really neglected is!"

What I wanted to say in the Q & A following the Friday night Mythos performance was that the audience member (who had commented on the amount of sheer trust that the performers must have had) was not mistaken. There was great trust--trickling down from the moment Rick came and said "I want you to do this," to the moment each dancer fell into the arms of another. There was trust as each dancer figured out how slowly to move the ball so that the other dancer could run down to the end to receive it, to the musicians doing their part to make sure the dancers could hear their cues....

I did manage to say that of all the skill sets needed--whether of dance or silks or taiko or whatever--performance was another skill set, and that being a performer inherently demands that we trust other performers. Or at least Rome said I managed to say that. She might have been being kind, and DOES, after all, speak fluent Karen-ese... I get awfully non-linear at times.

I know I said that being a performer means even if something goes wrong, the audience never knows... meaning--and I wish I had articulated it more clearly--that performance is where we, as performers, must trust that we know our parts so well that no matter what happens, it will not mar the audience's perception, and that our only job in those moments on stage is to be the audience's experience....

Ah, but that would be being articulate in the moment: not my strong suit. I grabbed photos of the production from the Tucson Weekly and AZ Daily Star sites. If you want to read the previews of Mythos, go to:

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Arts/Content?oid=oid:105679
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/221929.php

What I know, at the end of the incredible journey that Mythos has been, is that Rick's vision and work has--more than any project I've ever been involved in--captured the feeling I've held for so long about life, and that I've wished I could transmit to everyone I meet: that our lives are in a sense meaningless in the history of the universe, or even our planet, but that we are one of the rare beings that can perceive of our own existence within that context. Thus, we are the ones who give meaning to it, we give it the value and the weight that moves us, we are the ones we've been dreaming of..., and, god, aren't we lucky to have this time to be alive and to experience it all? Even pain and hurt and anger seem to make sense, yet not be so important in light of the joy... of feeling the wind, of singing, of moving together, of teaching and learning, or of just knowing the taste of sugar.... Being here and human is quite amazing.

Everyone is equal in the taiko crew

[Karen writes]

What is more fun?...
Haphazardly playing taiko with 50 other people, in an incredibly low-tech environment, trusting each will do their part and the result will be fantastic...
or
Being part of a massive high-tech theatrical extravaganza with 50 performing professionals, trusting each will do...

Guess it's not so different, really, as long as you're comfortable in either one. Rome has captured the thrill of All AZ Taiko better in words (below) than I did in pictures. I guess once we began playing, I forgot to take pictures.

However, I have a few here from our recent Triangle Y UA Blue Chip Leadership Camp, and our team building event with Stone Arch Creatives client, Gyrus Medical. I really can't say whether it was more fun to train 14 corporate sales execs to perform a taiko song, or conduct 85 college juniors and seniors in a free-for-all ice-breaking session....

The pictures at the right are 1) Corporate execs learning taiko 2) taiko players playing taiko 3) college students watching taiko 4) college playing taiko.

I guess you'll have to look and judge.

Great weekend!

[Rome writes]

We started a new Adult Rec Class (ART) and have really good attendance-- 10 or 12 students. We worked on basic tachi-uchi stance and strike, and learned the beginning of Tanaka-sensei's Renshu. I really like this new format, spending 3 weeks on tachi, 3 on naname, 2 on O, and 2 putting it all together. It's as fun and challenging to teach as (I hope) it is to learn.

Sunday was the first All AZ Taiko (AAT) rehearsal up in Phoenix. Forthe past 3 years Fushicho Daiko has organized a performance including all AZ taiko players at Matsuri. (Learn all about Matsuri, one of the largest Japanese cultural festivals in the US, at www.azmatsuri.org.) This year, we'll be playing 4 songs: Silk, Shutsujin, Kachidoki, and Ogi Matsuri. We have 7 Odaiko Sonorans participating and working like crazy to learn Silk and Kachidoki by the end of February. In fact, we learned Kachidoki in the car on the way up to Phoenix on Sunday-- talk about dedication!

The rehearsal was SO MUCH FUN. 40+ taiko players in unison, practicing movement and rhythm and stage presence together. It's such a rush to play with that many people. AAT truly will be an awesome spectacle. I was really proud of how well all our peeps played, too-- everyone faked Kachidoki reasonably well, and looked darn good on Silk. The arrangement Fushicho has created of Ogi is...beyond description. They broke us all up into 5 groups of 8-9, and set up several stations in the stage area: 2 shime stations with 8 shime each, one station with 4 big drums miyake style, one station with 4 big drums up, and one station where you just yell and get the audience going. The groups rotate through all of the stations, and Ken (from Fushicho) worked it out so there is always one group playing shime and one group on big drums while everyone else is playing, so the song never stops. We play through Ogi ELEVEN times, and the whole piece lasts 10 minutes. It's going to be amazing!!

After the rehearsal all of us Odaiko Sonorans stopped for dinner (taiko = food), and then headed back to town. There was construction and a terrible traffic jam on I-10, so we didn't get home until after 10 PM. It was well worth it, though.

Last night was our final special Silk practice, before we move on to Kachidoki next week. I'm so happy Esther has given us permission to teach Silk- it's an awesome song. Even if we never perform it, the skills in the song are fantastic, and it's FUN, and great exercise when you run it 7-9 times as we did last night. Congrats to everyone who's conquering Silk!

No place like home

[Karen writes]

The trip home was uneventful; the most notable thing being, perhaps, the decline of gas prices from $3.67 to $2.85 a gallon. We took the Phoenix bypass this time, from Buckeye to Gila Bend. There was no particular reason, save our memory of the awful traffic jam north of Casa Grande on our trip out.

At the UWP staff reception last night, I got an overview of the history of the organization. It's funny, everyone we told about this gig had heard of Up With People, but were surprised to hear the group was still in existence. In fact, UWP was founded in 1965, but closed shop in 2000 as most of it's major funding disappeared. It restarted in 2004 at a smaller scale and with fiscal health high on its list of priorities. This Rose Parade performance was UWP’s largest major live production in 24 years... since Superbowl XX! Their sudden appearance at such a prominent event and with such an impressive production resulted in so many hits on their website after the performance that the server crashed for 10 minutes!

The grandstand audience was clearly moved by the sheer scale and the unbridled energy of the piece as it flooded the street below them with color and motion and sound. However, the UWP producers were worried the TV broadcast didn't capture it entirely... and it didn't. Somehow the cameras completely missed two incredible shots--the Chinese dragon and the Ukrainian dancers (with the death defying--if you ask this girl-- leaping splits). I guess that's a testament to just how much was going on.

Last night we learned that not only was the Rose Parade Committee really happy with the results, those “in the biz,” who know how delicate and unpredictable it is to produce a live performance of this scale, were duly impressed.

For my part, it was an incredible experience to work with such dedicated people, young and, ummm..., older. Many of the alumni had volunteered their time, and many of the outgoing UWP grads had signed on an extension to help out on this gig before continuing on with their lives. It was wonderful to work with people who believe, at their very core, that artistic expression and cultural exchange make the world a better place. What’s more, the leadership and teamwork that UWP obviously instills in its participants is rare and genuine.

We're jazzed to be able to bring this experience back to Tucson and Odaiko Sonora. We send huge thanks to Mia Hanson, Bryan Takeda of Happicoats.com, all the Up With People staff and performers, and to all of you who followed on our journey by reading along.

And it's over.

[written by Rome]

Just like that! Our 3 minute of Up With People-ness, in the past. In case you missed it, you can YouTube it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDGZqb0Sdoc

Here's what it was like behind the scenes:

Dec. 31, 2:30 PM
We finished our final rehearsal on the float, at the Duarte Float Barn (probably not its real name, but that's how I will always know the vast, drafty warehouse where we had our final rehearsal, and go to be as up close and personal as I've ever been with a Rose Parade float). We loaded the drums onto the Up With People truck, for their tech crew to deliver to the performance site and set up for us-- meaning we'd get an extra 2 hours of sleep (since we wouldn't have to go set up our own equipment). THAT was a no-brainer.

We drove directly back to the hotel, and I (Rome) went immediately to bed. The stomach flu had made a brief appearance the night before, and I'd gotten almost no sleep, and was still feeling quite ill. I slept until about 7 PM, then went back to bed at 8 PM, and slept until midnight. We had to meet in the hotel lobby at 1 AM to be driven out to the performance site. I felt much better after my hours of sleep.

Jan. 1, 2 AM

It was pitch dark and cold when we got to the corner of Orange Grove Blvd and Colorado in Pasadena. We made sure the drums were set up okay. Gaby, the tech for UWP, is amazingly good. In fact, all of the UWP staff is amazingly good-- professional, competent, friendly, and helpful. It's been a pleasure and honor to work with them.

After the set check, we headed down to Maranatha High School (about a 3 minute walk from the performance site) to join up with the UWP cast. They'd been there since 9 PM the night before, reveling and welcoming the New Year. I'm sure the cast's 9 PM call was insurance against any of them welcoming the New Year a little TOO enthusiastically and missing the show. Much too soon we had to head back into the cold for our TV rehearsal. Although we were all in full costume, we were allowed to keep our layers on during this rehearsal. Thank GOD-- it must have been in the low 40s. I had snagged the blanket off my hotel bed, and had it wrapped around my shoulders. Looks, zero, but practicality, ten.

The vast empty Grandstand in front of us was quite a sight. If anyone had been unsure of the size of the live audience, they weren't any more. We ran the piece 5 or 6 more times for the TV crew to practice their camera moves and which shots they wanted, and we got to run the strike twice.

Sadly, the TV broadcast didn't show our 45 second strike. Yes, that's right-- we had 45 SECONDS to get EVERYTHING out of the way-- the pods the musicians (including us) were on, the speakers, the pyro, the cast-- EVERYTHING had to be moved about 100 yards down the street, and then about another 50 yards up a little side street, so the parade could start. Riding the pod was a hoot, but a little scary. I mean, 4 feet above the ground, on a quickly moving pod, which weighs several hundred pounds, steadying an Odaiko that was quite rumbly when the pod got going. Falling would equal severe injury. Plus, I don't like heights anyway.

After the final TV rehearsal and strike, we re-set and headed back to the high school.

Jan. 1, 5:15 AM

The full UWP cast, all 100 of the scouts, families, UWP staff, musicians (including us) queue up for breakfast. It was quiche, and quite good quiche, and there was enough for all. I actually managed to eat several bites of mine, my first solid food in over 36 hours. We hung out at the High school, eating, sleeping, re-applying make-up, etc.

The girl's bathroom was an experience. It's been a long time since I've been around 19-21 year olds, and an especially long time since I've been around women that age who wear a lot of make-up. There was as long a line for the make-up counter as there was for the stalls, and every single outlet was taken with either a) a curling iron b) a hair dryer or c) a cell phone charger. Luckily, my hair was dry and my phone was charged.

Jan. 1, 6:45 AM

Everyone headed over to the performance site. There was a tent set up backstage for us, so we all packed in to put finishing touches on costumes, and keep warm. The UWP cast members were taking photos-- this was the last UWP performance for many of them. Most of them were just finishing up their year of touring with UWP. No tears (yet) but lots and lots and lots of photos.

Jan. 1, 7:45 AM

We moved into positions onstage, to wait some more. It was cold. Have I mentioned that yet? The Grandstand was full at this point, about 4200 people by Karen's reckoning.

Jan. 1, 7:54 AM

We took places and launched into "Up With People," the song we did as a warm-up for the live audience. My hands did that going-numb thing they do sometimes when I'm performing fue and I'm nervous. Of course I was nervous, I was about to be on national TV! And in case you're wondering, Karen and I DID learn the words to Up With People so we could lip sync along-- hey, if more people were for people, all people everywhere, there'd be a lot less people to worry about and a lot more people who care. Think about it. We left our pod after warming up the crowd, and stood behind it to await our call to...

Jan 1, 8 AM

...PLACES! We all had to get into place about 90 seconds before the song started, cuz that's how much time there was between when the TV coverage started and our song started (except on KTLA, whose announcers talked a little bit over the start of the song). 90 seconds is a LOOOOONG time to stand excited and committed to your position, but not moving, but we're professionals (ahem). Then, all of a sudden, the producer was counting down: 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 (the last 2 were silent, of course-- yes, they really do mime the last two counts as they count you in), and then the song started, and I raised my arms and hit my note and played a few beats, busted a few Kasabayashi moves and....it was over. Everything went great. No dropped bachi, no missed notes (it was very hard to hit that first note, there was absolutely no count), no stumbling, no falling off the pod, and the strike was done in 42 seconds-- pshah, who needs 45 seconds to move literally tons of equipment? Not Up With People!

Jan. 1, 8:15 AM

We took our (comped) seats, and became Rose Parade spectators. I'll let Karen blog about that-- I gotta' go pack so we can hit the road back to Tucson.