Saturday, February 17, 2007

sorry about that...

well i've had quite a few emails asking me about my blog, pretty much where was it? what had happened? are you still alive?
well the story is that i am forced to upgrade my blogger account, but since i'm working on a PET here and the connection is "carrier pigeon", you can imagine how l9ong ot takes to create anything. nothing is easily done in india, even if it is as simple as putting on your socks...

i have been moonlighting and keeping a second blog on the horrid myspace, and for your reading pleasure i have just caught you up on them. there's not much there, but enjoy.

as for right now, more the same. i think i may have caught a parasite, or my body is just wrecked. i gave him a name, seeing as how close we are, and he has become quiet a big part of the dance community. i hope to god it's something insane like a tapeworm.

also just one week to performance. it will be nice to be done with it...sometimes the build-up is too much. let's just do this and get on with our lives please.

i have given up on my plane ticket and am setteling in for my new life. i either end up working with the gypsys in the market, or getting married and learning to cook. hard choice right? but in all seriousness i am learning some mad dancing skills, and after this program passes i will start to learn a dance so feirce that it takes my breath away.

so yes i am alive, i am well. i am submurged in a dream, refusing to wake up.

hair color

Friday, February 16, 2007
hair color
i was told that indians, even if they are gentlemen, really don't prefer blondes. i found this bit of knowledge interesting so went to investigate.
i asked several men and they all told me, no no blondes, we prefer black or "henna" colored hair. one even went so far as to say, "you'd be much prettier if you had black hair."

DEATH...again

DEATH....again
i thought settling into pushkar would be like one near death experience and then life. i have been confined to my bed for the last three. actually it's not even my bed but sharing a bed with one of the other girls i now think of as "mamma kimberly, the walking dr".
i think as a person i am not equipped for india. i have never been so sick, so many times. this land likes to remind me how weak i really am.
with only 9 days till program i find myself hysterical. well trying not to be, but on the verge. my body has been telling me, more rest morerestmorerest! and i would go home dutifully and be in bed at a resonable hour, but lay awake until 2 3 am. so finally my big dumb lug of an animal gave up on me since i wasn't giving it the proper care. a stupid but essential part of life.
on a side note i find it rather humerous that one word i consistantly spell wrong (among the thousands) is stupid. i ALWAYS want to spell it stupied instead of stupid. then i have to laugh and remeber how stupid i look spelling stupied wrong!
so after 3 days in bed i opened a door and walked home. i felt like i was seeing india for the first time again. i had been reborn.
then an angle from alaska came to visit me bringning an mp3 player with tom waits new 3cd album on it. i was on fire. i listened to it all night long. it made my brain smoulder and burn all thoughts...there is just something about that man and his words, i always had a thing for words even if i never cared to spell them right.
my brain has been awakened. there was a moment that the hamster fell asleep at the wheel and fell into his cider bedding, but that little bastard is up and doing his sun salutations so the maddness will begain again soon.
i ran into my french poet again. the one from the beginning of the trip. i said a breif hello and have plans to meet with him later. how odd to wander and run into the same people two three times in a trip, in different countries no less.
i have missed 3 days of rehersal. i could chew off my arm i feel so anxious. there's nothing to heal the body like a good dose of anxiety...
but this is all part of theprocess. giving it up. i have really learned some depths in the soul/body relationship. i push and sometimes it folds, and when it folds i can't seem to tell why.
airplane limbo continues...i'm never coming home.

gungaroos

Friday, February 09, 2007
gungaroos
today was the first time ever i strapped on some gungaroos.
for those of you that don't know gungaroos are the bells worn around the ankles, they are found in several different forms of classical indian dance.
the feeling was amazing. having them on my ankels really made me want to dance. it was elating. suddenly after a full day of rehersal, running to the tailors, running to the bookshop, working with an indian graphic designer on big banners for our show, and then doing music theory, blah blah blah....i thought i was pooped (always goes back to #2) but no i found that with my gungaroos i had the power to go on.
i was a new woman. i did every choka step and every dance. i was floating on bells.
i have been learning more and more about the history of odissi dance...something i won't babble on about, but this whole experience has ruined me. or saved me, we've yet to see.

still in airplane limbo.

today

Monday, February 05, 2007
today
19 days till performance.
we have been working so hard here at the studio that EVERYONE fell sick at once. a massive gust of desert air pushed a cold virus from one dry nose to another. with in a day we were all down for the count. my guesthouse boyfriend kept me supplied in tea and conversation, he brought me flowers for my durga, and made sure i was well taken care of.
i took 2.5 days off of school and slept slept slept. i went through a whole tissue roll with my nose alone. today i fell much better. today we held a meeting about keeping the school healthy for the next 19 days, after that who cares?
i'm in the middle of dance #3, but luckily will only be performing two dances on stage. i can't wait to get my pretty costume from orissa, and pretend to be a classical dancer.
i need an accordian player and a human beatbox artist on my return, i have plans of grandure for the stage.
my return. i can't seem to get my return date sorted out, and have been having horrid problems with a return date. i think i may have to live with the gypsys and do henna in the markets once this dance program is over. my time is running longer than my $. but it is only $ and i know my dear friends and family won't make me stoop to prostitution. well if they do i live in the right hood!
i've been trying to get in good with the silver guys here in town, but still their prices are so high! they know me by name but still levey the "white skin tax" so things aren't much cheaper than they would be in america. also pushkar is such a tourist markwet that if i don't pay the prices someone else will.
i saw a world famouse indian flautist last night. somehow my picture ended up in the hindi paper from it. i've yet to see it, but while walking to school this morning i kept getting my local dollar dropping report and, oh you are in the paper today! no one seemed to have a copy on them, but i'll check it out.
i meet a traveling painter from south africa that has started sketching me, and wants to paint dancer portraits.
what else? i have a parcel as big as my body that needs to make it into the mail, i have to hire a coolie to carry it for me.
pushkar is still a dream. everyday i start to forget, but then i open my eyes.