Holiday! by Theo

Made it! After a less-than-frantic end of term as I managed to stay on top of marking, planning and prepping revision materials for Year 11, we hit the holidays dancing. In a couple of senses.

Rosie now has her own playlist on the ipod (featuring Feist, The Fall, Manu Chao, Bucky, Harry Belafonte) abd a post-dinner dance with Daddy is rapidly becoming part of her routine. Meanwhile Kate and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with an evening of dance at Circo Media, watching rather than participating, which was enjoyable if not spectacular. I'm now trying to squeeze an EPS assignment around various visits before we head down to Cornwall at the weekend.

Best of all though, as I'm still a student, rather than a fully fledged teacher, I get 3 weeks off!

Bothanica by Theo

Accompanied by our friends Fermin and Rebecca, Kate and I made our first venture to a Spanish Theatre on Friday night when we headed to Teatro del canal to see Bothanica, a contemporary dance spectacular by the American company Momix choreographed by Moses Pendleton. I was slightly feeling the pressure as the show had been my idea and tickets were really pricey - €35 - so I was really hoping it would be good!


It was. The two-hour show, presented in two acts, had no real plot as such, but rather focused around themes of evolution and nature but was none the less enthralling, beautiful, emotive and occasionally humorous. Prancing centaurs, whirling jellyfish, dinosaur puppets, living rocks, amorous trees and macho bees that looked like Brian Blessed's hawkmen out of Flash Gordon were among the characters. Particularly effective I felt was the opening scene in which a twirling anemone tempted dancers out from the ocean sands to taste its poison fruit - the Garden of Eden on the sea floor. Some scenarios were more or less straightforward - a woman dancing on a mirror a metaphor for asexual reproduction - others more complex (what the hell was going on with the two lovers being attacked by rocks?) but they were always engaging. The use of often oversized props - massive flags, huge snail shells - and clever costumes added another spectacular element to the show. We'd definitely recommend it, even if the price is a bit steep.


(not my photos by the way!!)

Boys and their toys

As part of the Carnival celebrations here in Madrid, Plaza Mayor played host to Frenchman Dominique Boivin and his toys. Well, one of them - a mid-sized hydraulic digger. Set to rather loud classical music this piece of modern farce... sorry... modern dance was entertaining if rather limited - as Kate pointed out there were only so many photos you could take of a middle-aged man riding around in a digger's bucket. We applauded, but 20 minutes definitely covered all the possible means of suspending yourself from a JCB arm while it whirls around.


We weren't quite sure whether Transport Exceptionnals (as the piece was called) was an elegy for Spain's moribund construction industry, a lament for a lost childhood fascination for all things mechanical or merely an emphatic riposte of penis-envy. Either way we both agreed that more sequins were required.