Also unexpectedly one of the places I’ve long wanted to visit has fallen into my lap, and I shall be wandering north- and eastwards in three weeks with Dasniya for a workshop in Helsinki.

Self-Suspension Workshop in February

Am Samstag den 11. Februar von 14-20 Uhr.

In diesem Kurs behalten alle die Seile in den eigenen Händen. Wir üben quasi Aerial-Multitasking. Dazu gehören Seil- und Atemtechniken mit physischen Intensitäten, Entspannungsmomenten und Kraft zu koordinieren… Knotentechnisch verwenden wir traditionelles, und unseren liebgewonnen Anarchostil*.

Kosten 40 Euro.
Anmeldung und Info: email hidden; JavaScript is required
dasniyasommner.de

On Saturday 11th, 14-20 h.

We will take apart the complex act of self- suspension. Coordinating rope technique, strength, breath, relaxation and physical intensities in the air.
Using traditional knots and our beloved anarchic style*.

Costs: 40 Euro.
More information and registration: email hidden; JavaScript is required
dasniyasommner.de

Dasniya started with some (gentle) bootcamp warmup, and then spent the first two or three hours teaching basic tying and harnesses for hips, legs, torso, then going on to full-suspensions and showing some more painful possibilities like the single-bound-leg inverted hanging. Dinner was all us around the table, which is why Alte Kantine is so perfect for these classes and workshops, with much talking about philosophical, social, feminist and gender issues in BDSM and shibari.

And so on to February, more yoga and shibari classes every Wednesday evening in the Alte Kantine, and a trip for Dasniya at the end of the month north and east to Finland to teach in Helsinki.

Jeden Mittwoch Yoga & Shibari im Wedding.
1., 8., 15.,22., 29.  Februar, 19-23 Uhr.
Ort: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine, Teatris, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin,
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr.
Kosten 20/15 Euro
Workshop Text Deutsch

Every Wednesday there will be Yoga & Shibari in Berlin-Wedding.
February 1., 8., 15., 22., 29.
Location: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine, Teatris, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin, U8Pankstr/ U9 Osloerstr.
Costs: 20/15 Euro
Workshop text english

dasniya self-suspended and reading

I suspect this thwarting unleashed some kind of psychopathic need to fell anything arboreal within view of Uferhallen.

About a year ago, they returned and lopped two trees opposite us. ‘Not so old, in the way of the pipes’, said Berliner Wasserbetrieb. And for good measure, they repeated the act further down the road. Just to rub it in, once all the digging and filling of trenches was complete, they left two squares of sandy Berlin dirt to be placeholders for the local’s affliction with having their dogs shit anywhere horizontal.

Not even getting warm, in late-autumn, they (I suspect the same chainsaw-wielding philistines) returned, and began at one end of Uferstr and continued till the street ran out. Outside my window, what was once a charming youngish thing reaching above the 4th floor roof was reduced to an amputated caricature. Oh, I suppose it grows back all bushy in spring, but what the fuck? Do these guys get paid by the branch? And looking at the black chopped up mess out my window throughout a typical grey and dim Berlin winter doesn’t do much to alleviate seasonal slash-the-wrists syndrome.

Late last year, I could hear chainsaws and tree pulverisers at work across the road, and hoped, like the plague, they were receding into the distance. Not bloody likely.

This morning, in a direct line from window through aforementioned tree butchery and across the Panke canal, a beautiful weeping willow eight or so stories high was the latest victim of the serial killers. It’s possible it too will grow back all bushy in spring, but for fuck’s sake what was the point in this pruning?

It’s not as though it’s old or rotten. The way they’ve been hacking through the streets, I think these tree trimmers take pleasure in fucking over huge old trees like this. It’s some kind of jerk-offery to reduce something majestic that gives so many people and animals pleasure to a sad stump and a truck-full of wood chips in a single morning.

(and yes, blah blah, danger to public, pollarding, willows are hardy etc, fuck off.)

first, hack out one whole side

then assault the crown, leaving a bit

then gut everything from underneath

now humiliate the last branch on the top

weeping? nah, stumpy har har

success! ugliness achieved!

weeping willow in the snow

In a quite sporadic and unplanned fashion, I’m managing to read my way into Canton and the south of China, which I hope eventually will cause me to arrive at a book or books that does justice to the history and culture of Canton and Lingnan. Starting with rice seemed like a good idea.

Seung-Joon Lee — Gourmets in the Land of Famine

So I, without knowing all this until I read the introduction, have found myself landed with Jin Shengtan’s 1641 version, with his commentary and missing the final 30-50 chapters (depending on which previous version one might refer to), by way of J. H. Jackson in the ’30s, who prudishly omitted some of the more creative language, which was then re-edited by Edwin Lowe. This translation though isn’t as well-regarded as the Sidney Shapiro one (something I wish I’d bothered to find out before carting it home).

Shi Naian – The Water Margin

So much of what is written on China is in fact only a small part thereof — Beijing as China, Shanghai as China, the eastern core. Other parts of the country are so distant as to be other countries, and despite the ongoing Han homogenisation programme, these other parts still retain their individual histories.

Paul A. Van Dyke’s The Canton Trade seemed like a good place to continue, after reading Julia Lovell’s The Opium War a few months ago, and now, more than half way through reading, I can say he hasn’t skimped on thoroughness.

Paul A. Van Dyke — The Canton Trade

Last Friday, he was awarded the medal by the Staatssekretär, and following that, a long lunch and many drinks with a large group of friends and family.

I am very happy for Christian to have all his work recognised — for Werner Bab and “Zeitabschnitte”, for Gunter Kroemer and “Bedrohtevölker” — and for him to receive the recognition he is due.

And at the end of the month, he departs for South America with a camera.

Christian mit der Staatssekretär

Christian und Verdienstkreuz

It premieres on 26th January at Vooruit in Ghent.

SOIT/Hans Van den Broeck – Messiah Run

Presented as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s inSPACE:development Program, Reassessment examines concepts surrounding Self-Worth, perception and the consequences of being seen as “unworthy”.

WHERE: Rehearsal room 2 – Adelaide Festival Centre (meet 15 minutes prior at the foyer of the Dunstan Playhouse)
WHEN: January 26 at 4pm and 27 at 7pm
COST: Pay what you can donation

RSVP: email hidden; JavaScript is required

ARTISTS:
choreography and performance: DANIEL JABER
soundtrack: DJ TR!P
texts: GABRIELLE NANKIVELL
animation: MATTHIAS WALDT
lighting design and production: DANIEL BARBER

** CONTAINS NUDITY AND COARSE LANGUAGE

Hope to see you there!

Daniel Jaber

Reassessment – Daniel Jaber