peter hopkins – trespassers on the roof of the world
Tag Archives: art
(Some) Stuff I Read This Week
For some reason I decided to start using Twitter again — I suspect iPhone — and without any clear purpose thought to keep track of (some of) what I trawl through every day from the various news feeds I subscribe to. Certainly not a complete list… I wouldn’t even bore myself with that. (For those of you who like Twitter, I am here: francesdath)
Hannah Arendt And The Challenge Of Modernity: A Phenomenology Of Human Rights http://bit.ly/al0fTY
Publishing Bigotry: What Obligations Do We Have? http://bit.ly/ap8JfM
The Banksoniain #16 http://www.banksoniain.netfirms.com/banksoniain_16.pdf
From the Feuilletons (10/09/2010) http://www.signandsight.com/intodaysfeuilletons/2067.html
Insights From The Afghan Field http://www.currentintelligence.net/reviews/2010/9/6/insights-from-the-afghan-field.html
What Books on Afghanistan? http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/what-books-on-afghanistan/
Can we really say Wen is insincere? http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/09/10/7524/
You have failed us, Mr. Wen http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/09/09/7483/
William S. Burroughs’ Lost Graphic Novel Ah Pook Is Here Gets Exhumed http://bit.ly/99IVYd
Corruption in Afghanistan, Part DLXXII: Kabul Bank in Crisis http://bit.ly/bzJYzu
On Clean Energy, China Skirts Rules http://nyti.ms/crIV9P
If We Only Had Twelve Fingers http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/2010/09/if-we-only-had-twelve-fingers.html
Obama: I mean it — tax the rich http://bit.ly/d8mJZR
China’s Other Billion: Mud Houses in China’s Powerhouse http://bit.ly/aghJ9U
Being Jewish in Shanghai http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/being-jewish-in-shanghai-photos/62574/
Racist patriarchy in Israel, updated http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/09/racist-patriarchy-in-israel-updated.html
‘Livelihood Issues’ http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/mirsky_09_10.html
Shenzhen Special Economic Zone celebrates 30 years
http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the_day/shenzhen_special_economic_zone.php
Hungary: Heterosexual Pride March http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/09/06/hungary-heterosexual-pride-march/
Thesis: That’s why they go to war http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2010/war
Book review: Goodbye to London – Radical Art and Politics in the Seventies http://bit.ly/9fBkhH
Awesome death spiral of a bizarre star http://bit.ly/crFrQH
Readin: GYP. http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003982.php
Thoughts on Inner Mongolia (內蒙古回顧) http://www.portraitofanlbx.com/2010/09/thoughts-on-inner-mongolia-內蒙古回顧/
Hu’s Shenzhen speech: the numbers http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/09/06/7383/
Israel: “Rape by deception” turns out to be brutal rape of a vulnerable and abused woman http://bit.ly/9tYI9q
Assigning a gender to be appealed
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/06/3004047.htm
Restrepo http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/09/05/restrepo/
london again
Dasniya received some photos of her and us at the London Festival of the Art of Japanese Bondage a couple of days ago. Her being tied and semi-suspended for a life drawing class, and us together performing on the Saturday night — kimono and sheepskin and rope.
dasniya tying, my ankle, foot, leg
me suspended dasniya about to…
dasniya and i suspended, sheepskin komono seile
dasniya shibari cherry blossoms
dasniya musician turquiose
Christoph Schlingensief
christoph schlingensiefyoga + shibari brussels photos
Some photos from the workshop Dasniya taught in Brussels late-June/early-July. I’ve been meaning to put these up for a while, and so finally they arrive. The first few are from the workshop itself, and the latter from the photoshoot we did on the final night, half an hour south of the city in a 300-year-old stables. Looking through the hundreds of photos last night I found now I like other ones, or others are more obviously attractive. Never mind, here are some…
(Some credits info: Concept: Dasniya Sommer, Photographs & Space: Charleroi Danses la Raffinerie, (studio), Philippe Theunissen (photoshoot). All photos: Frances d’Ath.)
yoga + shibari brussels – 1
yoga + shibari brussels – 2
yoga + shibari brussels – 3
yoga + shibari brussels – 4
yoga + shibari brussels – 5
yoga + shibari brussels – 6
yoga + shibari brussels – 7
yoga + shibari brussels – 8
yoga + shibari brussels – 9
yoga + shibari brussels – 10
yoga + shibari brussels – 11
yoga + shibari brussels – 12
yoga + shibari brussels – 13
yoga + shibari brussels – 14
yoga + shibari brussels – 15
yoga + shibari brussels – 16
yoga + shibari brussels – 17
reading: jonathan burrows – a choreographer’s handbook
jonathan burrows – a choreographer’s handbookreturn to blog
The last week has been chaotic. I came to Brussels slightly early – on Tuesday, to help with Dasniya’s Yoga and Shibari Workshop at Charleroi Danses, she arriving Thursday and some setting up in La Raffinerie, followed by three days of yokes and bindings with 20 others, and one long night of photography in an old stable somewhere south of Brussels. Yesterday some vagueness and attempts at ordering my life again, along with sorting—in a highly subjective manner, some 590 images I took over the three days. Hopefully I’ll be putting some of them up here later this week and writing about the workshop.
For now, continuing back into design work and trying to balance everything physical and computational. I’m not sure I manage this very well. Or perhaps I simply haven’t worked out how to a) sleep less, b) clone and reabsorb myself daily c) make myself attractive to wealthy philanthropists d) elongate seconds or minutes/convert former to latter/other temporal manipulations e) function in a highly regimented schedule… (and so on). I shall try though.
Mainly to say I’m feeling quite inspired at the moment, planning on a new performance, much enjoyment of reading, anxious to return to dance/climb/cycle/run/yoga and perhaps finding some progress in knee/hip/pelvis mess… Brussels for the remainder of the week, then Berlin again.
Some photos…
metro lemonnier
sunset over parc forest
la raffinerie foyer – 1
la raffinerie foyer – 2
two… zwei
Two years now. And it was yesterday.
I arrived in Berlin after some hours from Frankfurt on the train, easier to pass this way than on another flight after days of moving across hemispheres. And then on to Vienna and circling Central Europe.
And now, two years on, I find myself… well, much has happened and it seems to be my home. I met someone that first jetlagged week in north Berlin, watching her hang, and in yoga. Later, in the first destitute winter, terrified I’d have to go back to Adelaide because I had no money, helping with computer things, a website and other assistances, coming to class in early spring to learn to tie another or self in ropes.
Now just finished three days of Yoga and Shibari in Brussels with her, Dasniya, and saw her off to the airport, staying with Gala, somehow returning to dance and managing to have a livable life here.
I suppose I should celebrate. Two years in Europe—currently one of the better decisions I’ve made.
BER – BRU – BER – VIE
Not so much an open secret as something I haven’t got around to writing about here, I depart tomorrow for a journey around central Europe for the next few weeks.
First, to my second home in Brussels, to see Gala, Hans and others, and for Dasniya’s Yoga + Bondage workshop in Charleroi Danses. Then back to Berlin for a week, and then on to Vienna.
Vienna again. It will be my third time at ImPulsTanz, the first where I was a DanceWEB-er(in), and heard/saw/met Hans for the first time, the second, in 2008, fresh off the plane from Adelaide (after a week in Berlin), to work with him in Settlement, and this time to work with him once more, in Café Prückel.
Yes, rather thrilled about it all, summer across the three cities I have a strong attachment to, performing, making new things with friends, friends themselves…
shibari oskar helene heim
On the weekend, Dasniya and I travelled south-west to near Wannsee, Oskar Helene Heim, an old hospital now taken over by a film company who use it for location scenes requiring abandoned period hospitals. Surrounded by lush trees, bordering Grünewald and the lakes, on one floor part of a wing has been turned into an open-plan apartment. For guests or if people also live there, I’m not sure.
A birthday party then. Black and White themed. We have a hospital bed to use and continue on with our ideas of usurping bdsm and Shibari roles, tying blindfolded to the music of Mohammad Rahim Khushnawaz, an Afghan recorded in 1974 in Herat, playing the Rubab.
Some twenty minutes, first with Dasniya tying Hojo Hishi Nawa on me, which is one of my favourites, along with Jiai Shibari. Then unblinded and legs bound, wrapped and pulled around the pillars, improvising with the room, having no place to suspend from.
Later we eat, cheeses, breads and find out way home.
Some photos…
dasniya + frances – oskar helene heim 1
dasniya + frances – oskar helene heim 2
dasniya + frances – later in the evening
dasniya + frances – hojo hishi nawa