So what was Jeremy doing in Belgium?

While I was eating up all the cream in Cambridge, Jeremy was in Belgium (in the south, near Liège) mentoring students and walking around in caves. The countryside is beautiful, and, as per our standard request, there is not a cloud in sight.

Oooh.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter...

Ok, you can hope again now.

But just watch out for the Killer Cat.

Cambridge

I took a very quick trip to Cambridge this weekend in order to drum up a little more business for my baroque dance enterprise. There is a fantastic chamber group (recorder, harpsichord, double bass, and drums) that mixes baroque music and jazz, and I had a meeting with the recorder player to discuss new projects. I arrived Saturday night, and most of Sunday was spent in blissful project-dreaming nerdiness.

On Monday, however, the recorder player hit the town with me. First stop, scones with clotted cream. Second stop, punting on the river (see pictures above). The bucolic views of the university are best from this vantage point, especially given that most of the colleges now don't allow tourists to walk through their campus. And by bucolic, I mean that they have rare breed cows on one of the pastures in order to tend to the grass. After that, delicious ramen noodles (ok, so everything wasn't totally English), cake at tea-time, and Marks and Spencers. I high-tailed it home early Tuesday morning.

I can't believe that I waited so long to go to England. I guess it just didn't seem exotic enough.

The pictures are a little fuzzy because I took them with the cell phone... Jeremy had our camera in Belgium.

Varieté Wrap-up

Hi Everyone!

The Varieté 1770 went very well! It was truly a vision of a punk-rococo-circus circus show that could have possibly been performed in the late 18th c. in the boulevard theaters of Paris or in the pantomime palaces of London. We were SO LUCKY to find our juggling acrobat/actor/dancer at the last minute. He really made the show!

We had everything-- puppet-like music box dances that announced each new section, a snotty minuet, a sexy follia d'espana, juggling with clubs, harlequin, an insane pantomime in which I kind of do a handstand on stage, a Turkish dance with a feather for a sword, a real martial arts sword dance, Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death" speech, and finally, the French National Anthem played faster and faster so that in the end I am stumbling around-- ending with---- you guessed it--- blackout and the sound of a guillotine.

Whee!! We are so going to try to take this madness on the road. Or at least do it again in Cologne next September.

The audience was not bad, but we were up against a LOT of other shows in Cologne that night. Plus it is fall vacation, so many people are out of town. We actually had some journalists there as well as someone from the Cultural Office in Cologne (they give money... hopefully to us!!) and a baroque dance guy. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and the director of the theater was very pleased with our new work.

I'll be working on the video in the next few weeks, so hopefully I can post something soon!

Gummibärchen!

We are now taking orders for Gummi Bears from the new and oddly comprehensive Gummi Bear store in the central train station. Heartily recommended are the ginger-chili bears!

Luxembourg Pictures with Bonus Fox Hunt

Before I went on my trip to Luxembourg, Jeremy and I took advantage of the last bit of picnic weather in Cologne, only to find our idyll in the middle of a fox hunt. With horses and everything, weird.

And here, as promised, are the pictures from Dudelange and Luxembourg the city. The city has a pretty amazing layout. There are huge, sheer cliffs that divide he city into two layers. The top layer seems to have most of the businesses and government buildings (including the Duke's palace where the scarily photogenic royal family still lives), while the lower layer seems to have a giant park and some residential buildings. The bridges that cut across the chasms are on the UNSECO world heritage list, I think.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get good pictures inside the church where we performed. It was pretty stunning. One day I will have to learn how to use the camera properly.

Here is the Dudelange city hall, the front of our church, and the best of my inside the church shots.

And here is the lovely city of Luxembourg!

Portrait of Heidi

Before I put up the shots of Luxembourg, I thought I would treat you to a few kitty pictures.

We think she may be part monkey, but that kind of evidence is hard to capture on film.

This week (ok, it has really only been a half-week since I got back) has really gotten away from me. The Varieté 1770 show is in full-blast mode. I had a fabulous meeting with the musicians on Friday in which they recorded all the music (so I can rehearse without them). I love having Beate choose the music for the shows. Without Beate, I would have never used Haydn or the sons of Bach, and the music is so funny and charming! And hooray for not having to do everything myself!!

Today I am rehearsing my dances, going shopping for costume pieces (a puffy golden blouse and Turkish jacket---Me: "Ummm, do you have something that looks more like a French 18th c. painting of a Turkish lady?" Store Owner: "Huh?"), rehearsing the minuet with Beate, and then going to the meeting of OriginalKlang Köln: Alte Musik Initiative (Alte Musik=Early Music).

I better get started.