Yams, tulips and Dancenorth

I really don’t know where last week went.  It’s hard to believe it is already Saturday afternoon and that it is approaching the time I need to get cooking a cottage pie for dinner.

Anyway, last night I went to see the Australian contemporary dance company Dancenorth in a piece called ‘Mass’, conceived by their artistic director Raewyn Hill (the programme said that it was created by the performers and Hill).  The stage setting consisted of three walls, on to which was projected, in reverse, Kevin Rudd’s Apology to Australia’s Stolen Generation.  The five dancers used the walls to climb up and drop from, and at one point, print black hand prints onto the surface.  It was a very powerful piece, based around the concept of communities dealing with events such as the Christchurch earthquakes.  It was one of those works where it really helped to have read the programme notes before seeing it.  The dancers were strong and athletic and it was an interesting piece, one that I need to think about a bit more before commenting further.  The ending was wonderful to look at, with the projected text sort of falling apart as the dancers moved about the space, letters dropping and falling as the music played.  I should really get my old dance blog up and running again to write more fully on it though!

A bit of a crumpled programme

I took a walk around ‘the garden’ today and confess it is in real need of a tidy up and weeding.  I’m going to go and order up some seeds too and have a think about what to put where.  In the meantime, I can look at the tulips opening up.

Tulips again

Finally, I bought some yams today.  These are not yams in the North American sense of yams, but ones we get here which are quite different as you can see below.

Yams in a bowl

A yam close up

They look like little grubs of some sort, but am assured they taste good. I’ll report next time.