Pre-BJ: Ah, the night before…

Past  1 a.m. and I’m trying to get a lot done, incl packing, in London before I fly back to Beijing for the fist time since 2009 and the inaugural phase of this international cultural exchange centred round dance. I’m sorry to have missed the selection process of the dancers particularly by the choreographers from England. As I remember well from my time in Taipei last year, so much happens in the first few days of creating something together; this can be especially revealing as people get to know each other and start to develop a working relationships in a cross-cultural context. Well, I guess one just has to slip into the stream no matter where you are on the bank! It’s a privilege to be returning. I’m looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with the National Library [ultra-modern and, architecture aside, ultra-friendly; it’s on my ‘hit’ list of special places after so easily securing a library card there on my first full day in China]. And there shall be strolls into the Purple Bamboo Park —  I think that’s the English translation — located across the road from the entrance to the Beijing Dance Academy. Having just begun a very gentle tai chi/qi gong course at a communtiy centre near my flat, I want to see [and maybe join in] with the tai chi the ’locals’ are doing. And of course there’s  BDA itself…or do they have new facilities? Anyway, the ’old’ ones were pretty impressive: 7 (or more?) storeys of dance studios and almost all full most of the time, or so it seemed. That’s a lotta movement…

I’m also wondering what the ’mood’ might be on the street in light of recent political shifts of power. Politics and art are on my mind tonight as I need to churn out a quick, concise review of Batsheva Ensemble’s performance in Brighton last night. Emotions ran high thanks to at least four interruptions in the auditorium by anti-Israeli protestors. I’d like to think that art can transcend politics, but…

Apart from hours spent in studios being fly-on-wall I must, this time, actually have the ’date’ with Chairman Mao’s corpse that I just missed three years ago. And I want to check out the 798 art district, and see the space where Janis Claxton presented her work ‘Human Animal’ apparently in a hole, or holes, in the floor or ground. My grasp of details might be fuzzy tonight, but I’m fizzing with plans and intentions…