The Cast Assembles

We recently announced that we are creating a performance poetry show set to and inspired by the album released by Nine Inch Nails onto the Creative Commons in 2008, Ghosts I. We called the madness the Ghosts Project and invited expressions of interest from people who wanted to write to the music as well as the Ghosts theme, with guest musicians being invited to further riff off the poetry and album.

We started off the month by meeting with all interested parties. Together we got clear on the concept, brainstormed ideas and chose NIN tracks to write to.

The Ghosts Project cast of contributing poets is: Miriam Barr, Christian Jensen, Daniel Larsen, David Ingram, Sabrina Muck and Shane Hollands. We are excited to be working with some people for the first time and to be reunited with both past and new Literartists once more. I think we proved with Growl that we don't do anything by halves in The Literatti. And our collaboration on the Ghosts Project with Shane Hollands, the founder of The Literatti and frontman for Freaky Meat, and David Ingram, a harmonica-playing, retired sailor with a long-time presence on the open mic circuit, promises to deliver nothing short of inspiring. Collaborating musicians are still to be announced - but the shortlist is very exciting.

The Ghosts Project reincarnates a series of characters who have influenced the shape of the era in which we live. After listening to the album together and choosing a track to start working with, we are now each researching characters ranging from Leonardo Da Vinci and Hans Christian Anderson through to Kate Sheppard and Tawhiao. These characters will be plunged into the modern age, placed in interactions with each other, introduced to their successors and given an opportunity to reflect on their own lingering effects. With a cast that spans three generations, the Ghosts Project is shaping up to be an unprecedented experience.

In other news, the Word of Mouth CDs have almost all sold out and as such, you can now download an MP3 version of the album on our website for free - they're not as good quality as the CD, but it at least makes them available. We hope to release downloadable MP3s of selected live Growl recordings shortly as well.

Our newest Literartist, Daniel Larsen, and I have been collaborating together with our old friend and DJ Steve Riley on a 30-minute show for a guest performance at Poetry Live on December 1st. This show is doubley exciting for me, because this is the first time Dan and I, who are also engaged, have worked together on such a substantial series of pieces. A few of you might have seen us perform 'eight ways of looking at it' with The Literatti at October Gig or Rhythm & Verse recently. Our Poetry Live show builds on that, but with the addition of new pieces, all set to music mixed and sampled live by Steve Riley.

On November 24th you can catch Christian Jensen and Murray Lee doing a shared Poetry Live guest spot. It's a good chance to catch Murray Lee in performance for those who have been missing him (my fingers are crossed for a big enough crowd to warrant him performing Train Gang). And I must say, Christian has been delivering some stellar work recently. The Global Eyes/Feet/Voice performances he did were fantastic.

Poetry Live is at Thirsty Dog on Karangahape Rd, it starts at 8 pm.

Dan, Christian, Sabrina and I were all part of the Global Eyes/Feet/Voice project and the poetry and art work we produced for it is all included in the Global Eyes book and multimedia CD. You can purchase copies for $30 by contacting Christian via ideasimbedcreative AT gmail DOT com

We'll keep posting updates about the Ghosts Project and what's happening with The Literatti Pool as things go down. Check in on the website regularly - we try to update it as often as possible. There are new photos of our last big shows up now.

You can catch Sabrina in performance on Sunday November 15th at the PEN Courage Day event alongside Stephanie Johnson, John Pule, Tim Heath and others. A great line up, and a great event.

The Literatti Take on the World of Object Art

Our very own Christian Jensen has been heading up a project with Ronald Andreassand in which 6 poets (including myself and fellow literartists Daniel Larsen and Sabrina Muck) were first charged with writing a poem for Matariki. Ronald Andreassend and Karen Chan then created a series of 7 ceramic light sculptures inspired by our poems. These were all exhibited with the poems at the Corban Estate during Matariki.

But that was just the beginning.

Next, the poets were asked to create object art that used the first collaboration as a spring-board - and the Global Eyes Feet Voice project was born. These objects, the original light sculptures and a photo series by Erin Gaffney, are part of the Global Eyes Feet Voice exhibition, which opened at Te Karanga Gallery on K Rd on Monday and runs until October 22nd. The exhibition includes a full colour book and multimedia CD including all of the poems and images of the objects as well as audio recordings of all of the poems.

Christian created a series of tokotoko talking sticks - handmade rimu walking sticks with poetry spiralling up its length. I created a series of twelve tea-light lamps, eight miniature handbound books and a series of three origami poetry flowers. Genevieve McLean created a series of prints. Daniel Larsen made the Global Eyes Feet Voice puzzle that greets you at the door. Ya Wen Ho created a series of drawings inspired by Renee Liang's poems. We all took the poems to the streets and photographs of the chalkings are also on display.

A comment from someone who was at the launch: "outstanding artwork ... inspired ... fabulous book ... great poems ... amazing ... stunning photography ... top!"

But that's still not all.

Myself, Daniel, Christian and Genevieve have also been collaborating with pianist Jonathan Besser and musicians Paul Williams, Craig Humphries and Otis Mace.

On October 24th we will all be performing together at the Thirsty Dog from 8 pm. It's just $5 on the door. Copies of the book are available from the exhibition and at the performance evening for $30.

If you can, do try to get along to the exhibition (it is very much new ground for all involved), and make damn sure you don't miss out on a copy of this beautiful book either!

Hopefully we'll see you on the 24th at the performance evening. It's going to be awesome. I love working with new live musicians. And my rehearsals with Jonathan have been fantastic.

View the Facebook event and RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146313606189&ref=mf

Until then,

Miriam

P.S. You may have noticed our website is down at the moment - there has been a technical problem with our server, but it should be back online within the next couple of days.

Ghosts begins - expressions of interest sought

We have a new project. It is killer. It is open for other people to get their fingers in the pie as well.

Nine Inch Nails released their instrumental album Ghosts onto the creative commons last year, complete with a series of images. The Literatti are writing a show to this album and series of images and invite members of the recently developed Literatti Pool and others to be involved. The show will be about the influence of our ancestors and idols, a homage to the ghosts of the modern age so to speak. Contributing performers will write to both the piece of music selected and this theme. In this way we hope to create a performance poetry show that also tells a story.

There are limited places to be filled, so interested parties will need to get in quick. We invite contributing performers to make expressions of interest. We will select contributing performers based on three things:

(1) they write excellent poetry, suitable for performance

(2) they can perform. well.

(3) they are willing to rehearse regularly and collaborate.

We will also need to ensure that you are available for the workshop and rehearsal schedule, once it has been set. But please allow for a first workshop in late October/early November (a Sunday afternoon) and one in late January, and then fortnightly thereafter.

Expressions of interest should include a brief bio and a sample of some of your best poetry. Because of the nature of the event, we cannot promise a set fee to each contributor, instead contributing performers will paid a proportional split of the proceeds made from ticket sales. Due to the regulations of creative commons licensing agreements, this is a not-for-profit event. All proceeds will be distributed between contributors.

The show will be jointly directed by Miriam Barr and Christian Jensen as part of the official hand-over of the role of creative director. Christian will be in his homeland of Norway from November 2009 - March 2010, and much of the writing of the show will take place then, with technology again making Literatti collaboration across great distances possible. Miriam will workshop with the other contributing performers during this time, and there will be a month of intense in person rehearsals when Christian returns. The aim is to open the show in late April or May.

If you are interested in being involved as a contributing performer please email an expression of interest to theliteratti@gmail.com. If you have footage of yourself performing or audio which could help us to get a feel for what you do, please include links. Please be aware that we may ask to meet up with you and check out what you do in person before we make a final decision.

Rhythm and Verse and stuff

So, as you all know we've been workshopping with these other poets. Last Sunday we started developing our first collaborative pieces together, which is really exciting. And even more exciting is that these poets will be starting to appear in shows with us from here on out, as each person gets pieces ready for performance.



Kiri & Christian worked out a sizzling performance of a love poem by Kiri.






Shane & Anna collaborated on two poems, one by each of them, and Daniel & I started collaborating on one of his poems.



Sabrina, Christian and I are looking forward to doing some gigs with these guys soon.


And last night, the first from the Literartist Pool joined Christian and I in performance with Craig Humphries at Rhythm & Verse up on the top floor of Lopdell House in Titirangi. Daniel Larsen was The Literatti sound technician until the end of last year and has been pretty much everywhere The Literatti's been in the last three years. We realised he was on the wrong side of the curtain when he was involved in the People In Your Neighbourhood Project last year, and so invited him along to the workshops.



He was awesome!

Dan and I performed our first collaborative poem together in The Literatti.




Last night, Craig Humphries improvised music and we performed a mixture of old and newer pieces. Christian and Daniel were rock-stars, and I reckon I was alright too. Small but very appreciative audience. Craig was on fire with his broom bass and violin umbrella, and he turned Christian's Ja Ja into a bloody awesome hip-hop piece with his home-made drum. Loved it.

And I'm thinking over what kind of craziness I can do for a 'last show' before Christian takes over the reigns.

Workshopping

We had our second open-ish workshop today. We've been playing around with a great bunch of people and today we had a wicked time making poetry madness with Anna K and Lee Wallace.

To begin with The Literatti core met up - just me, Christian and Sabrina for the moment - and listened to the GROWL CD. Yes that is right. The entire show was recorded through the sound desk and it is brilliant. If I do say so myself. And I do. Brilliant. We need to re-record two words that were not said into the microphones on the night, and then it's basically ready for release. It's so good for us to be able to listen to what we produced as well, find out once and for all what worked and what did not. And it all worked - though I'm vetoing the one where they convinced me to sing, it would be inhumane to inflict it on the world in such an enduring fashion :o)

Anyway, so when Anna and Lee rocked up we did this wicked warm-up activity that Shane I think taught me, where you physically and verbally throw your voices to one another, catch it, transform it and pass it on. It's really funny, and helps everyone step out of comfort zone and into a performance space. Then we did a round of improvised line-by-line poetry until we petered out, just going round the circle each adding to a poem. I figure if we do this every time we'll eventually be able to incorporate things like that into our shows, which would be choice. It takes a special skill to improvise poetry well. Shane can do it excellently. I struggle with second-guessing myself.

Then we got into performing our poems to each other and giving each other a bit of feedback. A major one was eye gaze, lots of us felt uncomfortable making eye contact with an audience, and lots of us found ourselves betrayed by a gaze that wandered to the floor or the ceiling. So I made everyone turn to face each other and hold each other's gaze for 15 seconds without 'breaking character'. None of us wanted to do it, so we thought that probably meant we needed to. So we did that until we were able to do without laughing our arses off.

Only took 3 tries too!

Then we wrote a number of different emotions or 'voices' on bits of paper and each drew two out at random. Then we'd perform our poem using those two voices. Some totally bizarre and hilarious things emerge, but then so do some surprising little gems. And a confidence emerges when you allow yourself to be potentially silly in this way, to let go, to be spontaneous, to trust your instincts.

So essentially I spent the afternoon remembering how great GROWL was, being inspired, trying out new poetry, playing games and laughing until there were tears in my eyes.

I have learned that Sabrina does an excellent crazy face,

that Christian can channel an old man as if he had already been one,

that Anna exudes a vibrancy when she lets herself go with it

and that Lee can do a voice that sounds kinda like Johnny Cash with a kiwi accent.

We've got our set sussed out for our Rythm and Verse appearance at Lopdell House in Titirangi on August 20th. I'm quite excited about it really. It's our first gig without Murray and we'll be doing a lot of new pieces by the looks of it. And we're working on getting Fiona Holding along to play a bit of cello with us. So cross fingers. That would be choice.

Next month anyone at all can join us for our workshop (provided you email to register). We've linked up with Poetry Live and Montana Poetry Day and will be running a Resurrection Workshop for anyone who wants to prepare a performance for Poetry Live's Resurrection Night. These are official Montana Poetry Day preludes.

Resurrection Night (July 21st) involves bringing to life a poem by a dead poet during a 5-minute open mic performance. There is a prize for best performance and best costume. Christian, Sabrina and I will be joined by Shane Hollands, Daniel Larsen and Raewyn Alexander in resurrecting a selection of poems for the guest poetry slot.

The workshop (July 18th) will involve developing your chosen poem into a performance piece. Besides Resurrection Night, performing another person's poem can often be a really useful way to develop performance technique without the added pressure of having to bare your own poetry at the same time. We hope that the workshop would also just be good for anyone who wants to get more comfortable performing poetry or even just reading it out loud. Email theliteratti@gmail.com to register. Costs $5 unwaged/ $10 waged.

Literartists get favourable reviews

Two Literartists competed in the 2009 Poetry Idol competition on Friday night.

Our creative director won the first Poetry Idol back in 2007.

Check out Nik Smythe's review of Poetry Idol and the performances it brought to the stage. Both Murray Lee and Sabrina Muck, though they did not win, receive favourable reviews.

Review of Poetry Idol '09:
http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=2231

Murray & Miriam Take on the Live Sessions

Murray Lee and myself will be guest poets at the third Dirty Words Live Session on Sunday, May 10th from 3-5pm at Thirsty Dog.



I raved on about this gig when I went along to watch Christian Jensen and Texture perform at the inaugural event in March. Last month Shane hosted poetry sports in between guests (Anna Kaye and Murray Haddow) and fortunately it will be popping up again this time. The audience provides words and phrases to competitors, who then improvise a poem, theatre-sports-style. Email Shane at dirtywords@hotmail.co.uk to sign up for the poetry sports.

I have a whole lot of material in my head, but I am resolute in not deciding on anything until I hear the first few bars of whatever the musicians play.

:o)

This gig is on the second Sunday of every month at 3 pm.

Suspense

I sent out invitations to a bunch of people to take part in the first of our monthly workshops today. We start at the end of May, and Toi Ora, a wonderful community arts trust has kindly given us some space to hold them in. Which will be a relief for the partners-of-the-literartists and their flatmates, I'm sure. :o)

I can't wait to see what happens. We will surely learn more ourselves as we try to share our own skills, while fresh eyes, ears and perspectives will surely offer new and useful feedback. We share our skills and we also learn from the people around us. This is true community. So we've contacted a bunch of locals who we think are heading in our direction, and we'll just have to see what happens, creative connections seem inevitable. bliss.

This was always part of what we wanted to do, part of Shane's original vision. To involve a wider set of people, who were all supporting each other, even if they weren't all involved in shows. To build an active performance poetry scene in Auckland. Workshopping with other people is part of that.

It's also on the agenda to offer workshops to the public, to anyone who wants to get a few skills - more one-off kinds of things. If anyone is keen for one of them and can get a group together, we'd be more than happy to oblige. OR you can take part in the workshop on July 18th, which is open to the public as part of Poetry Live's Montana Poetry Day event, Resurrection Night. This involves preparing a performance of a poem by your favourite dead poet. Aside from preparing for the Poetry Live event this workshop is useful for developing skills without the pressure of worrying about the poem itself. Contact details are on our homepage, which has recently been beautified. www.theliteratti.co.nz

But for now, the focus is on getting right into what we all got involved in this for in the first place - to play around with poetry and performance, to see what you can do, how far you can take it, where you can take it and how many people you can do it with. These are exciting times. I feel like a small child, in a white dress, faced with a big mud puddle. Can't wait to jump in and mix it up.

In the meantime ....

It has been an interesting couple of days.


We took Nikki to the airport on Friday and watched her fly off to Wellington. I hear last night's Phat Grrrl Revolution went swimmingly at Happy down there. Stoked. She's heading to Dunedin on Monday - so watch out for her down there people and say hi from Miriam if you run into that crazy-intense woman from the States who I am so pleased to have had the chance to work with.


That night Murray, Christian and myself performed a set at Galatos as part of the Inhibition Exhibition. Warming up for rock bands this time - which I think may actually be more intimidating than performing in between them. But we did it and we did it good. Was a wicked venue to play, great little stage. Hope to do something else there down the track.



Murray, Me and Christian chill out pre-show.















Murray and Christian














Me doing Supported Accomodation. That shut them up.

***

Almost simultaneously, as Nikki would have been rocking her performance out down in Welly last night, Christian and I were performing with Texture and a bunch of other Auckland Fringe performers as part of Bang Bang Caravel at Cross Street Studios. They had erected a childhood-fort-like tent constructed out of sheets and pieces of fabric, which filled the entire gallery from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and the whole evening's performances took place in there - the audience gathered around on the floor like people around a camp fire, a small stage and curtain set up at one end, lights and a disco ball.



Texture performing at Bang Bang Caravel.

***

This blog is about something else though. I have just returned from the first ever live Dirty Words Sessions at Thirsty Dog and WOW. It was vastly underattended, because clearly some people take a while to get hooked onto a good thing. And oh my this is a good thing. Shane Hollands, beloved founder of The Literatti, started this one up, an off-shoot of his Fleet Fm show 'Dirty Words with Shane Hollands'. What you have is a two-piece 'house' jazz band, and a couple of booked poets. The band improvises music and the poets run with it in whatever way they see fit.



The coin toss decides who's gonna go first while the musicians warm up.















Christian gets going.









Christian Jensen and Texture were the guest poets. Shane performed. There were also opportunities for open mic, and a bunch of other poets who were there, myself and Mr. Murray Lee included, jumped up and performed with the band as well. Anna Kaye cranked out a really different piece for her, and I loved it - I'm calling it after it's repeated refrain "I'm sick of this shit". A piece from the Kerouac Effect I do believe. And Daniel Larsen performed stunningly, he's really owning his stuff now, I love it. I keep saying that. But good things are happening in our world of words and performance these days.

Texture turns prose into jazz beat poetry on the fly.


















Daniel synchs up with the musicians.








Performing unrehearsed with a live band is exhilerating - both to watch and to do. Something about boundaries is erased and avenues of what to do with the words open up before you. You just have to grab them as they come. No second guessing. It's a series of Yoda moments really. There is no think, only do or do not.

Keep an eye out for Dirty Words Sessions number 2 which is on April 12th I think - it will be a sunday. Make sure not to miss it. An amazing experience to be part of. One day this event is going to be a big part of our poetry scene up here, I'm so excited to have been at the first one. Hopefully I'll get to join Christian as one of the booked poets there oneday soon.

The Phat Grrrl Revolution

Last night was Nikki's first (and last) solo show in Auckland. She's off to Leigh for a performance at the Sawmill Cafe with Ivy Rossiter and The Little Isles Band tonight.

Let me just say, the show's title is well deserved and perfectly chosen, because one of the first words that comes to mind when attempting to describe it is, well, revolutionary. The next one is brave. The next one is empowering and the next one is honest. Brutally so. Beautifully so.

What we got last night was an hour of gutsy song, poetry performance, intimate recital, music and burlesque/strip-tease all perfectly melded together. I've never seen anything quite like what Nikki does before. To be honest I think the vast majority of us would just never have the proverbial balls to get up and be that real or that naked in front of strangers - and definitely not both at the same time.

And then, once the burlesque outfit is on the ground, Nikki reverse-strips, throwing off jewellery and adornment and changing into simple jeans while performing a poem - taken together, the two parts - the disrobing and re-robing - they provide a perfect symmetry.

The show was stunning, meaningful, deep, funny, sad - we were taken through a whole spectrum of emotion - and finished up with certain audience members dancing along to the final piece. Simply put, I had an awesome time and found myself transfixed by this brand new poetess who has entered my life.

If you live around Auckland and you missed this last night - get thyself to Leigh tonight!

This is not to be missed.

Seriously.

Nikki Patin's impressions - Just remember ...

the difference between outside and inside is a matter of perspective.

windows are not screened, doors are thrown wide and wanton like legs tired of constantly being crossed.

the wind sings through clothes, bringing katy dids and cicadas buzzing against walls while millions of spiders make their plans, watching warily from corners of impossibly high ceilings.

auckland is a sly grin of a city. the folks here are cool, like real cool, like real real cool, like cooler than any other group of people i've ever met. people smile and ask questions. they look folks in the eye and they call everything sweet. but when they hit the road, aucklanders press pedals to floors and zoom around mountain curves with a confidence that feels dangerous. then you notice how none of the cars are dented and how you never see an accident.

my time here has been sacred. maybe it's because i'm new to this place, maybe it's because i'm on a sort-of vacation, maybe it's because i am an anamoly in the world, but i feel so loved here. i feel connected. i feel free, in a lot of ways...not so defined by the past of my country or my life. not so boxed in. not told every second how angry i am about things that i should be angry about but should never show that i'm angry about them because that intimidates everyone. no one is intimidated by me here.

and there are tears now because it feels so good not to be treated like every word out of my mouth is already chosen, therefore nothing i have to say could possibly be of any importance.

it does no good to play the comparison game, though. america would lose HARD. chicago would lose even harder.

people enjoy words here, and each other. people acknowledge the heavy weight that is ego and do their best to get out of the way. no one here wants to be famous and celebrity is considered ridiculous and vacuous. no one is packaged like meat here. there is no abundance of designer labels, no collective focus on "making it." it's refreshing.

there is pain here and sadness. there are secrets and the tensions that always exist between people.

there are words like maori and pakeha. always black and white. brown and white. whatever and white. indigenous and colonialist. settler cultures. but they talk about it. they talk a LOT. they keep talking. no one lets the rope slip that connects people. fingers are bleeding, but still they are clutching at what binds, at what is sacred.

i have found new best friends, people who i will talk to for the rest of my life. there is miriam, whose comment, whose touching of the thread is what brought me here. we are parallel versions of each other. both clumsy and jewish by blood, rather than belief. both touched wrongly and told to stay quiet. both fierce under hot lights and not taking anybody's no for know, or prayer for show. we spent nine months creating across time and ocean. we never even spoke before i got off the plane. some things can't be explained or divined. some things just are.

there is sabrina, who is a walking poem. sabs, as i call her in my mind, could easily coast on what she studied in college, could define herself narrowly through career and upcoming nuptials. she quietly refuses and that refusal is brilliant in its rarity and intention. she writes poems about what she sees and what she'd like to see. she smiles at me and cares about me when i don't eat enough. she is what poetry doesn't expect.

murray cares. he looks after folks. he makes sure people are well and he means it. he doesn't act out of obligation, which is rare. he takes his time on stage, which is rarer. he calls adaptors rockets and calls his girlfriend gorgeous when he picks up the phone. he reaches for the positive, the good and becomes a conduit for what is kind and right.

christian lives in a castle with erin. they have a feijoa tree in their back yard, which feels like the beginning and the end of the world. his poems try to bring order out of the confusion of humanity and color. he navigates between countries, languages and idealogies. he demands hope from the audience and he gets it. he gets it.

penny is the woman kind and generous enough to give me a place to stay at her home. it is magical. there is a lovely garden, exploding with colors and old bits of things. sunlight lays itself across her bed, wind rushes from front door to back and no matter where you are, you can see trees and the tops of things. penny frets about whether or not i'm eating enough and leaves the light on when i come back late, which has been every night. she is a writer, too, and a traveler. her capacity to do and to think and to be is the physical example of a life well-lived. she tells me to make myself at home. she gives me toast and fruit and avocado and coffee. she shows me how the details of caring are what underscore comfort. she is as magical as her house.

those are only a few people, though. so many more have been kind, welcoming, encouraging. dan, miriam's fiance, gives me books on nikola tesla to read and tells me about the best food. he shows my lover his garden and walks in the street to make cabs uncomfortable. shane has the only spoken word radio show in auckland called "dirty words." indirectly, his love for spoken word and poetry are what brought me here. thanks, man.

"The Phat Grrrl Diaries" is on its first shelf in a store. that store is the Women's Bookshop in Auckland. i asked a women's bookstore in Chicago if they wanted to sell my book. they never responded. from thousands of miles away, that just seems silly.

i feel like i've gotten out of quicksand and onto actual earth. maybe i needed to travel all along. maybe chicago's just not the place for me.

i don't miss it, actually. i miss my love, my family and a couple friends. that's it. the rest of it? the backbiting, the political bullshit that invades supposedly underground art, the ass-kissing, the lack of cultural analysis and artistic critique and how much is taken for granted? i don't miss any of that. and it doesn't appear like i'm missed in chicago, except by my love, my family and a couple friends. i'm homesick, but i keep realizing that i don't actually have a home in a city that treats me like i'm a stranger. i feel more loved in auckland than i ever have in america. what's that about?

in 10 days, i've done 10 interviews, 5 rehearsals and 2 shows. i'm living the life i've always wanted and it feels really good. the other life that i had before i came here, filled with tears and hurt and hard work that never seemed to amount to much, is gone. i'm not going back to that.

auckland has shown me what it means to be human, to have a mirror to my face, instead of a funhouse mirror being peddled as an everyday looking glass. auckland has shown me myself when i am not warped by manipulated history and uninformed opinions.

auckland has taught me what i've been aching to learn...what it means to be a poet.

just remember...

(This was written and posted by Nikki Patin on Facebook this morning, and she was pleased to share it with you all via the blog - we will never forget, Nikki!)

And then it happened.

Growl. We did it.

The set:

The performances:

It was a good show.

More details later. Late. Tired. Happy. Satisfied.

Thank you Gravity Coffee & First Scene. Thank you musicians - Fiona Holding, Craig Humphries, Bobby Goetsche, Jamie Karl, The Purple Duck & Mark McGill-Smith. Thank you sound technician - Sam Ralston. Thank you stage hand - Jason Morales. And every one else too, you know who you are.

Final Days

We had our last rehearsal yesterday. We went pretty easy on ourselves and only ran through the entire show once. Fiona was there too, which was wicked. First time we got to do the whole thing as it will be on the night. And we got all excited about it again, even through the haze of exhaustion.

Today we kept it pretty low key. Christian and Nikki hung out here and we practiced a bit, but to be honest we spent most of the day lounging around watching Lost episodes back-to-back.

At 7:00 pm we all descended on Te Karanga for our first of three Inhibition Exhibition gigs - but this one we get to do with Nikki. We did a really quick sound check, had some food (highly recommend mango curry by the way), rocked down to the New Zealand's Greatest Idiot exhibition and then went back to our own gig.

We did two 15-minute sets in between rock bands. Poetry. In between rock bands. And this was our first ever public performance together. Between rock bands. But it was choice. The audience dug it. We performed really well. Few glitches with the sound set-up. But aside from that it was Orsum with a capital Oh!

It was a good night. We did feed Nikki to the local hippies though, but they liked her so much, who were we to interrupt?

Actually I dug Hey Pinky, I think she called me the salt of the earth. Or salt something anyway. Whatever, the tone was positive. I think we won the whole crowd over in the end, people were trying to predict lines, laughing in all the right places. Loved it. Here's Murray and Sabrina watching the band whilst being blinded by my flash.

We'll be around chalking on Queen St while Nikki performs at the Market Stage tomorrow at midday. Then off to London Bar to set up our stage and do our wonderful thang.

See you there.

Tuesday & Wednesday

Okay, so I haven't had time to write this blog for the last two days. But we have been BUSY. And the word has earned those capital letters. Really, really earned them.

Tuesday saw Nikki heading off for two radio interviews - one on Shane Hollands' Dirty Words show on Fleet FM with Christian, and one on George FM. I spent the vast majority of Tuesday getting the GROWL programme ready for printing, typesetting and what-not. Then I did a bit of work on the website and got the multimedia page a little bit fixed up. There's links to a bunch of video and heaps of images from our last show up there now. And I have figured out how to make them actually viewable too. No small feat. Like I said previously, I am not technologically gifted.

Then Nikki and Sabrina headed on over to my pad and we rehearsed Bullet Hole Riddle together for about an hour before cruising on down to Poetry Live at Thirsty Dog...

where Nikki seriously owned the open mic...

Christian was MCing that night. Here he is with Erin Gaffney - the hugely talented photographer who took all our promo shots and made us look good - and Jason Morales our stage hand.

And Sabrina finished off the open mic with her piece about Kerouac.

It was a good night. Poetry Live did us proud. Our community is wicked.

Wednesday morning Christian and Nikki rock on down to the Bfm studio for an interview with Mikey Havoc. Then they turned up at my place and we went to print our programmes. It might have taken 6 hours, but between the three of us we got 60 limited edition, hand-bound, colour-cover programmes for our gig made up - they'll be on sale at the door for $5, which I think is a bloody good bargain considering the work that went into stitching them.

Pretty much as soon as that was finished it was time for rehearsal and we all congregated at Murray's flat. Luckily he made us all coffee before we got started.

And I took a picture. Because it was Gravity coffee, and they are our sponsors after all, and we do actually drink their coffee, and here's proof:

This was our second to last rehearsal before the big day. We worked on the pieces that have cello with Fiona, then we ran through the entire show from start to finish for the first time since Nikki arrived. This was a mammoth effort because we are all starting to get tired, but we did it, and we did it good. General consensus amongst us all is that our show is wicked, varying, never boring, and that it flows. Which is what I was going for when I designed it. I'm stoked that all our pieces fit together so well. We may all be totally different, but we seem to deal with very similar themes a lot of the time. Growl really growls. But in a hopeful way. In a way that asks for something positive, so it's not gonna be a downer buzz. The Literatti are finally getting the hang of this whole singing in unison thing too. We didn't leave Murray's until nearly 11.

And really, after two days of that much work I couldn't do anything but watch Lost episodes last night. I reckon I earned it. I've spent all morning putting together the stage-hand's schedule for the event, so they know when to place extra mics on stage and all that jazz.

Then I found out that Alt TV went off air yesterday at 5pm, which means our two interviews are not going to be happening now. It's a bit of a shock. The station is there one day and then the next it is gone. Just like that. poof.

We have one more rehearsal together now, and that's tonight. I can't believe we've actually managed to get all these pieces together memorised and choreographed in less than a week. Tomorrow night we are going to test some of them out at the Inhibition Exhibition at Te Karanga gallery on K Rd (koha entry if you wanna come along). Then we'll be hitting The London Bar mid-arvo on Saturday to get our set ready. Our set is awesome by the way. Christian scored these 'brick walls' from the Silo theatre that weren't needed anymore and we painted them up at our workshop weekend. We've also got a whole lot of other things lined up with First Scene, who sponsor us by giving us free access to their gear. Nice. I can't wait.

5 More Sleeps To Go

Today was pretty relaxed. In relative terms. Nikki rocked round at about 2 and we did some work on our duet, which is developing nicely methinks. Christian turned up at 3 and the two of us worked out our new duet - an adaptation of WINZ poem. I love just working with one other person for a short burst like that, get so much figured out, and there's space to get your vibe happening.


Then we sat down and tried to suss out our website. Not only did Christian have to figure out how to fix the damn thing, he also had to show me how to work it all. Did a pretty nice job teaching me too. And my brain didn't even fall out or anything! We got the homepage and the show page sussed. But I loaded waaaay too massive photos onto the multimedia page when we tried to do that one. Was just being lazy - I could have made them smaller in photoshop as I went, but.... so we'll get to that one soon. But still, it's nice to have made some more headway on it.


Then we headed off on over to Sabrina's choice little flat in Mt Eden and had one of the best rehearsals ever! We're trying to work out a song - where we sing with Nikki in one of her songs. This is a scary step for someone like me. Is so much fun practicing it though, so we sort of had a rehearsal party, if anything like that can exist. Nikki managed to reach paper-free stage on Right, our 5-person piece (Sabrina wrote it), which is no mean feat after only 2 proper rehearsals. Christian and Murray did an awesome performance of Triangle Poem which has come a loooong way since One Foot Forward. And the new Bullet Hole Riddle is sounding just beautiful. Not that I'm biased or anythgin. I love getting to have other people performing my words with me. There was just a wicked vibe tonight. Yay.

Here's us after rehearsal
















This is Murray with Omni-Bot.















Omni-Bot is famous, he has become the Unitech's In Unison magazine news mascot. Omni-Bot first became famous in Word of Mouth as the Robots Eat Pizza Too robot - pictured, logically, eating pizza and projected on a giant cyc screen at the back of the stage. Just a bit of trivia.


:o)


Miriam

On The Road

The five of us squeezed into Sabrina's car today and headed north to Leigh (Nikki's performing her Phat Grrrl Revolution there on March 13th). We took the scenic route and did a postering run on the way.


Here's us in a great little park at the back of the Albany shops.

































This is us....in Orewa....but not us at all.

Had an awesome time in Warkworth by the river, and Matakana is a cool little town - hadn't been there before, strange how things can be right there all the time but it takes someone from somewhere else to come along before you get there. Matakana has invisible killer eels. And a very beautiful movie theatre - or so Christian tells me, I didn't actually get to go in.


It was so easy putting posters up in these towns. In Auckland you get turned down by the vast majority of business owners - who want their windows for only head-office approved promotional displays. Every single place we asked to put a poster up, put a poster up. One lady put up two.


And driving along the coast and through our rolling hills reminds me yet again why I dig living in New Zealand.


We wound up in Leigh, where we went and checked out the venue for Nikki's gig on the 13th - the Sawmill....


...and had a play on the swings....
















...and stood in front of the brick corrugated iron boat....

















All round a great day, heaps done, something written together even, well sort of written, something found together, arranged together. We have decided to make a programme for GROWL and have stitched together lines from every piece in the show. Anyway, the others just left a little while ago and it is time for me to sit still like a vegetable and absorb good bad TV by osmosis.

:o)

Miriam