Life as usual

It is said that the essential ingredients for happiness are: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to.

How lucky am I?  I have all three, in generous quantities.

I have some very exciting plans for the rest of this year - travel,  entertainment and artistic projects.

But two weeks after the close of the Festival, I have been having a lot of trouble settling back into normal life.  I've been so used to operating in overdrive that ordinary days now seem a bit dull.  I'm still looking for entertainments; feeling impatient for the next exciting thing.

But life is not constant excitement.  How do you make the most of the time between the exciting bits?  It is so wasteful to wish it away.  How can you quieten your mind and settle down to do the more boring things in between and still enjoy those days?

I should savour the pleasure of not living out of a suitcase, the freedom to cook whatever I like in my own kitchen (sprawling on the couch to eat it) and not having scary deadlines to meet.

And I should be making use of the time.  I'm increasingly conscious of squandering the time available to me - mornings when I linger over the newspaper; days when I don't practise my singing; evenings when I sit and watch whatever is on television instead of working on my plans.

The improvements from the latest round of vocal training have settled in, and I wish I'd had this improved technique for the show in February.  I find I need the imperative (and the terror) of an impending show to motivate myself to practise hard, and the effects of that work continue to build for a while.

A young person with decades of working life ahead can afford to waste a bit of time - but I don't have that luxury.  At my age, years pass quickly, and I have to keep moving if I am going to to manage to do all the things I want to achieve.

Show and tell

Since the visit by the Brazilian guitarist Eneias, my Portuguese proficiency has taken a steep upturn.

Ten days of being forced to speak a foreign language made me very tired, but I've learned a lot of new and useful words and phrases, and I feel much more confident in using them.

I manage to reinstall the language trainer phone app (that I somehow broke through overuse), and resume my daily practice.

And I return to my Saturday morning Portuguese classes.

We are asked to prepare a five-minute presentation about a city of our choice.

I select Berlin because of its interesting and well-known history of being divided by a wall.   Even if I don't speak very well, the group will know what I'm talking about.  My first task is to open the laptop and select pictures from the internet for my PowerPoint presentation.  It feels like doing a school project (except that in those days I pasted the pictures into a blank book).

Then I prepare a simple talk, consisting of a couple of sentences for each slide.  I don't have time to memorise it, but hopefully each picture will remind me of what I want to say.

On the Saturday, mine is the first presentation.  I begin confidently, but when I reach some of the unfamiliar words I have to resort to reading from my notes.  I feel cross with myself.  How much better I could have done if I'd rehearsed my talk!  Just twenty minutes would have been enough.

Then I remind myself this was my first attempt at presenting in Portuguese.  For a first try, it was not bad at all.  At times, I was speaking to the group, not just reading from a script.

Next time I'll do better.  This is a skill that I can develop.

Eneias has invited me to perform with him in Brazil later this year.  "You'll be able to speak to the audience in Portuguese?' he asked.  And in a rush of over-confidence, I replied "Yes, of course".

Now I know it's true.

Yes, I can!

Sparkle envy

It's five years since I first walked into La Boheme and discovered cabaret.

It seems longer - so much has happened since that first tentative performance.

Now, having finished my show, I enjoy going to see some of my friends' productions.

And I look around for new ways to keep developing my skills.  The Fringe Festival includes some events that invite participation.

I attend a singing masterclass by a local teacher who has trained and performed internationally.  The class is held in the back room of an old hotel.  The event is sold out, and we are all squashed in to the small space.  When the teacher calls for a volunteer, I wait to see if anyone will step up, because I've been workshopped by this guy once before, and I don't want to look greedy.  No one is coming forward, and this is not so surprising, because he is brandishing a length of rubber tubing.  He muses aloud - will he nominate someone?  I get to my feet, keen for the coaching.  Pointing at the tubing, I say "This looks like fun."

This segment is about "singing into the mask" - placing your voice into the bony parts of your face around and above the eyes.  He asks me to grip the tubing and sing while stretching it up and out.  Then I'm asked to let my voice float up into the space above my eyes.  The sound is thin but good, he says.  Finally he makes his way to the back of the room and pretends to pull my voice from a distance.  The sound "rings" - hooray!

Just for fun, I go to a belly dance class.   I need to satisfy my curiosity about this.  Plus, anything that gets you moving has got to be good for performing.

The class is in a hall decorated with exotic Egyptian paraphernalia.  The teacher, dressed in a flowing purple skirt-and-bra set with gold sparkles, greets me warmly.  I explain that I have forgotten to bring the exercise clothes I packed into a bag this morning, and she assures me I'll be fine in the skirt and top I'm wearing.  She pours me a glass of champagne and life starts to look a little better.  She calls the group to attention, and asks us to put on the orange hip scarves that she offers us from a little basket.   They are adorned with silver discs that jingle when we move.

The music starts.  It's a mesmerising drum beat.  We start with a simple hip shimmy, then gradually progress to more artistic steps with arm movements and some basic turns.  On this Friday night it feels good to move.  It's also good rhythm training - something that had not occurred to me before.  During the break I try on one of the sparkly hip scarves available for sale.  It is utterly gorgeous.  Then I recall that I already own a black one that I never wear.

After the break we perform a short routine utilising the movements we have learned.  Then the teacher invites us to eat the traditional supper she has prepared for us, and to drink some more champagne.  We take a seat and relax while she performs some dances, including one in which she balances a sword on her head.  I could totally get into this art form, I've had such a good time.  I want to collect the costumes - I'm smitten by her sparkles.

On the last night of the festival, I go to a Latin dance event.  It starts with a dramatisation of slaves being brought from Africa, then examines music from Cuba, the Caribbean and South America.  I clap along happily, feeling the rhythms.  The show concludes with a Carnaval scene with girls in sequins and feathers.  The audience is invited to join a conga line.  I'm there on my own and decide to stay seated, until someone persuades me to get up.  It's the best conga line ever.  Then the dancers encourage us to try some new steps, and the scene on stage is crazy with lights, costumes and movement.

Now, where can I buy a set of feathered Carnaval wings?

Non-Stop From Brazil - Behind the scenes

During the week leading up to our show Non-Stop From Brazil, I captured some video of our rehearsals and preparation, and pieced it together to form a little movie.

The video of the show is coming, but here's a peek Behind the Scenes:

Monday - Fly him to Brazil

I help Eneias to check out of the hotel and we load his bags into my car.

Then I call my mother in law, who lives in an aged care home.  She's 93 years old.  It's 10.15 am, and I've woken her up.  I tell her to get dressed, because she is about to have an international visitor.

I hope that the half-hour drive will give her enough time to be ready for us.

We enter her room, where she is sitting in her armchair, still a bit sleepy, and a nurse is making her bed.  When the nurse departs, Eneias brings out his guitar and sings softly in Portuguese to Collette.  Then I join him for a second song.  She is not feeling very well today, but I'm glad we were able to bring a little bit of the show to her.

We drop the luggage at my house.

Eneias' grandfather was German.  My great-grandfather was German.  We are practically related!  And we must go to Hahndorf, the German heritage village in the Adelaide Hills.

We have lunch at a long-established German cafe and cake shop, where the proprietor declares loudly that he does not like German people at all.  This makes us laugh a lot.  Eneias is desperate need of coffee.  Then we drink some beer and share an excellent German mixed grill and have a Bienenstich for dessert.

We feel flushed with the success of our joint venture.

He asks me if I had expected more or less of the project.  I tell him that it has worked out better than I had ever imagined.  I comment that he is now an international artist.

We discuss artistic plans for the future.  These are numerous, ambitious and so audacious that I don't want to jinx them by writing about them yet.

We agree that with one life to live, why not try?  He observes that when we die we take nothing with us and nothing remains of us.  But when you create music, it can outlive you.

After shopping for souvenirs, we head back into town, where we visit another two souvenir shops.

We call in at home to collect luggage and for a final chat with my family, then we go to the airport.

We spend a couple of hours having coffee, talking and planning.

It's time for him to go through Security.  We embrace, but I don't feel sad.  I'm happy for him that he his going home to his family.  We will meet again in Brazil soon.

I feel so proud that I managed to bring this ambitious 18-month project to fruition.  It could have been a disaster for both of us - if we hadn't got along, if the music hadn't gelled.  But it has been a wonderful week and a rich cross-cultural experience.

I have learned so much Portuguese  - it's been like a week in Brazil.  Postponing the show last year turned out to be a good thing, because if I'd had less language, it would have been really hard to communicate.

People say that you don't need to learn foreign languages, because everyone speaks English.  Well, that just isn't true.  And whilst you can get by as an English-speaking tourist - you can point to things you want to buy or eat, get on the tour bus and find the toilets - you cannot have the sort of in-depth conversations that we have had.

What a week to remember!

All along I have said that if this is as far as I get; if this is all I do, it will still be a good achievement.

But now, I want more.

I want a concert in Rio.