Some people travel the world to look at birds. I’ve never paid them much attention. But our hotel in Qingdao was set in the middle of a private park, and I couldn’t help but notice these birds. They’re like crows, but extra.
ByGD
Fjord Tour: Nærøyfjord
Until very recently, the easiest way to get around Norway was by boat. Even today, you could make a strong argument that it’s the best way to see the country. Certainly few people would argue that it’s the best way to see the area around the fjords. That’s why a fjord tour is a central part of the famous Norway in a Nutshell tour. For my own DIY Nutshell tour, I took the ferry from Flåm to Gudvangen.
A Three-Hour Tour
The hapless residents of Gilligan’s Island got stranded on what they expected to be a three-hour tour. When you’re touring the fjords, you can spend as long as you like. From the famous (and expensive) Hurtigruten that can last two weeks to regular old car ferries that drop you off in an hour, the choice is yours. And even if, like me, your fjord cruise only lasts a couple hours, about the only thing the experience will have in common with Gilligan’s is that you can bring all your luggage on board.
The Flåm Ferry
You don’t have to buy fjord tour tickets in advance, but they can sell out in the busy season. So it’s a good idea to get your tickets on the Visit Flåm website before you leave home. There are a lot of options to choose from. I chose the Fjord Cruise Nærøyfjord, which is only two hours long and connects the tiny village of Flåm in Aurlandsfjord to the even smaller Gudvangen in in the Nærøyfjord. Both fjords are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You can take the ferry in either direction and you can take a shuttle bus back through the tunnel road that takes less than half an hour. We were starting from Flåm with the intent to visit Njardarheimr before continuing on to Bergen, so we brought our luggage with us. In another place, I might have been worried about the requirement to leave suitcases on the empty car deck, but even on a boat filled with other foreign tourists, it felt safe to do so on such a rural boat.
Problem People
The boat wasn’t actually completely full, but it was crowded enough that I was glad we were traveling in the off-season. Nearly everyone else on the boat was part of a Chinese bus tour. I try not to judge other people’s travel choices, and I appreciate that international travel is a relatively new option for the Chinese middle class. But big bus tourists have a way of taking up more space. They often seem more interested in gossiping over packed-from-home snacks than experiencing their trip, or seem more excited to look at the landscape in the photos they take with their selfie sticks than seeing directly with their own eyes. And they don’t seem to think the rules apply to them, even when the signs make sense without language.
Lest I give the impression that I’m only judgey about package tourists, I should also mention that on this day my daughter decided to ignore my advice to dress warmly for the boat. Literally everything you will read about the fjord tours will come with a warning that no matter what the weather is like, it’s cold out on the water. Not only does the wind cut right through you, but the mountains shade the boat a lot of the time.
But of course, my contrary little child refused to layer and then spent the whole trip complaining about the cold. We tried to warm her up with hot chocolate, but we also spent much more time inside (where all the seats were taken) than we would normally have chosen to.
The Up Side
One benefit of spending too much time inside was that we stumbled on the educational posters in a stairwell that talked about the native flora and fauna, as well as the creative economic endeavors of locals trying to make a living – like the brewery at Flåm and a farmer who made goat cheese – in an extremely rural area.
When we did come out from the shade of the looming mountains and enjoy some direct sunshine, we took a selfie party. And in our search for spots on the boat that were protected from the wind and the crowd, we also found a few like-minded seekers of solitude and beauty. Not to mention some incredible views devoid of selfie-sticks. There were a few moments when you could imagine what it would have been like in decades past to travel these waterways in your own little boat. With a little stretching of the imagination you could even turn the tourist chatter into the background noise of crowded longboat filled with isolated farmers and warriors excited for the Assembly and catching up on a year’s worth of gossip.
Docking in Gudvangen
I could easily see the appeal of a longer tour with multiple stops around the fjords. There are so many picturesque little spots that would be interesting to visit, but don’t have enough to do to hold you there overnight (especially given the time it would take to get there by road). And I imagine that the selfie frenzy would die down on a longer ride, allowing for more of those soul-soothing quiet moments contemplating the mountains from the aquatic perspective. But given our schedule, travel priorities, and wardrobe malfunctions, I was really glad we chose the two-hour Nærøyfjord tour.
Docking in Gudvangen and walking off the ferry was such a mundane and homely end to the journey that it added a new dimension. Instead of imagining legendary pasts, it felt a lot like getting off the Vashon ferry back home. That was a nice reminder that these legendary fjords are the everyday homes of a few lucky people, who may or may not remember on a daily basis why all those strangers with selfie-sticks are so worked up about the view.
{My ferry ticket was provided courtesy of Visit Flåm. The ticket was theirs, but as always, the opinions are mine.}
ByGD
Part Two of Seattle Dance Collective Program One
When I heard that Pacific Northwest Ballet principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore were starting their own off-season dance company, I knew it was going to be something special. Program One of the Seattle Dance Collective, performed at the Vashon Center for the Arts, was every bit as impressive as I expected. I ran out of space to talk about the specific dances in my initial post on the event and in my post on the first half. Here are my impressions of the pieces performed after the intermission: “Anamnesis,” “Frugivory,” and “Mopey.”
Anamnesis
Choreography: Bruno Roque
Music: Nils Frahm
Text: Noelani Pantastico
Lighting Design: Alex Harding and Bruno Roque
Cast I Saw: Noelani Pantastico
Probably the least balletic piece on the program, “Anamnesis” uses spoken word and recorded text as much as music. Pantastico rides a bike on stage, and even the actual dancing is often jagged and disjointed in a way that well illustrates the emotions described, but in no way resembles ballet. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of this unique performance.
The program and website don’t describe this as a world premiere, or really describe the origin of the piece at all. But the text (written by Pantastico) is an intensely personal revelation of aspects of her own childhood, and is tied so closely to the music that it must have been created as a vehicle for her.
What the program does say is that “Anamnesis” touches upon the concept of how defining moments in our formative years leave a permanently ephemeral imprint that echoes throughout one’s existence. The word “anamnesis” means the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence (often used with reference to Platonic philosophy) or a patient’s account of a medical history. (I had to look it up.) That is evident in the dance. The stories relate to pivotal moments in Pantastico’s childhood. They relate to times where she “leveled up;” the chaotic movements representing moments when she felt out of control give way to a more controlled, balletic style as she finds new coping mechanisms and sources of strength.
Intellectually, it’s a fascinating piece that I could go on and on about. But with so much going on, it seemed like there was less room for actually dancing, which is ultimately what I most like to see.
Frugivory
Choreography: Bruno Roque
Music: Dead Combo
Costume Design: Noelani Pantastico
Lighting Design: Reed Nakayama
Cast I Saw: Liane Aung, Angelica Generosa, Jim Kent, Elizabeth Murphy, Miles Pertl, Dylan Wald
Like a good rug, “Frugivory” really ties the program together. It’s by the same choreographer as “Anamnesis” and uses some of the same tropes – unusual props, doing things on stage besides dancing. In common with “Mopey” it is set to popular music; like “Shogun” the music is Portuguese.
But the dance stands on its own, particularly for its wry humor. “Frugivory” is described as
a light, unphilosophical take on the idea that the object of our desire can drive us, or blind us; that we are often “prisoners” of our needs and longings
SDC Website
and for once I think the artists’ description is apt. The metaphor is clear when three women offer three men apples; the joke comes when one of the men insists on eating the whole apple before joining the woman in a dance. She even comments on it. In fact, they talk throughout the entire piece, as if eating apples and performing ballet were both common first-date activities. The whole thing is delightfully weird and actually funny.
Mopey
Choreography: Marco Goecke
Music: CPE Bach, The Cramps
Staging: James Moore
Lighting Design: David Moodey
Cast I Saw: James Moore
We all know that “Mopey” is the real reason I made the trek to Vashon Island to check out a new dance company. James Moore is well-known for this solo at PNB, but he alternated with Ezra Thomson for SDC’s inaugural performances. I think that this was the first ballet I ever saw James Moore in, and I’ve been a Moore fan-girl ever since. So I was happy to see him reprise his signature role when I attended on Sunday. But I have to admit, I’ve seen some Instagram videos that make me really curious to see Ezra Thomson’s take on the piece.
I saw “Mopey” before I started blogging, so there is no record of my impressions, and memory is an unreliable thing. But I know that “Mopey” blew my mind. It literally changed my understanding of what dance could be, because I had never seen anything like it on stage before.
In the years since, I have seen things like it. Ballet that celebrates male dancers is a lot more common than ten years ago. I’ve seen ballet performed in contemporary street clothes in numerous ballets since James Moore bounded on stage in a black hoodie; body slaps have gone from shocking to Contemporary Eric cliché; I’ve still never seen another ballet use music by The Cramps, but I’ve heard plenty of other popular recordings used. Just like the second time that I saw the band Momentum, I was reminded that the same art can’t blow your mind twice.
But I will never get tired of watching the muscles in a dancer’s back drag limbs into contortions most people can never achieve. I will never get tired of the shift between CPE Bach’s sweet violins and the ugly awkwardness of “Surfin’ Bird” and its more fitting affinity to the violent motions of the dance. I will never get tired of the adolescent chaos, confusion and emotional crisis of “Mopey’s” alternating cockiness and self-loathing. A thirty-minute Solstafir set once justified a trip to Iceland. “Mopey” more than justifies a ferry-ride to Vashon.
{I attended Program 1 courtesy of SDC and Vashon Center for the Arts. The tickets were theirs; the opinions are mine.}
ByGD
Music I Like – Asian Metal
Out of 7.5 billion people in the world, 4.5 billion of them live in Asia. Heavy metal may seem like a white man’s game, but you can bet that out of 4.5 billion people, some of them are going to be pretty metal. Here are some of the ones I like.
Zuriaake
This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Zuriaake here, and it’s probably not going to be the last. To be honest, I’m not even sure 狼王 (For the Motherwolf) is by this band from the city where I met my daughter (Jinan). Released in May, the album appears on their page, but lists YN GIZARM as the author. Whoever it is, I love it. Chinese folkened black metal rules. {But if you know the true story, please share it with me because I like to get nerdy about the details.}
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Chthonic
Dude, you can’t even talk about Asian metal without talking about Chthonic. I mean they’ve got a politician and a polymath bass player in their lineup; they address overlooked history in their albums, and they’ve even made a full-length movie (which I’m still trying to track down) with a Randy Blythe cameo. Not to mention that their music is really good. Bu-Tik was my entry point to the band and still holds a special place in my heart. But let’s give something newer a listen, too, shall we?
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Jambinai
South Korea’s Jambinai uses archaic folk instruments to make post-rock and black metal.
ONDA takes cues from the Olympian ideal of “higher, faster, stronger,” doing everything that Jambinai do, only more so—the towering peaks of “Event Horizon” replicate the sense of overwhelming awe of peering out on some wide-reaching expanse, while the lengthy stretches of near-silence during 13-minute “In the Woods” sound like they’re being transmitted from the earth’s core. On the brutal war cry of “Sawtooth,” Jambinai evoke memories of Sepultura’s Roots: another groundbreaking, controversial co-mingling of progressive metal and folk traditions. To that end, ONDA is roots music, committed to including an array of voices—like the traditional wailing that graced their earlier work, and the ones that appear on “Square Wave” and the title track (“At the end of your darkness, pain will turn into the shining stars and it’s going to come to you”). All of this suggests that Ill-woo’s issue isn’t with meditation per se, but rather a false equivalency between transcendence and calm: like the most extreme forms of spirituality, ONDA seeks to sublimate catharsis from suffering.
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Death Kult Over Black Congregation
I got an alert from Bandcamp about this album and mistook it for a band. I was nearly done listening to the whole thing when I thought, “These guys are really eclectic, but some of their tracks are awesome.” Only then did I read the Bandcamp page closely enough to realize that Death Kult Over Black Congregation was a compilation of Chinese extreme metal bands. When I have time to listen to it again, I’ll make a closer note of which tracks, and therefore which bands, I like best. But for now, I encourage you to do the same.
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Zuriaake
Told you I wouldn’t stop talking about Zuriaake. While this post sat in my drafts folder, Zuriaake released Resentment in The Ancient Courtyard, 18 minutes of music in two tracks. I usually only mention full albums here, but I love everything Zuriaake does and they don’t often post new music.
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Sigh
Like Chthonic, Sigh is one of the first artists people think of when conversation turns to metal from Asia. This Japanese band puts the lie to Japanese stereotypes of conformity, politeness, and normalcy. From one album to the next, you’re never quite sure what you’ll get from Sigh. It might be something proggy or blackened or pure chaos. All you can count on is that it will be inventive, and it will probably be ugly. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “representative” Sigh album, but I’m including their 2009 album Scenes From Hell here because it’s available on Bandcamp.
ByGD
Wallpaper
In Qingdao, my daughter and I stayed at the Castle Hotel, a European-style hotel that (in theory) catered to foreigners. (In practice, we saw maybe three other Western visitors while we were there.)
Although I thought this one was a fairly typical example of the Asian hotel breakfast (a mixture of Chinese, Continental, and English breakfast foods), my daughter was new to the concept of the hotel breakfast buffet. She loved that she could have eggs and sausage and shrimp with the heads still on and Chinese pork buns for breakfast. Plus there was cake! For breakfast! And I let her eat it! (Because I’m a cheapskate who was counting on the free breakfast to carry us all the way to dinner.)
It immediately became her favorite thing about our trip, and she still talks about it to this day. I on the other hand, thought the best thing about our hotel dining room was Astro Turf wallpaper.