The First Full Week Is Done!

This first week has been incredible so far.  We have finished up the details of the costumes, and today we helped with the paint selection for the colors under the blacklights for the mice.  They are going to look very good.  Silia, Hannah, and I may also do another short show after the first show just so that we can put up a show beside this one.  That way we can all have fun collaborating on another show with us.  We will see if we have time for that or not.  It would be very fun to do.  Silia is very interested in physical theatre just like I am, so we have similar interests.  It is GREAT!  


Tonight we had an interview with a woman from the Narvik newspaper...I cannot recall the name of it right now, but it is the word for forward in Norwegian.  It went well overall.  I think that we will help the publicity for the show, and we mentioned how we are "pioneers", as she put it, to start an exchange program of students going back and forth between the countries to learn design and theatrical studies. 

The interview lasted about two hours because we kept talking about traveling and learning about how other people live and behave as well as how the more you travel the more everyone seems the same.  It was a good conversation. 

After that, we went to Kafferetiet, which is a bar and night club.  We had dinner paid for by the company there.  Tomorrow we also get both lunch and dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street from the hostel that we are staying it. Tomorrow will be excellent.  I am going to explore for a bit in the morning and grab a cup of coffee and a bit of breakfast.  Then, I am going to come back to the hostel and do drawings for Pavel and continue my paper on puppetry.  It will be extremely relaxing as a day off. 

The evening itself was wonderful tonight.  We ate dinner together.  Hannah and one of the opera singers and I had conversations about different opera productions and musicals, the opera we are working on, and we were trying to identify good cultural things that came from the 80's (crickets...) we came up with a few.  HA HA!  Got you there! 

Then, Hannah, Helge, Holdis, and I talked for quite a while about what theatre was like when they were in the United States.  I found out that Helge not only worked on sculptures for the Guggenheim museum, but he also toured to the US with a rock group.  He also worked in LA with Holdis for the LA Theatre Center, which does not exist any longer.  Apparently, they received some money from the city of LA as well as received private support.  I love both of them because they spent a lot of time tonight talking about who they worked with and what they had done.  It was fantastic to here stories about their theatrical exploits.  Holdis also talked about how when she studied in the US on a Fulbright Scholarship, the Civil Rights movement was happening.  She particularly described how she had African friends that her host family would not allow to go into the house...IN WASHINGTON STATE!  WHAT?!  That seems so insane to me.  Anyhow.  I got a few more good photos of the small town of Narvik as well as the kulturhus where we are working.  I'm sure that in my exploration tomorrow I will find more.  Enjoy them!