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Published: July 22nd 2008
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Freiberg
taken the day we visited the mineral museum At a workcamp in Frieberg (which is actoully about 40 minuets away from Dresden). Its been quite rainy and cold. Some days are good and others not so good. The festival is from July 25-27. Will stay in Dresden until Aug 5. Maybe travel to Berlin and Bonn after.
July 24
So this whole experiance in Germany has been....well....big, enlightening, fun, horrible, cold, wet, uncomfortable, groovylishious, amusing, lonely, agrivating and if nothing else exhausting. For the previouslz uninformed I am volunteering at a work camp in Germany. There is a German work camp and an international work camp. The internation work camp is made up of about 30 people (ages 18-25 from all over the world, all who speak english...more or less). Along with helping to prepair, exicute, and strike the Sunflower festival (a German hippy festival, yes there are indeed German hippies, talk about counter culture) we are working in a theatre or photography project.
I was involved in the nightmearish theatre workcamp. We put on a "show" for the festival. I arrived exicted to collaberate with a bunch of international theatrical and or creative people to concieve a show, rehearse, and perform it. About four days before
Freiberg
its not just a place, its also a beer I arrived I was emailed the hanis scrip that we were to perform. A kitchy verson of little red riding hood with hippy music and dancing flowers. I arrived to find that I was the only person a the theatre camp with any perfesional theatre experiance (including the group leaders). Many people were not pleased with the script. During our first meeting I had to, on the spot I had to create an additional part of the play to create six extra parts for the show. It is very difficult to work with this group as the moral is always quite low, people are disinterested and impatcent. We only got a director for the show (I am assuming here) after one of the group leaders overhead me asking some guests what they tought of our runthrough. I was explaining how difficult it was to work without a director, and what would you know that evening we are told a director is coming to work with us. Her name is Connie. She speaks no English but has been very nice to have around. Yes, the show has gotten even more campy but atleast its a consistant proformance now. In the show
weather
this is what the weather was like most days before the festival I am playing the wolf (which was written as a bad mexican sterio type). As difficult as it is to work with an inexperiance ensemble (who are all speaking a second language) and being directed in German (which no one except the leaders understand), it has also been diffcult to stage the play as no one seemed to know until yesterday anything about the stage (size, tec. capabilitys, where we can enter and exit etc.) In this group I have really been stuggeling to not become bossy, but people, including the two theatre workcamp leaders, keep asking me what to do. We will profrom the show three times. On Saturday and Sunday during the festival and again on Sunday night as entertainment for the festival afterparty.
When we are not rehearsing the play we are often sitting around waiting for work. The German steriotype of extremem organization is not proving to be true (but again I remind myself I am at a hippy festival). The festival is in the middle of a field so we have to bring everything. We have a working kitchen, a hot shower (and a freezing cold one in the woods), electrisity, internet in the
Workin
Iva and Lanka carrying blankets offices and in the backstage area. Its quite nice when you think about it, but still we are living outside and the weather has been so cold and wet that its hard to keep your spirits up.
The group likes to party a lot. Often after dinner we relax for a couple of hours and then will dance and drink next to the camp fire (if its not raining) until 3 or 4am. Its great, but often pepole are too exhausted the next morning to work and some people get too drunk and need to be taken care of on a regular basis. There are eight men and twenty two women in this work camp, and the sexual politics of manual labor assignments (at the festival atleast) leads to lots of people sitting and doing nothing while the same people work all the time.
I am nervious for the show, but excited for the festival tomorrow. Finally finally we get to see what we have been building and working on. Festival website: http://www.sunflowerfestival.de/
July 28
The festival proved to be a great sucess. The afterparty was amazing. Met lots of interesting people and heard some really cool
Making our bed
we all slept on a huge pile of straw bands. Was a little embarraced to play my mexican wolf infront of Panteon Rococo (who are all from Mexico) but they seemed to find it amusing. Got offered a position at the festival next year running the theatre workcamp. It was flattering but I dont think I will take it, although it would mean that I could return and work with Sun, who was one of the photo workcamp leaders, who I like very very much. Also really enjoyed watching: Jennifer Rostock, Marmita Sajona, and Madskat.
The shows went...okay. Lots of tecnical difficulties with the microphones and oranization backstage. We got to perform for the afterparty but the show went on almost 3 hours late and most of us were quite drunk by the time we proformed, but even so we didnt need the microphones and it was much much better. The microphones were nessisary though because both of our shows were schedgualed during times when people were playing on the mainstage and even profesionals couldnt compete with the sound system of the mainstage (which was about 100 meters away at most).
Really enojoyed the fire show and meeting all the performers backstage. Everyone was very nice and
Our tent
where I slept from July 15-30th it was nice to get to spend time with people outside the workcamp. The festival had a rock stage, a mainstage, an area for eating and buying things, a rege tent with a lot of really good djs, an art stage for performers, and a "space station" which was for tecno djs.
Sad to say the moral is low again. Everyone was very happy partying last night but people were back to moping around and not wanting to work - eventhough its easier to take things down then to put them up. Been doing a lot of thinking while I have been here and spending a good amount of time on my own. I get along with everyone individulally and have had some really interesting and fun times but the group is very draining to be in. This whole experiance has been quite the exersize is choosing to be positve (and I havnt always been albe to manage).
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