breakthrough!

After a productive but personally rough rehearsal (nothing I tried seemed to be working, and we hadn't planned quite enough), Hofan and I retreated to our favorite local dessert place and hashed over what we had. In the course of talking, our piece took form. Actually, it ended up looking very much like something we had discussed months ago, but now there is some flesh to hang on it. It's big, though. It provides a direction to our rehearsal and clear questions to be answered. And, with only ten rehearsal days left until we perform, it was time.

observations

I'm exhausted after not sleeping enough and working in the studio for the last two days. Tonight I plan to re-regulate myself though... nothing to do but eat, wind down, and sleep.

A couple of observations about Hong Kong:

• They're just as consumerist here as in the US. Maybe more so. There is a superabundance of malls.
• Much of the Christmas music (which gets played constantly here too) sounds as if it were purposefully trying to "sound Chinese," that is, it's a bunch of Chinese people singing English words with stereotypical mistakes in the pronunciation. I never thought I'd hear "jingle beres" in a Chinese grocery.
• There seems to be no tipping. Or low tipping. I can never figure out what's appropriate.
• There are about 8 HK dollars to each US dollars. This makes prices seem just low enough to be ridiculously high ($10 for a drink!?), when in fact the cost of food, etc., is quite reasonable.
• The Chinese appear to have invented dessert relatively recently, and with as little input from outside as possible. This leads to innovative and strange offerings. My current favorite is the rice is a soup of vanilla sauce and ice, topped with mango.
  

vacation retrospective

I've had four days off from dancing. During that time I've gotten sick, walked through Temple street, visited Lamma island (where the hippies live and raise their kids) and seen santa on the beach, been to a birthday buffet (best item: the soup dumplings), and had a christmas eve dinner with some local choreographers. Never have I seen any group of people learn to tango so quickly.

a mathematical fantasy realized

I was asked to review a paper today that makes great use of my own work. In fact, the abstract contains the musical sentence "This result generalizes the main Theorem of Finkel." A little mathematical fantasy finally realized.

I reviewed the paper. A fast turnaround. There aren't that many original ideas--it's basically my structures adapted slightly. There were also some errors that I suggested fixes for. In the tiny corner of mathematics concerning degree conditions on simple undirected graphs that guarantee the existence of chorded cycles, it seems I am something of an expert. Now I need to become an expert on K3 surfaces, and the mountain of details needed to climb them.

A Weekend!

I wandered through Mong Kok yesterday, which is a mix of an open air bazaar and times square, savage with pedestrians. I was told it's the younger sister of Temple Street, where I still need to go.

There is truly a shocking quantity and density of people here. Malls, too. I've never seen malls clustered together as they are here. You can literally walk out of one and into another next door. And these are full size shopping centers.

Finished the week of work, and actually have a little time off from the piece. What an edifying week. I think the cast is happy with all that's happened, and we're pleased as well. Monday feels far, far away. Tomorrow, probably, Hofan and I will start talking about what we're doing next week (starting Wednesday, due to Christmas), and what this thing should actually look like. It's strange: when you have finished the foundation you're still at ground level.

I think I successfully fought off a cold today, but I need to sleep well tonight.

Day Three

They've been great days in the studio, and yesterday and today I didn't even come home tired. I think that now that we have the cast working and are over the initial anxiety of starting something from nothing, there is a clearer sense of what to do and more energy generated in the doing. Every day we have a clearer sense of what needs to happen in our process and in the piece.

There's no question that we're teaching our performers a ton of stuff, some technical, some more broad. We practiced giving weight and falling this morning, for example, and the cast loved it. Next I did some work on stage pictures and tried to get them improvising more productively. It was an interesting moment: after fifteen minutes it felt like we hit a wall, and I was tempted to drop it and try something else. But, we talked, tried, again, reframed and re-understood what was going wrong, broke the exercises down into smaller pieces, and by lunchtime we had a great moment of synthesis where lots of things came together in a somewhat beautiful improvisation.

Right now we're using mornings for skills and improvisation and director led stuff, and afternoons as a time for the cast to work on various tasks and present us with offers. We saw some nice ideas on the topic of routines today, though they aren't pushing as hard as we would like. Yet. Now that they are accustomed to the format, I think we can start pushing them harder. There's no question that it is difficult work, but with this sense of momentum we have now, and with all we're learning and exploring every day, I think we have a real shot at producing some quality work.

Also, I have the weekend off! We decided to cancel our contact class this weekend, due to low interest and our desire for a vacation. I'm hoping to get to one of the islands, and hang with some of the foreigners like myself. There are so many parts to this city; I would like to see at least a few more.

I skipped day two in the studio. Despite all the richness of each day there, I think in retrospect I'll see it as a story of mastering certain elements of my role in helping to create a successful piece.

Yesterday I played my first game of Mahjong. It's like a four person gin rummy with a dash of cribbage (in the sense that there are some weird rules), played over dominoes. The players were me, Hofan's brother Homei, her grandfather, and his nurse/helper Lada, who also cooks and cleans the house. She's somewhat incredible--one of those part of the family nannies who becomes pretty darn essential once she's in the house. Hofan's grandfather is losing his memory at 87, but still manages a good game of mahjong, and can talk to me a little in English as well. It was nice to bond with them over the tiles. Homei is playing in a bar tonight--his drums plus a guitarist--but Hofan and I can't make such a late night in the middle of the week.

I'm off to read more in Hartshorne. I think I'm developing as an active reader of mathematics. I was reading about Riemann -Roch for surfaces, and I asked, as I probably should have earlier, if the theorem generalized to higher dimensional varieties. Sure enough, there is all was in Appendix A (which I've finished thanks to the long commutes), and all of the motivation and terms introduced (like Chern classes, which I've been seeing everywhere without knowing what they were really about) made perfect sense to me since I had asked the question myself first. I think I'm making real strides (and though there's a long way to go to actually solve a problem, it's been a while since I felt real mathematical momentum built up), and if I can keep the kind of discipline I'm exercising now when I get back to Seattle, things will be looking good.

Day One

We met our dancers today in the studio for our first real practice. Adrian, unfortunately, was missing, having hurt his back the day before (at our contact jam, trying to lift a new dancer), so it was me, Hofan, and our three women movers, Karina (Canadian), Haruka (Japanese), and Wynne
(Chinese), plus our amazing musician Seu-Yan, who will probably compose original music for us, and Hofan's uncle, who was manning the video camera.

What a wonderful thing it was to have a real group present. The dancers are marvelous. Besides the substantial and various skills they bring, they are all eager to dig into the work and generate material. They gave, in other words, and tomorrow we're going to allow even more space for them to give. The latter half of today's practice was particularly interesting. We had everyone get up, one by one, and tell a story which they accompanied with movement. Haruka's was virtually performance ready (and virtually no words!), and all three were impressively performed and, as Hofan would say, strong proposals.

Hofan and I also told stories. In mine, I found a possible element to the math/dance piece I've been wanting to do since last year, and a suggestive way to move that project forward, if I ever have time to pursue it. Language and dance together might be just the thing.

Speaking of math, I'm digging Hartshorne more than ever right now, though it's tricky to find time, outside of the commute, which isn't exactly prime. Hofan and I spent two hours after rehearsal talking about the project (and tomorrow's rehearsal), after which I crammed onto a packed subway, transfered, transfered, arrived home, ate, and here we are with me pretty much ready for bed. Notwithstanding, the subject is getting better and better for me. Though I still wonder whether I'll ever be a true expert in the subject. I think I'm reading it in a more active way, now. And I am succeeding in doing at least a little every day.

So it's a life of work. I think I have a few humps to climb over--I notice I get briefly exhausted at intervals throughout the day.

So many other little things here. Hofan's family is often in the news, since her dad is one of the trailblazing environmentalists around these parts. I'm in one of the greenest households in Hong Kong. There's the octopus, which is a magical subway card that can be read through your wallet, and you can use it in supermarkets too. Then there's the megatropolis that I won't get to see too much of, since I'm looking at the ceiling of a studio. That's a strange through-line to my dancing career: I've spent a lot of time looking at studio ceilings.

Well, tomorrow is another thick day in the studio. I'd better rest up for it.

the ambitiouness of it all is dawning on me

A lot of hours in the studio today, but kind of light for all of it, since we did some authentic movement in the beginning and led a contact exercise into a jam with a couple of others in the end. Nice to have some movement not going towards the piece. We also had Adrian, the other male dancer in the piece, in the studio today. Much harder, especially with two directors and only one dancer. We so obviously need to have all the dancers (tomorrow!) and just milk as much material out of them as we can. Dance can be so intimidating, in the sense that you can hardly gauge what you have, and what quality it is, until it all magically comes together. All our ideas feel a little trifling right now. But, add music, people, and let it stew... I keep forgetting that we haven't even started, really.

I'm exhausted. Fortunately, I just get to read math in bed until I need to sleep.

The Routine

Hofan and I are settling into our somewhat crazy routine, and we've yet to even get the dancers in the studio. Basically, we get up early every day, get out the door by 8, spend six hours in the studio, and then take care of whatever else needs to get done. This wouldn't be so bad, except our commute is an hour and a half each way, and getting anywhere from anywhere in Hong Kong takes 45 minutes minimum.

Actually, we haven't hit this high gear yet. So far we've been spending just four or five hours in the studio together. We went to Ikea this morning to think about our set, and met with our musician, Sau-Yen, in the space, and danced like demons. And I met our cast yesterday! It's an interesting collection: four people from all over. I can't wait to see how they move and perform.

To the side is the view from my Window and the market near Hofan's house. My early sense of Hong Kong was weirdly provincial. Tonight was the first night that I got to wander around the city without being in a hurry to get somewhere. It feels, of course, as cosmopolitan as any large city I've ever been to. Every bit of time off feels like luxury--Hofan has us scheduled to work without break until Christmas, and I spend commuting time reading math (though the denouement of this chapter of my algebraic geometry textbook makes for compelling reading). Still, what a pleasure it is to work hard at creating something. Hofan and I spend almost every moment together, and we're constantly rehashing, brainstorming, and pushing each other. We work--and dance--very well together. The piece is still in its earliest phases, but we are amazingly productive so far, and hopefully we can keep it up once we actually have the cast in front of us to direct.

Work Begins

Hofan and I went to Y Space yesterday, where we'll be working and performing. It was a great first day. We warmed up and jammed together, the first time we've danced with each other in in seven years. I felt a little clumsy at first, but soon we were in sync, almost like we used to be. We've both matured as dancers--we're less hurried, more able to sink into the depth of a motion or a connection and patient enough to see it through to its natural end. It feels good to be dancing with Hofan again.

Following this, we planned through our rehearsals with the cast (I meet them for coffee tonight!). Very productive.

The space is beautiful, though to my eyes as hidden as everything else in Hong Kong. We have an hour and a half commute, three buses worth, followed by a walk through a labyrinthine shopping mall. You have to cut through the correct alleys and up the right elevators, and suddenly you enter these extraordinary spaces. Y Space is one. Another is Club O, the green/new age institution Hofan's father has founded. We went there in the late afternoon, and I participated in my first healing session--a chi focusing practice to replenish others' chi pathways. It was actually astonishing. As I (and everyone else) held our hands over the first person to lie down on the mat in front of us, I became aware of a cushion of force holding my hands up. Every time it reasserted itself, I was surprised, but managed to keep it mostly there. Between this healing practice and tai chi it's been something of a crash course in Chinese chi practices.

Returned home last night and collapsed into bed before 10.

We're off in a few minutes to the studio again. We'll start focusing in on some specific scenes we can choreograph without the cast today. We begin with the cast on Monday.

Now it's "A Mathematician in Hong Kong"

In retrospect, my choice of blog names was somewhat limiting. Maybe it should be a dancing mathematician in Hong Kong now.

I've arrived! The flight, 15.5 hours direct from LA after leaving for the airport at 3:30am in Seattle, was relatively painless. I slept part of the way, and saw Ratatouille, which I'd been wanting to see anyway. The scene where the critic tries the food and is transported left tears running down my face--one of the best dramatizations of art being recognized and felt that I've ever seen on film. They also showed Once, which contained a surprising amount of swearing for a plane ride. And I started Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, which is a perfect book for me to be reading right now. It's a treatise in praise of the discipline that leads to artistic (or any) output. Relevant both to my dance work here and to math (which I'm intending to do here as well).

Hofan picked me up at the airport, jumped up to give me a hug as I emerged through processing, laden down with bags. From there, it was a couple hours on two buses to cross town to her parents' house, Villa Paloma, as it's called. Each floor is quite small, but there are five, so it turns into a largish house. Hofan kindly put me up in her own room, and took the basement for herself. We went up to the roof, where plants were growing and laundry drying, and looked out at the water. It's a beautiful outlook: the house is next to the beach, and mountains stretch up right across the bay. We went back inside, I put away my things and collapsed into bed.

At six the next morning, I was awoken by an unfamiliar bird singing outside my window. Hofan was up a few minutes later, her mom cooked me eggs (which we ate with Hofan's brother Homei), and we headed out the door.

The first stop was Tai Chi. It was a lovely and very interesting practice, which clearly takes years and years to master. There were seven or so of us, practicing on an outdoor basketball, Hofan and I by far the youngest. Everyone was very nice. It's a practice I can see pursuing when I return to the states as well, and I left feeling energized.

Next, we walked through the market, discussing our piece, with me becoming generally better acquainted with the neighborhood. By noon we are home again, and sleepy. Hofan is napping now. I will cook soon.

I'm looking forward to working.

the 36 hour day

After an uneventful 15 or so hours of flying, I walked into morning in Milan. The strange and familiar realization that I have no way to communicate with anyone closed in on me at some point, and on the bus ride from the airport I was reluctant to put on my seat belt at first, so as not to hamper myself any further. The bus dropped me off at the train station, where, newly bought panini in hand (it's not really so hard to communicate after all), I boarded the train for Verona. I happened to sit in a compartment with two sisters from Georgia, and a couple of Sri Lankens. From there, it was a connection to Trent, and then to Levico Terme, a picturesque little town just on the South side of the Italian Alps.

Yesterday was all about fighting to stay awake--even if it meant eating ice cream (in Italy, I have to table my ice cream ban)--and finding some basic supplies on a Sunday, when virtually every shop is closed. Today the talks begin, and though I'm up early, I'm hopeful that I'm rested enough to give myself a shot at understanding whatever small fraction of each talk might be accessible to me. Hopefully I'll get to meet some of the other mathematicians as well; even a day of isolation leaves me thirsty for company (I slept through dinner yesterday).In any case, life is good, I have plenty of pizza and ice cream of the highest calibur at my disposal, there's a lake nearby and so far everything's gone off without a hitch. If you send me a current address I'll try to send you a postcard. More updates to follow.