Boar

Just as we reached the front gate of Hofan's complex, we heard a rustling and saw a shape in the woods. I assumed dog at first, but it was, in fact, an enormous wild boar. I've never seen one before, but it was pretty cool. Still, we hustled inside as fast as we could. It ran in the other direction.

The piece is, I think, back on track. We had a long discussion all morning with the cast about what could make the process more fun again, and what would help them. By the end, I think they felt they fully owned the piece again, and the afternoon was much lighter and more productive; I left feeling alert rather than run down. We still have lots of time in the studio before this thing goes on--more than a quarter of our overall rehearsal lies before us. Lots of magical things ahead, I hope.

One difficulty I hadn't anticipated at the beginning is that our cast is composed of actors, not dancers. It makes it harder to do the kind of full out dance I was imagining originally. There's much more gestural stuff. It's not a bad thing though, once I know what to expect.

Another annoyance: one of our cast has a minor back injury, which of course will linger forever, and he missed the whole cleansing morning session (getting X-rays, which were almost certainly unnecessary). He also missed the bonding while the piece was in its earlier stages. It's very hard to get him fully integrated. And his movement is limited to boot. It's tricky to work around. He has some nice ideas though, and I think he'll work out well enough. Definitely felt the drag when he joined us today at lunch, and we had to rehash a conversation that was finished to catch him up.

Still, the piece is going well. It's also all consuming. It's hard to see myself getting any substantial math done this last week. A good time for some review of the easy stuff, maybe.