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(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) The Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland host a spectacular dance festival (Ice Hot Nordic Dance Platform) every winter, highlighting contemporary dance that is uniquely Nordic. Both the festivals pictured below took place in the winter although I’m not sure the Norwegian one that Kristine Maltrud and I attended was part of… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) TAIPEI, TAIWAN definitely has the most interesting looking food of any place I’ve ever visited. Taipei was actually a great travel experience…meeting choreographer/dancer/teacher Ruping Wang and going around the city and also to a dance performance with her. She was such fun, one of those people with whom I fully intended to keep in touch,… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) Qudus Onikeku was my host and guide around Lagos and with a look into the contemporary dance scene. Qudus is a choreographer, performer, thinker, activist, writer and continental arts provocateur. A most interesting guy in other words. Qudus asked me before recommending a hotel if I wanted to stay in the more Eurocentric part… Read More
(This set of posts comprise an addendum for Time and Place 2015-16, accounting for previous travels and events.) I can’t remember when my friend Jill, a most talented choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher—besides being a fine friend with a great sense of humor—first went to Uganda. Many years ago. She was one of the first directors of Buen Viaje Dance, VSA North Fourth’s all-abilities dance company, and, truth-be-told, one of only a… Read More
Saturday Morning. Chicago. The City. That City Energy. I love it. The El runs right by my hotel and is a much better sleep aide than my white-noise fans back home. Dinner with Bonnie Brooks, Columbia College dance impresario, last night which was a lovely catch-up after a very long time. And THEN, the always mighty and magnificent Nora Chipaumire with her portrait of myself as my father at Columbia College Dance… Read More
THIS WAS FALL 2013; NOW AT THE END OF 2014 I AM FINALLY FIGURING OUT WHERE I WANT DANCE IN MY LIFE—WITH FRIENDS. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Thank you Susan Sontag. My sentiments exactly. Time and Place (mneset.me) is my favorite blog. The oldest and, even to me, most interesting. The sad thing is I cannot travel all of the time so how to write interestingly about… Read More
It is 2014…I am back in South Africa with my family. We arrived around 10pm last night but given Sunday evening airport staffing didn’t get to Thulani Lodge until nearly midnight. It’s the end of winter here and from my bedroom window the grounds I usually think of as pretty lush and green have that early spring slightly bedraggled look. It feels so strange to be here without dance, dance friends, dance… Read More
Third day. So let me tell you about Hafiz’s desert and Xhosa initiation ceremonies and the full moon over Soweto. It is actually Tuesday but this a Sunday tale. Today must suffice as my weekend for the next two weeks—no more days off, and festivals and traveling are exhausting ventures both. Besides we have presented two of the artists performing this afternoon at N4th already so I am only missing two new… Read More
The moments after the moments Hotel El Farouk Crankiness is a basic travel mood as anyone who has ever read Paul Theroux knows. Ah yes, there is that first euphoria of discovering the fabled River Niger flows by your window and the smells and sounds of an African city are just outside your door. (That would mainly be exhaust and honking horns but who’s counting except for these bad mood moments). Remember… Read More
The nice thing about little out of the way hotels is that they have few high-tech controls on anything. So my room can be turned on freezing at night and a heavy blanket goes on …and instantly warmed with almost-liquid tropical air by the time my morning instant Folgers is ready—even I could decipher the sign of the thermometer and the little off-on button above it. My perfect environment then—Minnesota winter night… Read More