Vihreän joen rannalla - By the green river

While in Bern, I ate dinner in a brilliant asian restaurant, Mekong Beizli, which I already mentioned in the previous post. But it's somehow relevant to this post also, since the fortune cookie I got told me that long walks would be beneficial for both my body and soul.

So this post is about that walk.

I had a day off in Bern and the weather looked finally promising, so I took off for a walk. First I went to Elfenau and from there to the tracks along the Aare river. It was blazing hot Saturday, temperature hovering somewhere around +35*, so most of Bern were barbecuing themselves in the parks by the river. I wasn't into that, so I kept walking and admiring the unbelievably turquoise water of the river. I'm told that this very particular milky color comes from calc that is in the water. Go figure, but it's soooo beautiful!

I spent all afternoon walking down along the river, ever so slowly towards downtown Bern. Lots of people were already happily splashing in the water, but for me it was still wayyyys too chilly, so I settled for just wiggling my toes in it.

Tierpark

Elfenauhölzli

Kiikustuolissa istun,
ja sinua muistelen.
Muistini tylsillä luistimilla
luoksesi luistelen.
siihen kesään kauan, kauan sitten
syksyksi kääntyneeseen
ja omaan hahmooni ensirakkauden
poltteessa nääntyneeseen

Siellä rannalla vihreän joen
rakkaudestani kertoen
sanoin eivät kai kukkaset kuki turhaan
nyt poimimme sen, ensimmäisen yhteisen

missä oletkaan ollut kaikki nämä vuodet
ootko muistanut, kuinka silloin rakastin sua
kun tiemme joelle vei, ja joelle sanoin hei
minne meet, minne kuljetit kyyneleet
jotka kauan sitten itkin
kun yksin kuljen rantaasi pitkin, hei hei

silmääni kyyneleen suolaisen,
muistoni toi kai sen
kun aina muistoissani uudestaan
viereesi oikaisen

siellä rannalla vihreän joen
rakkaudestani kertoen
sanoin eivät kai kukkaset kuki turhaan
nyt poimimme sen, ensimmäisen yhteisen

missä oletkaan ollut kaikki nämä vuodet
ootko muistanut, kuinka silloin rakastin sua
kun tiemme joelle vei, ja joelle sanoin hei
minne meet, minne kuljetit kyyneleet
jotka kauan sitten itkin
kun yksin kuljen rantaasi pitkin, hei hei

Brrrhh...

Pelicans in the Zoo right by the river, everybody's "must have pic"

Bundeshaus as seen from Dalmaziquai

Münzrain

Again Bundeshaus

Kleine Schanze

And yes, I did get a blister on my heel, so the physical benefits can be questioned in the end. Can fortune cookies be trusted?

@ Bern

Since last Monday I have been in the Swiss capital, Bern. A new guest performance, new at least for me, brought me here after only one week in Basel since Zürich. Seems like busy May for me, but that's only good, giving me a chance to patch up my finances after quiet beginning of the year.

The performance I'm doing here now is called "Wann stören wir uns endlich" and directed by Andreas Liebmann. This is a fast take over thing to me, since the guys who'd done it before couldn't come this time. It feels always bit jittery to hop on the reins having only seen the piece on DVD. -Aka, not having any kind of first hand experience on how it need to be. Nonetheless, I seem to be doing all right, we had the premiere yesterday at Schlachthaus Theater and I didn't screw it up =).

After getting the show to the run mode, I have now bit more free time in my hands. That's actually great, because couple of my dear friends are visiting this city at this very moment. So today I spent strolling around downtown Bern with my friend Jari (Oulu, Finland), whom I haven't seen in past two years, give or take some months. He is visiting Bern because his lady, Eija (Glasgow, Scotland), is doing her university thesis on Robert Walser, swiss writer. So what are the chances exactly, to be in the same city and time with these two, be it Finland , British Isles, Switzerland or any given country for that matter? =) =) So cool!

With both of them I also visited the Kunsthalle to see their exhibition about animism. I found it to be bit one sided and scarce, but having yet some interesting ideas, mainly with the video installations. Mostly boring, anyhow. Not really recommended.

In stead I can really wholeheartedly recommend something else. A brilliant Asian restaurant called Mekong Beizli on Kornhausplatz 7. The place is pretty small and very popular, so be prepared to wait a moment in the evening time, if you don't have reservation. But, I promise you, it well worth waiting for. Personnel is friendly and the place is clean and not shabby. Prices are okay compared to the general level in Bern and the food is straightforward and tasty. I was sort of impressed with my portion of chicken with cashew nuts, since this somehow reminded me of the very first dish of such in Phuket some years ago. There is billion recipes for it and this first one in Phuket is always the reference to me. Most ofter I'm somehow disappointed because the versions served are not "quite right". But this one in Mekong was a real positive surprise! Highly recommended!!!

In the evening I hooked up with yet another friend of mine. Kati, Finnish dancer, is doing a student exchange project here in Bern now and we went to have this amazing dinner and then after wards to see a dance performance at Tojo Theater. ojo is situated in former riding school very near to the main railway station and the location has sort of cult reputation of being the hangout scene for the local youth. The show "Run very far to come very close to say very little" wanted to be very cool and trendy, but didn't impress me much. It was nothing compared to the Cathy Sharp choreography "Mr. Budhoo Resigns" I saw last weekend.

Two adaptations of Darlings

I had the opportunity to do a light design for a bigNOTWENDIKEIT profuction called "Kill your Darlings". I already mentioned this in one of the previous posts.

Well, this is how it turned out to be... We performed with it on three venues: Schlachthaus in Bern, Fabrik Theater in Rote Fabrik, Zürich and also in Kaserne, Basel. In this post you can see, how very different can two venues look like although the medium of the light is basically the same: In Schlachthaus we performed on a tiny stage in the ancient stone-walled basement of the building whereas Fabtik Theater was three times bigger traditional black box. Kaserne ended up being somewhere inbetween. The premiere took place in Fabrik Theater, so this was the main target venue for the design also.

I realized that the atmosphere in these two versions was completely different. The room in the basement was somehow very present all the times, compared to the "non-spaceness" and void of the black box in Zürich. Being thightly surrounded by very organic surface as the stone-walls, makes the atmosphere very soft and somehow homey. In black space the scenography is somehow floating in the emptiness. I found both effects to be real cool, but they definitely change the mood of the performance.

See for yourselves!:

The beginning of the play "I'm not here."
Above Schlachthaus, below Fabrik Theater.

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Song: "Here's to You"

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"Grail & Andy"

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"Story of Nicola and Bart"


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"Am Grab - at the grave"


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"Ich bedauere... ich betrauere
-I'm sorry about... I regret"

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Towards the end:
Only light on stage comes from the drawers.

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Only the neon-tubes in the drawers are on.

Kill your Darlings
is:
Direction / Regie: Anna K. Becker, Katharina Bischoff.
Dramaturgy / Dramaturgie: Rahel Leupin.
Scenography / Bühne: Olivia Suter.
Light / Licht: Minna Heikkilä.
Artistic collaboration / Künstlerische Mitarbeit, Assistent / Assistenz: Stine Hertl.
On stage / Mit: Esther Becker, Anna Katharina Müller.

Innovations =)

You know those mornings that you just NEED to have your coffee? -Nothing seems to work or to be right until you've reached the point, where you have that hot mug in your hands and can gently take the first sip of it's foamy contents?

Yeah, so it goes sometimes. And sometimes it just gets bit difficult to get there, hmm. Like in the possible scenario, that you equipment just don't fit together? Hå? What's that then, what to do? Like this it was in Bern, in the guest apartment of Theater Schlachthaus. There was plenty of coffee and I had remembered to bring the milk. Pot was on the kitchen table and I happily filled it and....

Pot was too small for the stove. Jihaa, we have a winner!! So, of this realisation followed frenzied search through the content of that kitchen and below you see the imaginative solution to the present problem:

New adaptations of the appliances.

And finally it's brewing!

And my Finnish speaking friends might find the cup amusing with additional "L", at least I did, when I finally had my coffee in it =)