I have finished my MA Project!!! splanchnologies went very well and I had an amazing team of people to help me with the work. Thank you thank you thank you to Verity, Olly, Tam, and especially Yula and Andy who performed in “tongues in 7.” Especially especially Andy who chauffeured me, gave great comments, and generally supported me through the whole thing.

Things were a little hairy in the third week before the performance – I had a mysterious “virus” which consisted of hot flushes (no fever tho’), a rash on my limbs that crept onto my tongue and into my throat, and roaming joint pain. Isn’t that lovely. The doctors being unable to help me, I took Yin Chiao and watched Wim Wenders and Fellini films for three days while being unable to move let alone do anything about my project. Luckily, by the following Monday I was mostly okay and began working in earnest towards the performance. Things came together very quickly from there, some of the pieces going through a number of performative changes before the actual performance. The pre-show comments from my theatre tutor, Misri Dey, and my music tutor, Bob Gilmore, were very helpful, and the assistance from Adam in the Sound & Vision department helped Andy create some amazing live processing for one of the pieces.

My friend Kordian took some pictures, one of which is amazing, but as I have forgotten the specific technical requirements of posting images to my blog, you will all have to wait until I have put some documentation of the show up on my website – soon. I am in the process of digitizing video and audio from rehearsals and the performance in the hopes of putting together a DVD and an audio CD of the best takes. A show reel of my work in general is also in the plans.

The show itself was of five in-process pieces and I am planning on developing them further and hopefully doing a show in Saskatoon within the next 6-8 months.

Speaking of Saskatoon, we are moving back there in time for Halloween. We’ll be staying at my parents’ place for a bit and then moving into our own place and sorting through all of the stuff we’ve had in storage for the past 3 years. I hope to be able to update this space more regularly as I will have a bit more control over my time and my deadlines. We will also have internet at home, which will be a great improvement over the current situation which involves a choice between a noisy, smoky, internet cafe or the 20 minute uphill walk to campus.

Ed and Jarrod are well. Ed’s becoming more and more obsessed with fishing, which means we get to eat yummy fresh fish. Last night we had dogfish (a kind of shark) which was the tastiest fish I’ve had here so far. Ed usually catches a lot of pollock, which he’s been grilling with miso. mmmmm. Jarrod’s been obsessed with his diablo still, which we are encouraging. He’s also been trying to learn not only the guitar part, but also the vocal part to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” and announced to me today that it was difficult to play in one rhythm and sing in another. I told him to try playing and speaking at the same time. heh. Hopefully he won’t become too frustrated with having a composer/performer as a mother!