Paris

It's always hard to leave home, especially when the asparagus are out, gathered in little bunches tied with raffia at the local farm shop, costing one euro, when our first lettuces have grown, and when the dandelion leaves are young and we have just discovered a new organic white wine that happens to accompany them all very well.



The forecast for Paris was dire. I was nervous about a physical theatre piece which didn't exist yet and which I was performing in three days, and Julian was nervous about whether or not he would be able to paint streets, bridges and rooftops in the rain instead of sunlit irises.



The project 'Rope and Strings' gathered force from the first day. The miracle of creative process never ceases to amaze me: Six people gather in a room with a rope, four oranges and a pile of twigs, and at the end of three days we have a piece of musical/physical theatre which has never existed before, but not just that. We have magic.

Why, why why, don't we do this every day, each and every one of us? With our families, friends, enemies, priests, builders, hairdressers....?

It was an inspiration to work with Jos Houben whom I have admired for so many years in Theatre de Complicité; to talk about movement like music, in terms of colour, architecture, accent, polyphony, melody and counterpoint. I particularly appreciate his insistence that this be not for us, between us, but that it communicate something to the audience...I was knackered but on such a high...

....and then it was over. Our presentation. Gone, like the sand mandala. We are dreaming Edinburgh, Brighton, Avignon 2010. New York. San Fransisco..... but we have no bookings as yet.

Check out the pictures and if you know anyone who is interested in funding such a project in any way (in terms of a residency, or someone who has a space begging a piece of rope magic) I have no hesitation in asking you to please get in touch.

Meanwhile the sun shone on Paris and on Julian who, based in our friends' flat near the Pantheon, velibbed around (I used to think the Paris metro was romantic) and turned out a
cracker or two....