Minsk Journal: Who Wants to Go To...

Wednesday, September 21

Minsk, Belarus

Random quote for the day: “Sometimes decades pass and nothing happens; and then sometimes weeks pass and decades happen.” - VI Lenin (surely its OK to drop a Lenin quote now and again)

Given the world of 12 months ago and the one of today it seems appropriate insofar as everything is turning upside down as the quest for something vaguely approximating fairness keeps surfacing. And, no, that's not a political statement (or if it is it has the legs of a millipede).

Random image of the day: Alexandra Shpartova in rehearsal for "America" from "West Side Story."

I find, as is so often the case, that the imbalance between the world I encounter and the world about which I read is at war in my head. The macro world seems bent on splitting itself into a thousand pieces, and more often than not for completely reasonable reasons. Greece the entity is plunging towards default -- and some economists are recommending that path as the lesser of two extraordinary evils. Day-by-day we whittle away at our sense and sensibility about the planet and become mired in the semantics of climate change and lose our way with the simple fact that, whether you believe its a man-made thing or not its happening and we have the power to do something about it -- and in so doing to tackle issues of ecological justice in our stewardship of the planet, our economic situation vis a vis job growth and sustainability, our responsibility to our own health (have yet to find anyone who will tell you that breathing China's air these days is actually GOOD for you) and so much more.

It leads you too easily towards the metaphorical bottle of little blue pills on the nightstand.

Yet every time that comes at me -- which is typically every time I read the New York Times online -- its countered by a daily reality -- one profoundly grounded in art now -- that counters it so forcefully that I don't know how to reconcile the opposites. Perhaps they attract, but if so its a dysfunctional attraction. Day-by-day I encounter more people whose vision, grace, humor and talent make me believe that anything is possible -- and that anything we imagine can be made real. I see it every single day all over the world.

In the past six months I've been in Israel twice, the West Bank twice, Kazakhstan twice, Belarus twice Peru, Switzerland, Iceland, the Czech Republic and China. In a few days I'll be in Spain for a week and then in Kyrgyzstan and possibly Russia for a week at a time. And in each of those places I've been confounded and comforted by the simple kindness of people and the talent they evoke in their art, their daily lives and their perseverance.

Tonight at a reception at the US Embassy for the incoming Public Affairs Officer here, Carrie Lee, I watched a lawn fill up with arts and cultural leaders in a country whose diplomatic relations with the US suck (sorry, its the right word) and for whom the entrance through the gates is an act of courage. Yet there was nothing political about the evening -- or there was everything political about it. That's the point, I suppose -- how do we look things? There was an evening of quiet comfort and of people talking gently, sincerely and eagerly about ways that things can be made better through the simple acts of engagement that are the centerpiece of everything we hope to do at Company E. I'm not suggesting we were a significant part of the evening. We weren't and we weren't meant to be. But in being here at all we are a part of a discussion about enrichment and that, to quote JFK, "makes all the difference."

Late in the course of the reception, as the sky grew that strangely magical deep blue it does here after sunset but before dark, I had the chance to talk briefly with two Fullbrighters on the lawn hard by the wine-bar. The Chargé was off to the side doing what he does so well - making people feel at home in a diplomatically estranged environment (not an easy feat and I know no one who does it better than Mike). They've both only been here a week or two, and they're teaching English at two of the major universities. I'd met one when we shared a ride upon arrival a week and a half ago. Exactly what you hope for in a person coming into a new environment -- curious, wickedly bright, capable and gracious. I asked her how the week had been and what she said was so utterly true of every encounter I've had in these past months -- "I can't get over how nice people are here." And its utterly true of Minsk. This is a deeply affectionate country, for lack of a better way to put it. People feel so at ease with each other -- far more than we seem at home most of the time. There is a gentle physicality that conveys ease and reassurance and comfort which I think underpins the strength of the people to take on what for us would be enormous hardships.

The conversation turned to the idea that here, in a country we don't know, lay the endless possibilities of discovery. That, as I have written about "West Side Story" the old saw that there is nothing new in the world is not true at all. There is. And you find it by putting your finger on the map in places which aren't "destinations." You find it in Huancayo and Piura in Peru. You find it in a walk down the nervous streets of Algiers. You find it in Minsk and Almaty and I suspect in Bishkek. I remember so clearly that sense in Venice -- but not on the Rialto. It was in the old squares where Kelly and I found our way into a part of the city that lived in the bubble of community.

For me, in so many ways, this is where the magic of cultural engagement lies. As powerfully as I want us to perform in London and Berlin, the impact of a "very long engagement" in Belarus and Kazakhstan is the place where, I think, the impact lasts.

We talked about the idea that there is no Belarus guidebook. In a day when there are guidebooks to everything that idea was both funny and perplexing. And yet its so needed, because this is a place of endless beauty, grace, kindness and nature at work with the population. The news, when it talks about Belarus at all, is terrible -- deservedly so in the sense that there is enormous injustice here.

Yet, just when the lights go dim in your head about the possibilities of the world, you find two young Americans on an Embassy lawn in deepening twilight, or Anastasiya, the dancer who has made me see the possibilities of "West Side" in ways I would never have done without her, and you are reminded that we have it in us to make it work.

I hope that, a year or two hence, a new generation of tour books might emerge, beginning with one from Belarus -- "Who Wants to Go To...." The first title could easily be "Belarus." The answer -- "You Do."

Kyrgyzstan bound: September 29 - October 8

Contracts came in and its official -- at the invitation of the US Embassy in Bishkek the Company heads for a one-week engagement in Kyrgyzstan to start October. A week of workshops, master classes and an evening-length performance that features our premiere of Roni Koresh's "Theater of Public Secrets," and, in a real highlight for me, has the Kazakh company Kathryn and I have worked with so often, Samruk, coming over the Tien Shen Mountains to perform the dance she and I made for them at the end of May during the last of our CityDance days, "11: Thoughts on the Passage of Time." A dream come true to collaborate with Samruk, which is really my second family at this point. And, as always, its through the care and kindness and support of the US Department of State.

Pretty amazing.

Minsk Journal: West Side Story - "Cool" - a beginning

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Minsk, Belarus - 9:46pm

Random stat for the day: A gallon of gasoline contains 89 metric tons of phytoplankton. You're basically taking little bodies from the cretacious 100 million years ago and pumping them into your car.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the bozos who are theoretically assigned with putting the electric charger in my garage for my ordered but not delivered (cause I'd have no way to charge it) Nissan Leaf to actually return a call about rescheduling the appointment they missed so I can, you know, stop harvesting (or at least reduce the harvesting) of those little 100 million year old characters.

How exactly, do you wrap your head around 89 million metric tons of anything? Of course when you put that into the full tank of a Ford Taurus its actually almost 2 Billion of them, so go figure.

Guilty pleasure music note: Its not entirely clear to me why, after 30 years of dissing the Eagles I have suddenly gone very deeply retro and bought half their catalogue in the last 48 hours, but it probably has to do with extensive sleep deprivation. Gotta say, though, the bass line in "Outlaw Man" is completely insane.

OK -- day eight of the WSS marathon. Working three-a-day rehearsals now, starting at 10am and ending at 10pm with a couple of one hour breaks in between to try and kick this together. Jason and I are splitting duty so we can really get the material out of our heads and onto a seemingly endless stream of changing, but not interchangeable, bodies. The range of ability is a bit like comparing the air at sea level with that of the summit at Everest (though we're not referring to anyone as "the dead zone" at this point). But the constant is how insanely hard everyone is working. And the fact that, despite the fact that many of them have a pass on certain rehearsals because they are also, you know, in two or three shows which are also in performance at other times of the day, they show up anyway.

Honestly, my favorite are the people for the evening rehearsal who are actually ON STAGE during rehearsals who come in either before their stage time or in between or after in full costume. Hard to describe exactly the look of "Dance in the Gym" with a woman in an 18th century ball-gown and powdered wig, eyelashes that could catch a fly at 30 feet and those wide hip things they used to wear shouting "MAMBO" at the top of her lungs.

Only in the theater.

Truly, these people work so bloody hard its difficult to describe. They get one day off a week and they're there when I get in and they leave when I leave or, if they're in a production that night, way after, and we're talking 12 hour days that involve shows, rehearsals and all the stuff in between (you try putting on those costumes they run around in in period pieces and see if you can even imagine running into rehearsal with the craziness Jason is throwing at them -- great craziness, but craziness to be sure).

Today, rather than work with the full cast of "Cool" during the mid-day session I pulled my two favorite dancers into the studio and just said "lets forget everything that we think people can and can't do and make the dance we want. We'll adapt later." That in mind I think I really went out of my way to kill them -- pulling steps onto each beat in certain percussion lines and violating any sense of sanity about change of direction and things that went off the wrong foot because they made sense musically and had that innate relationship to the music they need for a dance as tortured as cool.

Beyond me how anyone makes music as brilliant as what Bernstein came up with for the entire show, much less "Cool." Seriously, how often do you actually get paid to use the best music in the world and make up a dance that pushes every limit you ever thought you had? Really?

(oh, and "Hotel California" is a pretty good way to accept permanent loss of hearing through a pair of "Beats Pro" by Dr Dre - and what's with the solo by Joe Walsh?)

Kate Jordan characterizes my infatuation with certain dancers as my "Little Adorations" (hence the name of the dance of the same name). I have one here and she's got that crazy ability to make you see movement that you'd never have gotten to on your own, but that pushes you endlessly farther than your own brain would have taken you. That's the wicked fascination with dance -- because the canvas is living and not in your control (whatever some choreographers might say). It lives beyond and above your own creative abilities and has this stunning, shocking way of making you see exactly the right step for something not because you made it, but because the person in front of you interpreting what she thought you asked for (and when neither of you speak the same language its really all body language anyway) saw and heard it in a way that was honest to her or him and that responded to the soundscape and it was just right.

Thank God for muses, I suppose.

"Cool" is such an icon its hard to describe. What Robbins made was perfect, and so I've actually forced myself not to watch that section of WSS. Its too easy to imitate it without trying, and in so doing make something that ends up being a dime-store copy, and that doesn't serve anyone. The music demands so much of the dancer that you want to find that for and with them without a Master in your head at the same time you're trying to discern what needs to be said. There's truth there as well in "Dance in the Gym" but there, in the "prologue" section, I chose to quote a step at the very beginning because it grounds the dance in the history. Its one step, and its been used endlessly in other places, but the quote was very much on purpose. And it just establishes the entire dance. Teaching them all swing was fun, except I almost knocked a girls teeth out in a spin she'd never seen before and opted to try to take her arm through her head as opposed to over it....not quite the "knocked her out" one seeks in those moments, but such is life...

Minsk Journal: West Side Story - Images

Friday, September 16th, 2011

Minsk, Belarus

I'm trying to figure out how to explain the currency situation here. Unless you've been to a place where its seriously uneconomical to print paper below a certain denomination because, you know, its not worth anything, then I'm not sure how to put this into context.

Try this: last night I spent 34,000 Belarussian Rubles on a cheeseburger. That's not a typo. Jason Ignacio, our Associate Artistic Director and my collaborator on West Side spent 35,000 on a Guinness. Yes, he spent more on a beer than I spent on dinner (can you say exchange rate problems with imported merchandise), but, that aside, together we spent over 100,000 on two cheeseburgers, one beer, two cokes and bottled water. Ummm....

What, exactly, do you do with that? And two days ago the currency was devalued essentially by half. The official exchange rate went from 5,000 to the dollar to 8,500 to the dollar. In a day.

For me that all sounds vaguely funny. Try living here and the humor stops like a car going 90 into a steel wall. How, precisely, do you buy that which you have to have to survive? I couldn't even imagine what it must take to walk into a car dealership.

Yet, with that, people are so remarkably wonderful here.

On a Friday night in Minsk, deep in the worst kind of jet lag (assuming there's a good kind) I'm at the cafe in the hotel lobby and noodling around about heading out in search of music (there's a pretty good music scene here, and the restaurants are great). But tomorrow is a full rehearsal day and its the beginning of the very hardest part of West Side -- the Somewhere Ballet. Somewhere never made it into the film of West Side. Its a feature of the musical and as such is really rarely seen and understood. And its a tricky thing because the score makes it easy to fall into cliché. Add to that the fact that your stepping in and around Jerry Robbins and you better do your job well.

So I've been through the score, both in recording and sheet music, about 50 times and sat up last night (not that there was a choice) working through storyboards and ideas and a sense of inquiry about what the music was asking and what the choreographers notes (thank you Library of Congress and the luck of living in DC) were saying.

This iteration of West Side is strangely familiar in terms of the challenges that came up almost 55 years ago -- how do you get the best out of dancers who aren't singers, singers who aren't actors, actors who aren't dancers -- and how do you do it within something called the "Somewhere Ballet." Its there and its possible, but its not something to take lightly.

My initial answer is to bring together the best man in the cast with the best woman on a day off for everyone else and set about making a dance I understand and believe in, and then go from there -- what is the art that you need to make as oppose to the art that is in front of you. Forget the limitations - find what for you is the truth and then work your way down the trail until you find what everyone you need can do, and be challenged successfully by.

And that's a key that's easy to overlook I think in a musical situation like this -- one where the work has never been done in the country, and where you're in the middle of the first American musical ever staged here. Be sure that you are cognizant of the experience for the artists -- that, at the end of the day they are rewarded, challenged, and filled with possibility. Don't expect them to be anyone else but who they are with what they have the ability to do in six months. Not today, but down the road. That's the trick. This is a new place, a new space and a new experience for almost everyone here, and so its a different, but remarkable, journey.

Yesterday we had class -- for all 50 people in the cast -- in a small studio off the deck of the main stage (rehearsal, mercifully, was on the stage itself) and it was a crazy, crazy thing to watch Jason navigate it all (and do so brilliantly). Then, in the evening, it was "America," which, in the Broadway production is only for the women (the movie version with the boys is so infectious its hard to get it out of your head). Jason is really the lead voice in that dance, and he embraced the role....as the images below will tell you.

Jackie's quote

Minsk, Belarus

Thursday, September 15, 2011

In the midst of an engagement in a country which was the subject of an intense Op-Ed in today's New York Times, a piece which gives meaning and definition to the challenges faced here and yet of the value and impact of cultural diplomacy as perhaps the only tool of engagement possible a parallel piece in today's Washington Post reminded me of the power of culture in a different way, and from a different time.

Jacqueline Kennedy (and later Onassis) echoed the meaning, and potency, of an Administration which, unlike virtually every other one to succeed it in the US, recognized that art, too, is a tool of society, of diplomacy and of a country of enlightenment. On the fiftieth anniversary year of the inaugural of John Kennedy, in a country far, far from home on so many ways, a few of her words seemed worth sharing.

The restoration (of the White House) may be emblematic of Jackie’s best and greatest legacy, much more lasting than her sense of style, her pillbox hats and her breathy adoration of her beau. Her understanding of culture — and the power of culture — may have left the country something larger. Jack and Jackie both loved reading about great civilizations, she says at one point in the tapes. She believed that the cultural power of civilizations was more important than political power or military power in the lasting influence of those civilizations.

In her 20s, she was once asked what her ideal job might be.

“Art Director of the 20th century,” she said.

She just may have gotten her wish.

--from "The Root DC" on September 14, 2011

Minsk Journal: West Side Story - Day Two

Wednesday, September 14th

The Hotel Minsk lobby

The search for the perfect Italian restaurant continued in earnest here tonight. So far Jason Ignacio (our Associate Rehearsal Director) and I have found at least three in a three block radius from the hotel. Haven't quite figured out what the preoccupation with Italian food is here, but as a life-long Caprese addict I'm not complaining.

And the realization that the women in Minsk are the best dressed women I've ever seen outside of Italy just keeps getting reaffirmed daily. Serious style in this city everywhere.

As to the reason we're here....

How many times in life, and especially in art, have you heard the phrase "everything's been done. There's nothing new." It so easy to see it that way. But its wrong. Here, in Minsk, there's an opportunity to set a pace, a standard and a way forward for the creation of a musical theater community and culture that doesn't exist here yet. Never mind the one in New York -- you can't just transport 45th between Broadway and 9th Avenue. The one here, lurking under the surface like a stalk inching its way through the soil to the sunlight is fresh; unique.

The musical traditions, and the theater traditions, are so different that the pulling together of the separate cords of what makes a great musical great are being fabricated both before us and through us. From the "this is what a grapevine step looks like" to the flirtation/competition of the "Dance in the Gym," its all new here. The ideas of how to train to succeed in a musical are new. The chance to make it their own is present and it, too is new, because its a canvas they have to make for themselves. That's about courage, and there is so much of that --- and excitement. 42 dancers in the room today -- some of them true dancers, some actors, some singers -- but 42 people locked into Jason's every note and riveted on his footwork of his accent on the downbeat of the "5."

We set out to do some swing partnering, and it was the awkward high school dance all over again -- and that has to transform (and it will) into the elegant sexiness of an entire environment charged with it.

Too much fun.

And a Kazakhstan post-script

On Saturday, September 10th, just before Jason Ignacio and I left for Minsk, the Samruk Dance Company, a company I have come to adore and be endlessly delighted to work with, presented a program in the Capital City, Astana, of all-American choreography. Most of those dances were sponsored by the US Embassy. Rebecca Rice, a wonderful and elegant choreographer, premiered a work, "Uplift." I had the chance to see just the very beginnings of her dance, and it really resonated with me. Strong yet supple; smart yet accessible. Not easy to do those things.

For me, and for my colleague Kathryn Pilkington, it was a particularly remarkable night because of the four dances presented, three were by me or by she and I together. That's the first time that's ever happened. Its an odd thing to realize when you direct a dance company and have for the better part of 15 years. Yet CityDance, and now Company E's mission isn't my art -- its great art by many voices, and so I never imagined putting that much of my own art on stage in a single performance.

Yet, thanks to Gulnara Adamova, Samruk's courageous and visionary director, and the US Embassy and Consulate in Kazakhstan, that's what happened 10 time zones from DC.

Here's the image from the Embassy of the US in KZ's website.

Crazy. And a real honor...

Minsk Journal: West Side Story

Tuesday, September 23, 2011

Minsk, Belarus -- Cafe DeLuxe

First of all, who says there aren't great restaurants in Minsk? They're everywhere it seems. Especially if you love pasta and really good local beer. And at night this city is absolutely gorgeous. Temperature in mid September is perfect, the people stunning and sitting outside at a cafe pretty much heaven (you could say I love my job).

OK, that out of the way, lets talk Tony, Bernardo, Maria and Anita.

This is round two (of three or possibly four) for Jason Ignacio (Company E's Associate Artistic Director) and me to be in Minsk working with the National Musical Theater Company of Belarus on West Side Story. As I mentioned in a note in July, this is the first time an American Musical has ever been staged in Belarus, and the US Embassy, especially its Chargé Mike Scalon and its Cultural Affairs office (thank you Irina) have made this an elegant and exceptional opportunity to collaborate across culture, language and style. And what a musical to begin with.

There are so many sub-plots to West Side Story that fall, in their own ways, into the still-extant geopolitical craziness of this part of the world. Of all the post-Soviet states, including Russia, only Belarus kept the name KGB for its security services. That, by and of itself, should tell you that its a complex relationship here between official America and official Belarus. Yet, as is the case every single place we travel, once you get past the politics to people the relationships are elegant, engaged, exciting and extraordinary.

Underneath the surface of West Side Story is the whole question of tolerance, of understanding and the consequences of not -- lives ravaged and communities shattered. And when you look at the news it seems a micro version of a macro world. And in that way the very same questions that emerge at the end of WSS -- could and should it have turned out differently -- live on.

How much those questions emerge in the staging of this show will be interesting to uncover. What will make West Side Story real in Minsk? Its not the story of a Puerto Rican gang trying to find its way on the streets of Manhattan in the 1950s, that's for sure. Yet the music, the love story underneath it all, still resonate, as does the incredible opportunity for movement to take center. That's one of the reasons taking this assignment with State was so appealing. There are almost no other spaces and places in dance like the one Robbins carved out in West Side. The movement and the story live inside each other. Getting that into the bodies and spirits of dancers whose life experience is utterly different than those of the Manhattan I grew up in (albeit a few decades later) will probably be the most interesting challenge.

Tomorrow we take the material we made in the rehearsal studio today for the "Dance in the Gym" and start imparting it onto the bodies of the cast. The work really begins then -- the competition, the power and sexuality of the movement and the odd mix of power and insecurity that is at the heart of West Side....

Cannot imagine a more wonderful journey.....

Kazakhstan Journal - Tuesday, August 23rd

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

There is a realization anytime I tell people where I am that Kazakhstan is a mystery in the States, and in many ways throughout the Western Hemisphere. Yet over the past 11 months my relationship to it has grown and grown through a series of opportunities to perform, to teach, to choreograph and to explore. Here, in Astana for the third time in a year, I'm in the last days of staging "Falling into the Sea," a 31 minute dance that has been evolving for eight years, changing with each iteration. Its the third dance of mine Samruk takes into their repertory, and the first time I've shared this dance with another company.

That is really just a part of the story of Company |E, and before it CityDance, in Kazakhstan. Our life here has taken on so many levels. Right now Jason Ignacio, one of Company | E's Associate Artistic Director's is in Astana, the Capital, working with another Kazakh Contemporary Company, Terra. To have two of us in Kazakhstan at the same time, in completely different cities working with different companies is really about as far from what a year ago I might have imagined as you can get. Yet the journey, like so many before it, has been rich, textured and full of life and surprise. How do you wind up with two people from one company in the same country 10 time zones away from DC at the same time, yet not working with the same people or on the same work? Crazy.

All this, really is due to the US Embassy in Astana and the US Consulate General here in Almaty. Through Jeff Sexton and Sue Kuester and the Public and Cultural Affairs teams we have been given a truly unique chance to share, in depth, what we do with these artists, and to build work, and bridges, which will endure for many years. My time here now lives outside State Department funding, supported instead entirely locally by Samruk, a step which is so much a part of our philosophy of building enduring partnerships which live past the time-frame that typically works for State. Yet none of it would have happened without them. Jason, for his work, has come at State Department initiative, and they're expanding the reach and scope to Astana, which was a dream for us.

Over the course of the next few days I'll have the chance also to share Jason's writings, images and thoughts with Terra, sort of a dual lens of working in KZ. Its the first time I've been able to share the writings of a colleague on this blog, and his ideas and musings are fascinating.

Here's Jason's first entry:

Day 1 @ Terra

"It was 3 am in Astana and I couldn't sleep, it was perhaps a mixture of unmerciful jetlag and excitement with my first day working with Terra Dance Company. I usually prep myself by researching the dance company's work beforehand but unfortunately Terra Dance Company does not have a website nor any publication available online.

Sometimes I like being left in the dark, it forces me to listen to what the dancers need as supposed to shoving a lesson plan that does not fit in the dancers' level. Terra Dance Company is a contemporary dance company housed in a beautiful theater called the Pyramid, which is literally a pyramid with an astonishing architecture from inside and out. The people from the US embassy and I arrived just in time for my 11 am class, I was greeted by 16 female dancers, all wearing dark leotards, tights and jazz sneakers (which I asked to be taken off before the class).

The class was held right at the vast space behind the stage, the floor is in good condition for dance but it was a little dim which I find very challenging throughout the class. Their strong ballet training was easily spotted in the beginning of the class, their spine is rigid and they struggle in standing with their feet parallel to the floor, which I find very common in dancers who don't have a regular modern or contemporary training. This gave me somewhere to start. Aside from helping them break free from one form of dance style, there is one mystery I needed to solve. The dancers were able to produce the movements exquisitely but somehow appeared disconnected, the question "why are they disconnected?" ruled my entire day. I tried series of exercises and activities to find out what's missing and I was able to locate the "disconnection" through the constructive improvisation exercise. They struggled in imagery and visualization, the movements kept appearing fake due to the disconnection of imagery, visualization and movement.

There are many factors associated with the inability to imagine and visualize while moving, most dancers are contented in just mimicking what the choreographer showed them and over time dancers lose their ability to think beyond counting and parroting shapes. I raised the question of "What motivates you to move?" as a performer I always look for a reason why I do things, a simple leg kick can mean so many things but why did you kick is the important question. Body language cannot lie and your body will naturally project what's in your head. Throughout this week I aim to draw a lot of things out from these gifted dancers from Astana, their strong potentials and spirit is inspiring me to do what I love to do…mentoring and teaching.

For tomorrow, I asked the dancers to write a personal story that will accompany the duet they helped developed today. I'm very excited to see the difference it would make to have a story running in their head while dancing."

Bodysnatchers (with thanks to Thom Yorke)

Over the Kazakh steppe inbound to Almaty

Sunday, August 14, 2011 2241 local time

The sense of time that air travel engenders is akin to a distance warp (as opposed to a time warp). It always seems entirely possible that you get into a box surrounded by green screens and on a gimbel and you don’t actually go anywhere. Life in the Matrix as it were.

On Saturday morning Nathan (the 12 year old in my world) and I woke in the quiet comfort of the Reykjavik Centrum hotel just off the main street in Iceland’s Capital. The sun had stayed up until well past 2200, and the light only really left the sky at midnight, glistening again about 4am. To a photographer that’s magic in indescribable ways. In summer the famous “golden hour” of light just before sunset lasts three hours, and the rush to catch the perfect tone on a woman’s face or a meadow’s sleek slope gives way to thought and framing spread out over minutes not moments.

The streets were empty at 0730 but the parties of the night before were still fresh on the sidewalk – cups, slices of lemon or lime, bits of pretzel, carrot and cucumber and the scent of Viking beer. Yet the air was cool and bracing as it poured in over the North Atlantic which hung low and impossibly blue just down the street and so the smells were not off-putting. The city itself hugs the ground, the result of living in a land of eternal earthquakes. In Iceland they rumble all through the day, though they largely remain imperceptible to us. Perhaps that has something to do with why Icelanders so love their music -- even through the double-paned hotel window I could hear hints of it – little earthquakes on the glass, drumbeats and bass lines vibrating deep into the night.

We’d come off a two-day trip by super Jeep (think jacked-up Pathfinder with tires as tall as you are – or standard transport for rural Texas) deep inside the Valley of Thor (Thorsmork in local parlance – though no one looked like Chris Hemsworth that we could see). You haul yourself up and into it by pulling just so on the door, balancing to the step and up and over, avoiding hitting your head on the halogen lights strapped to the side and overhanging the cab. “When your driving in a glacier-fed stream or river at dusk you don’t want any surprises, you know,” said Ingo, the driver/guide and soon friend on our SJ tour.

“You’d be amazed how easy it is to drive off the end of the world here.” However euphemistically he may have been speaking, the time in Thorsmork and up on the glacier’s melting face drove that point home. The pictures with humorous captions of an endless array of vehicles half-submerged in water, ice, ash and sand made that clear. “We love that foreigners contribute to our economy, though that’s not always the way we have in mind….”

Those Super Jeeps blast through everything, but they’re at their most entertaining in town, where suddenly you’re the center of an endless amount of attention, particularly from photographers and teenage girls (and particularly from teenage girls who fancy themselves photographers). The presumption is probably that only rock stars drive those – both the geologic and music types – and so your “cool factor” goes way up. To see a 12 year old clamber out of that thing was particularly fun – especially since he navigated it better than either Ingo or I did. Sort of Nathan’s introduction to a particular and particularly peculiar form of rock-climbing.

Just off the Reykjavik coast is an island habitat of the local Puffin population. Incredible birds (who are monogamous) they spend their summers nesting and conceiving, hatching and raising their one chick per pair and their winters on the open ocean. Yet in the last five years that population is in trouble. In 2006, 2010 and it seems again this year there are huge die-offs of the chicks, apparently of starvation. The small fish species that chicks can consume are missing – some say because of over-fishing – and the fish that the parents find to bring them are too large for the chicks to eat. They starve with the food beside them.

“The whole sea is being fished-out” someone next to us on a whale-watching cruise muttered.

But that’s something to talk about another time.

Our flight departed Reykjavik at 10am local time. We landed in DC just before 1700 DC local. By 2200 I was in the air again bound for Almaty. It was 24 hours exactly from the time I left Reykjavik to the time I flew over it again at 35,000 feet; daytime for the entire time. Summer is a strange beast that way. A 90 minute layover in Frankfurt to change planes and I find myself here, 45 minutes out of Almaty, at just before 2300 local time (1700 in Reykjavik, 1300 in DC). Either none of that makes any sense of it all does. Two days in four airplanes. Jet lag doesn’t even describe the disorientation – or maybe you actually get the better of it because there really is absolutely no sense of linear time. How often in life do you fly over a country you were in a day before?

147,000 Frequent flyer miles on United/Lufthansa since summer 2010 and counting. Since the beginning of May its been Israel/ the West Bank, Kazakhstan, Peru, Belarus, Switzerland, China, Iceland and now Kazakhstan again. All save Iceland were State Department projects and all as CityDance the dance company collapsed around and after the Peru tour and the new company took shape. Hard to reconcile so much success with so much transition – like stepping onto an airplane on a hot summer afternoon and waking 12 hours later on a new continent – like being body-snatched.

Almaty glows out the window to the right. Time to pack up and get ready for the next part of the journey.