In da house

Jon drove into the city! We parked at the Opera House and walked up through the Opera Bar. 

This is outside the Fabulous Opera House.

I am wearing my favorite black Armani Exchange sunnies, a borrowed shirt from Abby, a thrifted Dooney and Bourke, hand me down skirt from Ker, necklace from Nepal that Prateek gave me and     

my favorite black Aldo flats. 

Jon. He is so cute. 

View from our seats. We were sitting the "Organ section" and it was a fabulous view of the conductor and everything happening on stage. 

Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto
Passion and Ecstasy

Thomas Adès’ Asyla is huge, and it calls for a huge orchestra. We meet the challenge by joining forces with the youthful talents of our exceptional mentoring orchestra, the Sydney Sinfonia, in our very first “Side-by-Side” concert. With old hands and fresh faces we’ll form a super orchestra to play this madhouse of a piece with its thrilling contrasts and pop culture influences – The Rite of Springmeets club music.

Maxwell Foster is another youthful talent, and he’ll be performing the concerto that won him the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year award in 2008 when he was 16. This concerto isn’t a chart topper for nothing: Tchaikovsky marries virtuoso power to his famous soaring melodies for the perfect blend of brilliance and poetry. Lucid orchestral colours and dancing rhythms frame an intoxicating concert.

P STANHOPE Fantasia on a Theme by
Vaughan Williams
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1
ADÈS Asyla*
TCHAIKOVSKY Nutcracker: Suite*

Richard Gill conductor
Thomas Adès conductor*
Maxwell Foster piano
Sydney Sinfonia(Side-by-Side with
the Sydney Symphony)*

My favorite part was the Piano Concerto No. 1. 

Before the Piano performance was a new piece written by Vaughn Williams who gave the pre-concert speech in the back gallery of the Opera House. We sat and listened to several sections from the piece and he told us club music is what inspired him when he was writing. During the performance I only noted a few Blues influences from double bass and symbols. 

Ades Asyla was performed by both the Symphony and Sinfonia. The stage was packed and like every instrument was played. 

Then! The Nutcracker Suite!!!! Sweet!!!!! 

I have to write a review for the concert for my class so I will post that when it is completed. 

Preparing for depature

The next two weeks are going to be absolutely fabulous. Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, October 20th. I am dragging Jon with me to The Sydney Opera House to see "Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto" so I can write a review for my Art Critique class.
Thursday morning at 9 I officially start work at Hair Artistry. I have to catch the 8:31 train from Woolooware to get to Jannali at 8:48 and walk to the salon. I am SO excited!!!!!! Yayayayayay!
Friday and Saturday I work again and pack for Young! I am going with Laura and we leave Saturday after she gets off work at De Frenza.
We come back Monday and I work Tuesday  night at Sombrero's then I have to pack for Brisbane because I leave Wednesday to see Swaimy!!!!

I got a new job!

I loved working with the girls at De Frenza and it was a fabulous location, but I was not getting any experience. Kerri encouraged me to look in the Leader for open hair dressing positions. There was an ad looking for a new creative and enthusiastic hair stylist. I called and scheduled an interview with Dianne. She seemed very  nice and I felt super comfortable immediately. The only problem was she was not sure she wanted to hire someone with a working Visa because they would only be temporary and she would have to fill the position again once they left.
Still, she asked me to return for a trial the following Thursday. It went really well. I arrived early and she asked me to style her hair. She also had me trim the bangs of a fellow staff member. I added too much Argon oil when styling her hair and it left the ends of her hair oily. Oops. But Dianna asked me again to come in Saturday for another trial. I had 2 haircuts, a man and a woman back to back. Then I had a blowout, straighten client after that. I did the best I could but I know it is not great. Nevertheless, Dianna asked me to join the team! I will be working Thurs, Fri, Saturday!










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Mexican Party

After the not so perfect sunny day on the boat I met Jon at his friends dress up party. Theme was Mexican.
It was so rainy and muddy but I had heaps of fun. My super cute Billabong boots (pictured in many fashion photo ops) are totally muddy and ruined! Ugh. Oh well.
I took 296 pictures that day/night. Here are some memories from the Mexican Party.

Sorry about the great white butt. I do not know him nor his name but I do know that he is the guy that owns lo down the skate shop in Cronulla.

This is Tara. I met her at the party. She is pretty cool. She has a little (massive) crush on Jon's friend Mark. Aww.

Car Convention

I'm on a boat

Abby's friend Tim invited her and a friend to his 30th! He rented 2 party boats to go out on Gunnamatta Bay.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Gunnamatta_Bay.JPG/250px-Gunnamatta_Bay.JPG

"Gunnamatta Bay is a small bay in southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Gunnamatta Bay is located off the Port Hacking estuary, in the Sutherland Shire. The foreshore is a natural boundary for the suburbs of Cronulla to the east, Woolooware to the north and Burraneer to the west (Wikipedia.com)."

We left about 10:30 that morning and the weather was not looking good. We had tons of beer in coolers and delicious cheeses and crackers. The sky cleared up for like twenty minutes and I was loving it.

 We stopped around noon to have lunch. Both boats had grills on them and Tim's parents had tons of steaks, sausages, potatoes, and stuff to grill. There were also yummy potato and pasta salads. 

Some of the boys brought their fishing gear and we had some fun fishing when we were stopped for lunch. 

Don't worry we threw the fishies back.

Friendship Anklet

Amy's boyfriend Luke has a t-shirt business (Spanish Caravan @ http://spanishcaravan.com.au/) and with every t-shirt you buy you get a plated yarn bracelet. They make the bracelet's themselves. I asked for some yarn and made Abby a friendship anklet.

Kinda funny because Abby hates feet. Hates to look at them, hates it when someone else's feet touch hers, etc. 

It's finally warm enough for the beach!

Abby already got her tan on at the Cool Islands. I am still workin on mine. But don't worry bc I am wearing sunblock everyday! 15 for my everyday, and 30 if I am seriously in the sun!

Play Review

The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other

By Peter Handke

Translated by Meredith Oakes

Directed by Patrick Nolan

Featuring NIDA Graduating Students

Performed at Customs House Square, Circular Quay, Sydney

August 23^rd 2010 8:00 p.m.

CREDITS

By: Peter Handke

Director: Patrick Nolan

Associate Director: Simone O’Brien

Translated by Meredith Oakes

Featuring NIDA graduating students of 2010

Production and Costume Designer: Sarah-Jane McAllan

Co-Costume Designer: Jamie Cranney

Lighting Designer: Rachel Smith

Sound Designers: Benjamin Ross Brockman, Lee-Anne Roza, Sarah Stait

AV Designers: Alex Duffy, Nicholas Rayment

No words, at all? No dialogue? That is what I heard about this performance. The play is written by Australian writer Peter Handke where he “describes the life of a town square simply by listing the comings and goings of various characters.” The pamphlet I received at the start also described the play to be “revealing the poetry of the mundane” and “also exploring the history of civilization in the process”.

The stage was set up at the Customs House Square in Circular Quay. The seats were black, comfortable, and arranged in a U pattern facing the Customs Building. Each section was stadium style with 6 rows back and 11 seats across seating about 60 people. There were 6 sections in all. When we walked in on the backs of each seat were a pair of headphones. When we placed the headphones on our heads, piano and violin classical music was playing for our entertainment.

An announcement was made over the loud speaker for all the patrons to make sure they had their headphones on and then the music went silent. We next heard birds chirping and leafs blowing in the wind.

Between the seat sections were 6 areas where the 27 actors could enter onto the stage. An actor portraying a business man came from the far left corner and walked across the square to the opposite corner and was gone out of sight. Actors and actresses portraying hundreds of different types of people continued to walk, run, crawl, skip, bike, and rollerblade across the square. Characters such as the student, the pregnant lady, the fireman, the homeless person, the Asian tourist couple taking pictures, the cowboy, an army crew, puss and boots, royalty, refugees, etc were portrayed. Some characters where funny such as the group of characters playing a film crew. Many different walks of life crossed the stage. Each actor, minus the fool, played several different characters. My favorite characters were the birdman carrying a cage on his back and the portrayal of the Batman and Robin characters. My absolute favorite character was the fool who wore a Kevin 07 t-shirt and maintained his character throughout the play. He mimicked and mocked several characters weaving in and out of the stage always coming and creating comic relief.

Up above the columns in front of the Customs Building was a second location for the actors to walk across in their characters. I did not see any significance of any underlying meaning to this other than to add interest to the unexciting walking through the square.

I found the concept of the play beautiful and interesting. I feel the author was trying to portray life as you see it every day. The different people and their lives walking along the same street, going through their routine and the obstacles they cross. A few characters were meant to be from a different time than the present. These included cave men and women as well as people from the early part of the first century. I could not draw a connection but I could see the significance of including these characters. I feel it was important to draw the association between people regardless of time or socio-economic background. I also can appreciate the location of the play in front of the Customs House Building where many different people walk every day.

I felt the play was executed well but left me feeling that the author and actors could have dug deeper. Not to sound ungrateful, because I think the students did a fine job, however it was obvious to me that they were just students and have much to learn in their careers.

The play was performed completely out of expression of inner thoughts and emotions. The actors were only able to express themselves visually through body movements and facial expressions. What made the play special to me was the lack of dialogue; however towards the end of the play the actors began speaking a few lines in gibberish and had several vocal outbursts of emotion. I felt that this sudden communication of sound ruined the play for me. The fact that the actors were silent made it creative and innovative. The ability to use other ways of creatively giving the audience feeling was most impressive. The one-act plot-less play in which I got to know these actors lasted longer than the title implied. I would recommend to friends to sit, watch and listen to this play and reflect on their thoughts on humanity in their day to day living. Although the acting and play itself did not impress me much, the stage management and costumes, in my opinion, deserve most of the credit.