Video: http://www.thefader.com/2010/12/09/video-premiere-hauschka-children/

pushin’ it up the stairs

piano moving

between shots in the forest

fork lift shot

gutted piano

piano guts

piano butt

1930 car converted to truck: the one time I drove a stick…

Hauschka – The Key from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

This film has been a long time coming.  Phone conversations and skype conceptualizing meetings happened this past summer 2010 with Jeff Desom and Volker Bertelman (Hauschka).  I traveled to Luxembourg to  in this film and have a couple fancy scars left to prove it.  The shoot was rigorous and it seemed as though there was not a corner of Luxembourg unturned by us in our Desom family delivery truck.  There was a moment at the steam engine museum where a couple came up to us in the parking lot as we loaded that piano back into the van.  They looked at us sideways, but with little grins on their faces and said – “Did we see you and your piano in the forest the other day?”  We laughed and said, “Yea!”  Luxembourg is so small and we were hitting so many spots that one couple had seen us not 3 days earlier on the other side of the country.

Here is a link to the video in Fader magazine and below that you can find links to the other artists work.  It has been lovely to collaborate with such dedicated and fine artists.

http://www.thefader.com/2010/12/09/video-premiere-hauschka-children/

Hauschka: the lovely composer and prepared pianist

http://www.hauschka-net.de/

http://www.myspace.com/hauschka

Jeff Desom: Jeff Desom has tirelessly been working on the editing and after effects, and all of this after he directed the film.

http://main.jeffdesom.com/

http://www.vimeo.com/user1291877/videos/sort:date

Peter Musante and Summer Shapiro photo by Lane Allen

LEGS AND ALL and IN THE BOUDOIR are coming to New York’s APAP conference — Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference — and the shows are open to the public.

The Kraine Theater & The Red Room

85 East 4th St. NY, NY

LEGS AND ALL

1/7: 6:30 Showcase + 8:30 Performance

1/8: 6:00 Showcase

IN THE BOUDOIR

1/8: 7:00 Showcase – The Red Room (upstairs)

1/10: 7:00 Showcase – The Kraine Theater

1/11: 8:00 Performance – The Red Room (upstairs)

The Story:

LEGS AND ALL

A man in an attic meets a woman in a box.  As they lure one another into their worlds, their curiosity unfolds and exposes a hilarious, mind-bending, innovative allegory for the classic man-meets-woman story.  San Francisco’s beloved physical comedienne Summer Shapiro, teams up with Peter Musante (Blue Man Group – NY), for 55 minutes of kinetic comedy and subtle pathos, all supported by a tango-meets-bluegrass score.

IN THE BOUDOIR

Rampaging about the stage in a frothy white hooped tutu and sparkly heels, throwing plates of cold spaghetti around and trying desperately to make an impression on — and be impressed by — the opposite sex, In the Boudoir tells a deceptively simple story about a young female comedienne’s love life.  Matters of the heart can be messy and In The Boudoir delights in making a mess.  Veering erratically and erotically between the cliches of the helpless, ditzy female and the aggressive femme fatale, Shapiro both explodes stereotypes while making us recognize the universal desires for romantic passion within us all.

Special Event:

“Devising Physical Theater: a performance workshop in getting out of your own way“

Collaborators Summer Shapiro and Peter Musante facilitate a three-hour investigation into the creation of physical theater. Structured around their devising methods for creating LEGS AND ALL, the workshop will help participants identify a creative spark and propose techniques to help extract its theatrical possibilities. The workshop centers around the importance of play and how to harness its creative power.  Participants will acquire new tools and leave inspired to create their own work.

LEGS AND ALL hits Los Angeles

Opens the day after Thanksgiving

A limited engagement from Nov. 26 – Dec. 1

“utterly mesmerizing”

- Show Business Weekly, New York
“masterful”

- Entertainment Today

TICKETS: http://latensemble.tix.com/

Fri. 11/26 8pm – opening act: Three Chairs Theater Company
Sat. 11/27 8pm – opening act: Three Chairs Theater Company
Sun. 11/28 8pm – opening act: Dakaboom
Mon. 11/29 8pm – opening act: Dakaboom
Tues. 11/30 8pm – opening act: The Schumaker Twins
Wed. 12/1 8pm – opening act: Three Chairs Theater Company

all shows and workshops at The Powerhouse Theatre – 3116 2nd St – Santa Monica, CA 90405

Special Event:
“Devising Physical Theater” workshop by the creators of Legs And All
Sunday 11/27 1pm-4pm

Collaborators Summer Shapiro and Peter Musante facilitate a three-hour investigation into the creation of physical theater. Structured around their devising methods for creating LEGS AND ALL, the workshop will help participants identify a creative spark and propose techniques to help extract its theatrical possibilities. Participants will leave the workshop inspired and empowered to create their own work.

Free ticket to LEGS with registration in Devising Physical Theater workshop

__________________________________________________

Our Openers:

Three Chairs Theater Company (opening Nov. 26th, 27th & Dec. 1st)

“Give us three chairs and an empty space and we can make anything” is a philosophy of Three Chairs Theater Company. They are a band of artists that are committed to creating beautiful, simple, live performance experiences.

http://threechairstheatre.com/index.html

Dakaboom (opening Nov. 28th & 29th)

Edgy music-driven comedy duo Dakaboom is two guys with mics and a piano doing comedy that collides musical genres including jazz, pop, opera, hip-hop, musical theatre and a cappella. One is a curly redhead who likes subtlety and Robert DeNiro. He also sings really high. The other is a wide-eyed brunette ingénue with old-fashioned flair, a flawless voice and an occasional mermaid costume. The pair performs throughout their dual hometowns of Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and has plans for nationwide domination. Get awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/baulpointpen

The Schumaker Twins (opening Nov. 30th)

Tyler and Tina Schumaker Sing and Play Songs for you!

They will sing to you and make you feel loved like your parents never could (or maybe did).

http://myspace.com/theschumakertwins

Now I return to the present moment, when I am walking down a street in Princelauerburg, Berlin.  I hear some techno music and turn.  Directly to my left is a precious outdoor restaurant serving only waffles and blasting some techno music.  At first glance it looks like any other hipster-Berlin establishment, but I look closer and I see families seated inside, not the expected crew of 20-30 somethings.  I look even further and see some strange crude wooden structures behind this outdoor waffle haven, I go in, walk past the contented patrons and find myself in front of what a German parent (likely Waldorf influenced) would call a great playground for their children and what an American parent (likely all of them) would call a death trap their children wouldn’t be allowed to set their eyes on for fear of them breaking a bone just by looking at it.

I’ll tell you now, it was the holy grail of playgrounds.  Not in the way that it was high tech or well engineered, but in the way that it was a literal materialization of the word “play-ground”.  It was a space filled with the creations of its players.  Awkward and confident wooden protrusions covered the lot, shaded by trees, and each one had its own direction to lean.  Crafted by its patrons, many had roofs of splintery plywood, but some had a second or even third story with a wooden mast and a large sail (sheet) for the seafaring players.  Each structure had crudely painted lettering or a hanging sign to make clear to those who entered that they were in a hotel, bar, tree house, fairy nail salon, pirate’s cave, etc.  Upon inspecting these small houses further one would find protruding nails wherever two or more beams came together.  Around every corner on a doorway frame were clusters of nails half driven into the wood with the remaining nail sticking straight out or hammered slightly to the side to “protect” from eye skewering, as if the wood was too difficult to hammer all the way into the wood, the builder thought a handful of half done nails would suffice.

Video

This is not the end, around the back of this little town was a climbing wall with no safety equipment.  I suppose most would just walk by and not attempt the 40 foot climb, with very small climbing holds, but there was a small African boy just springing up the 40 feet and over the wall, hopping down into the little wooden town on the other side.  He would run around to the other side to find his smiling German mother and then he would do it all over again as she cheered.  To my left from the climbing wall was a fire pit.  A family was jumping on an old metal road sign that they had laid across a fire pit.  It bent in half as they jumped on it and slightly sprung them up again.  It was fantastic to see mother and daughter laughing and giggling as they demolished sharp recycled metal signage over an ashy pit.

As we left the strangely post apocalyptic playground, nestled in quite a posh neighborhood, our hearts lifted to the sky with hope for humanity and a vision for tomorrow’s families.  We passed a bake sale of fresh home-made cakes (frosting and cake décor done by children) along with coffee for the adults.  As Aaron grabbed a piece of cake our lovely host, Mandy, casually mentioned the trampolines at a nearby park.  We were off.

TRAMPOLINE VIDEO

The trampolines were strange sunken square holes in the brick ground with very shallow jumping depth.  This attracted toddlers… The toddlers attracted us.  Thusly, we jumped for a while, but were soon ambushed by stinky-diaper-drippy-nose-face-girl.  Her diaper sagged below her skirt and it seemed to be losing the fight against gravity with every bounce she took.  Aaron was on the trampoline when she arrived and he continued to jump lightly.  This entertained her to no end and she hopped awkward circles around Aaron, falling every few steps with a pronounced squish on to her weighty diaper.

The weekend’s festivities began here.  They continued with river side beer gardens, where I found a swing hanging from a tree filled with disco balls, a river side BBQ with experimental soundscapes projected into the crowd, graffiti artists working on remnants of the Berlin Wall, a lovely evening in Princelauerburg with new friends and mint tea at the top of a “hill” (what we would call flatlands in San Francisco), and a jaw dropping exhibit by Olafur Eliasson… I am so excited about the combination of art, performance and science!

look out for his work here:  http://www.olafureliasson.net/

And finally, I can’t leave out the outdoor collection of 100 ft. seesaws, the authentic German food restaurant (that was so difficult to find in Berlin because Berlin is so ashamed of “Bob”: code word for Hitler) with the meanest gayest German waiter I’ve ever met and where Mandy ordered pig’s feet accidentally.  The weekend came to a sweet end with a little ice cream from a Ben & Jerry’s-turned-disco-tech.  It was so surreal seeing the outdoor tables of this Ben & Jerry’s packed with people and even more packed with beer bottles.  I thought I was the only one who liked ice cream and beer on a hot day (I first tried this in the US Virgin Islands when I wanted a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bar AND a Red Stripe.  I didn’t know which one to get, so I got both.)  Berlin has everything you could and couldn’t imagine.
Thank you to Mandy & Andrew (Ottoplatz) for their generous hospitality and showing us all over Berlin.  For telling us we could stay one night and then keeping us for a week!  Thank you to the Sudanese guy and his delicious food on the corner next to Mandy’s house.   It was all so funny and perfect.  Aaron and I were looking for Couch Surfing hosts in Berlin, but couldn’t figure it out in time.  I contacted Mandy, the kinda-half-sister of my best friend who I knew was staying in Berlin, and (as we were talking on top of her roof the first hour we arrived, taking a walk around the block via roofs!!!) she and her roommate work for CouchSurfing.org and are one of the few full time staff members.  How funny!  How perfect.

Next stop Italy.  Where we will find Andrea Guido in the countryside of Northern Italy and mange lots of food.

There are odds and ends of the day that don’t really need be included in this episode of The Couchette, including an epic search for playing cards, eating a huge sausage and purchasing the cheapest tiniest bottles of liquor I have ever seen, so I will move onward and continue with the items of import.

Upon booking our train we were told that there were no beds available for this 9 hour night train from Berlin to Basel, Switzerland and we would need to take the couchettes.  Couchettes are basically high-backed chairs that recline a little more than regular reclining airplane or train chairs.  Aaron and I quickly and silently understood that we wanted to spend the least amount of time in these things as possible.  Mine particularly reclined in a very clunking and rapid motion and when I looked in front of me I couldn’t imagine having another person reclining back over my legs.  We left for the dining car.

The dining car was just so nice I wanted to stay there the whole night.  But alas, we stayed as long as we could until the nice lady needed to take the tablecloth from underneath us.  We journeyed back past all the sleeper cars to our couchette car.  Everyone seemed to be asleep and so we made ready to do the same.  While I was putting my backpack away Aaron reclined his couchette to go to sleep when suddenly someone behind him smacked his chair and started pushing it back upright as if to say, “you cannot lean back, then I won’t have enough room.”  Now, everyone was reclined and being reclined upon at this point.  For some reason this person thought they should, however, not be reclined upon.  Usually I am very diplomatic, I see the other person’s side immediately and approach the situation with smooth conflict resolution skills.  However, I watched myself just open my mouth and let pour out a squall of “hell no”.  There was a fire blazing in me and suddenly I felt I was standing for all the injustices done form one human being to another.  Surely we can all figure out how to recline our couchettes and be reclined upon, can we not?

I am fairly sure she did not speak English and I don’t even remember everything I said, but the meaning got across.  Essentially, I said, “No! Everyone gets to rest! Everyone!”  I was surprised at her reaction, for I expected a retaliation.  But I was happy when she became soft and gestured for Aaron to lay back and me to be quiet and that she was sorry.  Her rapid turn over might have had to do with the various shushes that were coming from the train that I was completely disregarding, but  maybe she admitted her argument held no value.

It would have all been fine then, but now I had to recline on her.  I told her I was coming back, she seemed to make a sound like “alrighty”, but as I said before my chair was a little overzealous in its reclining.  She wasn’t moving back to make way for my couchette and I lost control of my recline.  My chair smashed right into her knees.  I just didn’t understand, there was plenty of room.  But she had scooted forward, as if to sacrifice her knees in order to make me feel bad.  It worked… a little, but then I put on my sleeping mask and slept like a baby.

We awoke the next morning at 8am to spend four hours in Basil, Switzerland.  Excited to be off the train and in a new place we locked our bags in the train station and set out for a quaint breakfast in the old town of Basil.  We quickly found out that nothing is open before 10am and no one eats more than coffee in quaint cafes OR drops $30 (or should I say Francs) on some eggs.  We searched and searched as we got more and more hungry, until finally a farmers market opened.  To make a long story short by the time we got back to the train we had spent $40 on some cheese, a tomato, some leaves of lettuce, the bathroom, an angry Swiss German woman yelled at me as she threw a slice of tomato from the ground on to my food, and we were ready to get the @#$%&*^ out of Switzerland. Looking for the silver lining, the whole experience gave us a great crash course in getting on our traveling feet.

Crossing the border into Italy was like coming home!  Or like, arriving in Disney Land.  Either way, it was inviting, warm, and a total dream world.  Set against our experiences over the last 24 hours, we felt like we had found Utopia.

LEGS AND ALL

Tues, Sep 14th @ 9pm
Thurs, Sep 16th @ 7pm
Sat, Sep 18th @ 10pm
Fri, Sep 24th @ 11pm

$15 TICKETS https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/122/1283364000000/prm/;jsessionid=BE1480A1BB4EED9661694BD29919800E

LEGS AND ALL Facebook Page

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Festival Press Contact: Emily Owens PR | emily@emilyowenspr.com | 972.743.3746

THE BRICK THEATER, INC.

IN ASSOICATION WITH

SUMMER SHAPIRO & PETER MUSANTE

PRESENT

LEGS AND ALL

AS PART OF THE

NEW YORK CLOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

SEPTEMBER 3-26 @ THE BRICK

Tuesday Sept. 14^th at 9PM, Thursday Sept. 16^th at 7PM,

Saturday Sept. 18^th at 10PM, Friday Sept. 24^th at 11PM

A man in an attic meets a woman in a box. As they lure one another into their worlds, their curiosity unfolds to expose a hilarious, mind-bending, innovative allegory for the classic man-meets-woman story.  Rooted in physical comedy and drenched in imaginative stage illusion, LEGS & ALL is an inventive exploration of human loneliness set to an evocative tango-meets-bluegrass score.

San Francisco’s beloved physical comedienne, Summer Shapiro, teams up with equally talented clown Peter Musante (Blue Man Group – NY), for 50 minutes of kinetic comedy and subtle pathos.  After winning top honors at the 2010 FRIGID Festival in NY, and an award-winning, sold-out run at the 2009 San Francisco Fringe Festival, Legs and All returns to New York. It balances childlike whimsy and sophisticated wit for a “masterful” performance all audiences will enjoy.

LEGS AND ALL will run Tuesday September 14^th at 9PM, Thursday September 16^th at 7PM, Saturday September 18^th at 10PM and Friday September 24^th at 11PM as part of the New York Clown Theatre Festival at The Brick (575 Metropolitan Avenue between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street, Brooklyn). Tickets ($15 / $10 for Weekend Matinee Family Shows) may be purchased online at www.bricktheater.com or by calling 1-866-811-4111.

“A relentlessly charming, overwhelmingly beautiful piece of art.”

Aaron Riccio, What Sounds Cool

“An inspired bit of performance art created and executed splendidly by two world-class physical comedians”

Los Angeles Entertainment Today

“Deft physical comedy… Legs offers a swift all-ages kick in the funny groin.”

San Francisco Bay Guardian

“A brilliant translation of the details of conversant life as we know it, taking these details a few steps beyond Harold Pinter and flinging them with utmost precision into kinetic comedy.” San Francisco Bay Times

“Their wonderful hour long play (in my opinion, the best of the festival) is a kinetic poem about…the delicious vertigo one feels when your personal space crashes into someone else’s.” Will Kenton, Cultural Capitol

“Sparks fly when the brilliant physical comedienne Summer Shapiro teams up with equally-talented clown Peter Musante for a bittersweet and hilarious show”

Chloe Veltman, lies like truth ArtsJournal

WINNER of the 2010 FRIGID New York “Festival Favorite Award”

Best of The Best in 2009 Bay Area Theatre – SF Bay Times

2009 Ticketholder Award for Best Special Event/Performance – Entertainment Today

Top 5 Best Original Works of 2009 -Chloe Veltman, lies like truth ArtsJournal

Summer Shapiro – Creator/Performer – Physical Actor & Comedienne

Summer Shapiro has written, performed and produced three original physical comedy shows, touring to San Francisco, Hawaii and New York since 2008 and will be attending the NY Clown Theatre Festival for the third time in a row.  In San Francisco, she premiered her original solo show In The Boudoir sharing the bill with Cirque Du Soleil veteran, John Gilkey.  The show continued on to headline at the San Francisco WOW Festival, in 2009. Shapiro’s PANTS! The Best Show Ever, sold out in the 2008 New York and San Francisco Clown Theater Festival’s in 2008 and she was in a trapeze clown duo in Angry Gods and Lost Marbles showcasing at the Magic Theater in October, 2007. Shapiro was an assistant director and performer with The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women, directed by Rhodessa Jones in 2006.  Shapiro has trained, performed and taught her craft in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Ireland and holds a B.A. in acting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television.

Peter Musante – Creator/Performer – Physical Actor & Comedian

Peter Musante is a Brooklyn-based actor/musician currently performing Off-Broadway in Blue Man Group. As a Blue Man, he’s worked in Chicago, Boston, Orlando, Bogotá, Colombia and can be seen in ad campaigns all over Las Vegas and Brazil. Out of blue, he has taught improvisation to kids, improvised in drag at Universal Studios Hollywood, crooned cowboy tunes in Tokyo, worked as a standardized patient for medical students and most recently, developed workshops for children with autism. After graduating from UCLA’s School of Theater in 2005, he played Huck Finn in Big River at Vista, California’s Moonlight Amphitheater and won the San Diego Theater Critic’s Circle Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Summer Shapiro and Peter Musante began their artistic collaborations together as fellow students at UCLA’s School of Theater.  During this they began to uncover an uncanny chemistry and a world of play.  Now after almost a decade apart the team has reunited, and since April 2009 have been traveling between New York and San Francisco for rehearsals, having script writing sessions on the telephone and even live Skype showings of new material while Peter gigs in Brazil for Blue Man Group.  LEGS AND ALL is their first production together and the team is beginning to make plans for their next project in 2011.

THE BRICK was founded in 2002 by Robert Honeywell and Michael Gardner. Formerly an auto-body shop, a yoga center, and various storage spaces, this brick-walled garage in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was completely refurbished as a state-of-the-art performance space. Since then, The Brick has launched, produced and presented hundreds of world-premiere stage works from New York emerging artists and theater-makers from around the globe.  The theater company is a proud member of New York’s burgeoning Indie Theater community and informal home to an ever-expanding family of artists and avid theatergoers.   Winner of the New York Innovative Theater Awards Caffé Cino Fellowship Award 2009.

www.summershapiro.com

www.bricktheater.com

All this time, this long long long week, I’ve been stretching my eyes wide open to catch the delicacies of humanity.  Opening my gills to breath any ounce of inspiration I can… and strangely, at the same time, feeling like a spectator of those who play the game of life.  I knew to get out on the playing field meant doing what I was most afraid of – street perform.

Now, writing about everything I’ve done inside the week before my first street performing experience in Europe, I realize there were a ton of gems, in fact, all of it is a gem, but somehow I couldn’t see that, couldn’t let myself acknowledge the success this trip has been thus far, until I got out there in costume.

Friday, July 16, 2010 was the Turkish market in Kreuzberg (the oh-so-hip gentrified young artsy district of Berlin).  For those of you in The States, Kreuzberg is like a Brooklyn, NY or Mission District of San Francisco on steroids.  I never had to speak German there, I wouldn’t have known I was in all-too-recently-communist-occupied-East-Berlin.  The market was hustling and bustling with an international crowd of young-ins, flirting African men, with button-cute French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish AND American ladies and gents.  Young families were abound and coconuts were being consumed.  Breads and dips were being toted to a wooden deck overlooking the market and the canal that rushed by underneath.  The patrons would enjoy their picnics with bottles of biere.

When we walked up there was a fully amplified band set up and waiting to begin their set.  I asked them if there was a list to sign up to perform, she said I could just go after her.  I was happy for this, but a little shaken.  My ruffly costume undies and bra were getting hot under my civilian clothes.  I sat down and thought out my entrance.  Luckily I had Andrew (recently re-named Ottoplatz or Crobag) playing Ukulele for me during the set up and during the “pass-the-hat” portion.   So, the musicians finished up and introduced me.  I jumped up quickly to not lose the crowd.  Crobag began playing his Uke and I began to dress… or should I say, undress.  I used the audience to help me get into costume.  The crowd began to get larger, market go-ers stopped to see what the &^%$#@ I was doing.  After much huffing and puffing I became a large white frothy ball – sparkly heels and all.  The audience spoke English so I spoke to them a lot to keep them responding, they were ready and willing to speak up.  It was good to see that the picnicking crowd had stopped eating and were just watching me.  Because of the wind my balloon wouldn’t stay put so I employed an additional audience member to hold it still on the ground while I stampeded for it in high heels.  He was brave and held on while I stomped on it.   By the end about 95% of the audience who had stopped by to see what I was doing gave me money!  And about 20% of the picnickers donated money to my hat – I’m thinking because they had been sitting there for at least a handful of previous acts and had been giving money before me.

It was a relief to do.  The response was just fine.  And I was happy to have broken the seal.  I will go to Italy soon and see what there is to be done there.  But reflecting back on it, it really just felt like another thing to do.  No huge triumph, just a relief.  I was simply exhausted, sweaty and hungry after.

So, we had a picnic by the canal, met a puppy, fed it coconut meat and saw a two-hour transvestite show that should have been 45 minutes.  Ludwig, the owner, gave us free tickets and everyone was dripping with sweetness so it was a good time.   As my exceptionally generous host, Mandy Hixon, put it, “the show was a combination of watching 12 year old girls lip synch in front of the mirror and a school talent show…”  There was one fairly wrinkly middle-aged tranny that I fell in love with.  He/She was the least concerned with how he/she looked and every time he/she came on stage he/she would not be able to refrain from laughing at him/herself.  He was well aware of how ridiculous they were being, knew he looked a like rough around the edges and just couldn’t keep it together.  This had me laughing long and hard, often far after the rest of the audience had stopped.

In short, what an odd and predictable process.  It all worked out perfectly, life is breathing through me and everyone I meet all the time, street performing is scarier to think about than to do and I like drinking coffee in Europe.

Tchus!

In short, to share about the last few days – it has been incredibly abundant.  My host, Volker is incredibly generous.  It is amazing to be with a family, seeing the culture from the inside, having a kitchen to make the morning toast with “butte” and make a dinner by filling the dining room table with cheeses, breads, wine, fruit, tomatoes, beets, burst “wurst” (sausage), and salami.  Then to go to a recording studio grand opening with local families, the kids serving the drinks and manning the BBQ – also providing burst and curry sauce.  Then to go to an art opening the same night at a bar owned by a dear friend and enjoy the hot night out in a more personal and connected way.  Then today to the local pool where we jumped off the high dive and did headstands in the grass.  The loveliest thing about the pool was the massive amount of floaty-wings on small German children and the leisure the lap swimmers took during their swims.  There were no lanes, everyone swam with their head above the water, and swam a sloooooow and steady breast stroke.  Then tonight, just to get a little breeze (after watching Spain win the World Cup and listening to all the cheering on our block) we took the street car to the Rhine river.  There we found a nice breeze.

That’s not all we found, I found my terror to jump into street performing.  I have been speaking extensively with my dear host, Volker, a glorious and recognized artist himself, about this Europe trip and his perspective on how to get the most out of it.  He simply said to “not make too much plans” and spoke about meeting people, learning, making connections. seeing the cultures, spending longer in places, and really learning to let go.  We have been speaking a lot about letting go and the futility of forcing the next steps for my artistic (let alone any) career.

Today it was so bloody hot Aaron (who arrived from SFO yesterday) and I watched The Hangover.  I had never seen it and was nervous to spend my valuable Europe time watching a movie, but I decided that it was too hot to move, so I would watch it. Afterward I plummeted into a pit of anxiousness, “what the hell am I doing? I’m in Europe to plant seeds for my performance career and I’m watching The Hangover???!!! I am fucking this up!” and the immediately to “All is lost! Woe it me” and such and such.

It’s really hilarious to see.  My intention for this trip is to walk in Joy, Freedom and Peace.  And then inside of that, take my next steps in my career.  But that is the foundation. It is so funny to see the anguish and fear that comes up when all I have is assistance, acceptance and peace around me.  I can see where the learning of this trip will lie – it is a reprogramming of my creative process.  Clearing the old program of “I must suffer to create good art” or “I must suffer in order to grow” to a space of joy, freedom and peace where I grow simply because I say I am ready to grow.  I am ready to walk into this and connect with my higher self in a way that I have not experienced yet.

Thank you to those who have helped me get to this point in my journey and thank you to all of those spirits I have not met who will be helping me in the near and distant future.

Love,

Summer

The strangest thing to me is that I feel very much myself here and very much like I am at home.  I have traveled a good bit and often find myself mesmerized by the smell of new cultures, the feel in the air of different social agreements, a giddiness in seeing and hearing another language.  I cannot tell if it is my sleep deprivation or that I really am at home away from home, but something feels strangely normal about all of this.

Thanks to the sweet lady next to me on the plane who kept letting me out to go pee, as I was guzzling down all the water I could find.  She was a lovely archeologist turned children’s book writer and filmmaker inspired by the legacy of Indiana Jones and childhood memories of digging in the backyard for treasure. Note: AirBerlin supplies you with a goody bag filled with sleep mask, ear plugs, tooth brush and tooth paste AND free wine and beer with your meals.  This cheapest airline I could find to Europe flying direct from SFO rocked my socks.  That was until we made it to customs with a standstill line for an hour.  However, I barely noticed because I was busy carrying on a conversation with a sleep deprived and delirious 3 year old, dressed head to toe in hot pint.  Luckily her delirium manifested in showing me how her stuffed dog would fall on the ground from the magic of gravity, tell me ten things at once that made absolutely no sense and then erupt into a fit of convulsive laughter that would eventually trail off when she remembered she didn’t know what was so funny.

In this customs/little girl vortex, I was the last one out of customs and the last one to get my bag when I heard in a lovely German accent over the loud speaker, “Will Summer Shapiro please go to the meeting point.”  I knew Volker had set up no meeting point with me in specific other than baggage claim, so I wandered around the baggage claim stalls aimlessly until I asked a security person, “Where is this ‘Meeting Point’ the speaker spoke about?” and they pointed me a few feet forward out beyond some gates.  Thank you to the lovely Volker for dealing with all this.

After all this we had a lovely day of delicious green papaya salad with grilled calamari on top, gaspacho, apple mineral water, espresso, then to walk about the town, see where all the lovely museums are, stop in a beer garden, talk about the wonders of life, being an artist, learning how to represent yourself and, excitingly, the film project I will be filming in under a month in London for his new album coming out in the fall.

It didn’t end, we got two cases of mineral water and dropped 50 euro on fresh organic produce, bread and cheese!  This called for an evening snack.  Now I am ready to collapse.  I can hear the crashing of a loud movie below my window.  Ah… I am here.