Beware the Bike Rides of March.doc

An update on the bike situation: I told y'all earlier that I had struck a deal with an Amsterdam home student to borrow her bike while I am here in the Dam. The guys she left her keys with have been impossible to get a hold of - I've visited every day at various times for the past ten days. I eventually got impatient and sent them a facebook message. It seems they went back home to Belgium for two weeks and have been unavailable. They return tonight and promised to slip the keys in my mailbox. So by this time tomorrow I'll be cruising the bike paths of the gorgeous city...if I can find Jenna's bike in the storage room (I'll cross that bridge once I've got the keys). March is bike month.

A second aspect of the term is falling into place. I've been offered a placement as a Research Assistant with the Director of the Theatre Studies department here in Amsterdam. This will be my third Research Assistantship in my young career - I continually wonder if this experience will have any relevance outside academic circles (here's hoping!) While it was my initial desire to gain experience working on a festival in the city, this proved to be harder than anticipated - a lot of the festivals had either hired all their staff or would only recruit someone who could speak both English and Dutch. I'm not complaining though. The position with the Director is a great opportunity. She's creating a guided research project where I'll study theoretical and case studies of gay and lesbian performance, politics, identity, and theatre. The research will feed into the creation of a thesis topic. Right now I'm consider researching and writing about Same Sex Marriage legislation and its effect on the performance/identity of the gay counterpublic. It sounds like more of a sociology paper than something in the theatre, but that's the umbrella of Performance Studies for you. So I'll start the placement this coming week; the biggest pro is that I'll get to define my own hours.

Thursday night and last night we went to see two dance pieces as part of the Something Raw festival. The week long festival is an exhibition of experiment dance and performance from all over the country. The posters depicting partially nude male and female torsos indicate the type of art one could expect to see – those that figuratively “strip down” to a more “raw” level of performance while pushing the boundaries of what can be displayed on stage.  Both dance pieces were extremely entertaining - at times the dancers spastically let it all out on stage, doused each other in water, and made the oddest noises with their bodies - but they were a bit heavy on critique and deconstruction. Both shows featured some form of nudity from either a male or female dance. Why is it that Europeans embrace on-stage nudity as a sometimes necessary element of expression, while it is somewhat taboo in North American theatre? 

Friday night was a Mexican themed party at Bec's. The initial inspiration for such a party came from Hetta's desire to have a tequila night. We all sipped our beverages of choice and were coerced into a few rounds of the devilish shot from the very persistent Fin. I'm not sure why we're so different, but of all of the assembled countries (Finland, Russia, Australia, Slovakia, and Britain) Canada was the only one who downs the shot with lime - everyone else uses lemon. Maybe something was lost in translation when the tradition made its way across the Atlantic. My theory is that lemons are just cheaper. As usual, it was a great night spent among friends: a twister board was busted out, we chatted about a variety of topics, and then went to a fine establishment around the corner from Bec's place.

Today, on a glorious lazy Sunday, I'm completing an assignment for submission on Tuesday, hoping to correspond with some friends I haven't chatted with in a good week, and trying to maneuver the Dutch websites so I can plan some reading week traveling. It looks like I have about seven full days to explore. The initial plans were to try to go to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland but I think that's too much to pack into a mere week. I'm now thinking of spreading the days over Berlin and Prague so I can settle into each city rather than visit for only a day. More details to come once I've booked something.

Doc's Prescription of the Day: In honour of my new bike, of which I should have possession by tomorrow, the next time you encounter a cyclist, think of me cruising by one of the city's canals with the wind in my hair. Poetic, isn't it?