CA Rio CA

Yesterday I almost got mugged on a bus here in Rio. Back from the tour and Rio is already behaving like Rio. Three muggers boarded the bus. One through the rear door and two through the front door. They didn´t pay. The driver was probably threatened but we didn´t notice. One woman took the initiative and started to pull the bell asking to get off the bus. The driver stopped and a bunch of people got off and I followed. The people who got off told me that the muggers were probably going to "hijack" the bus a few blocks down by the beach where it would be easier for them to run away.
I still love this city but there is definitely something wrong with the word Carioca, the term used to describe it´s natives. If you´re born in Rio you are Carioca. Think about it. Carioca is Rio surrounded by caca.

Back in Rio / De volta ao Rio

The Isadora.Orb tour is over and we are back in Rio. Exhausted! Tour was great. Got to see southern Brazil. Feels like a whole other country. It´s not tropical. The south is Brazil´s Alaska. Exotically cold.

Email working

My emai is working again. Only use yo@rickyseabra.com from now on. Thanks. I have this rickyseabra@gmail.com only as a back up.

Email down

My email has been down for the past 4 days. If you´ve tried to email me your emails are probably bouncing back to you. I hope this gets fixed asap.

Porto Alegre

So. I´m in Porto Alegre now. Extreme south of Brazil. Show was difficult last night. My microphone was giving to much feedback in the theater. But we survived and people loved the performance. The theater organized a talk between the artists (andrea and I) and the audience. Everyone stayed to participate. Great fun.
Afterwards we went to dinner with the production and two artists from a group called Companhia do Giro. At one point during the dinner I had to ask Daniella, "Is it my impression or is Porto Alegre really ugly?". She answered, "Don´t worry. It´s ugly." I´m quite shocked actually. The city doesn´t have a postcard. When you think of Porto Alegre you can pinpoint a monument, a famous building, an obelisk, nothing. That´s one thing they have to work on. But the people are kind. Really kind. I hope to come back. We had a great audience that was really into the piece. So Curitiba and Porto Alegre are cities we really have to come back to to do some audience building.

Curitiba

Last night was our last performance of Isadora.Orb at the SESC da Esquina Theater. The Curitiba audience was by far the funnest audience we´ve had. A lot of university students. They really got the performance. I always used to think that it Isadora.Orb was more for a sixties generation audience but this younger generation, born in the early 80´s really enjoyed it. I hope to come back to this city to perform Isadora more. I think we´d have a good word of mouth here.
So... today we visit Oscar Niemeyer´s Eye. More on that later. kisses

YouTube of the Day: Apache

Yes, folks. This is for real.

Me in dressing room

Fabulous Theater

The Calil Haddad Theater of Maringá is the most beautiful theater in which I have performed.

100 kms of corn

Between Ponta Grossa and Maringá, a lonely tree.

Theater Cine Opera Ponta Grossa

Here's a bad picture of the art decó theater of Ponta Grossa in which we performed.

Campo Mourão

I´m in the small town of Campo Mourão, a two hour drive from the Paraguaian border. Since we had a day off yesterday we took the time to redesign the lighting. Tonight we go on stage with Isadora.Orb. We spent the day trying to figure out the lighting of the piece. Up till now we had only had time to set up and perform and not take the time to insure the quality of the projections. But we figured it out and tonights show should be beautiful.

Campo Mourão is by no means an attractive city. Not like Maringá. That was truly an oasis of urban planning. The last Maringá show, however, didn´t go so well. We were suffering from "second night syndrome". We let our guard down after opening night and everything started to go wrong. I skipped a text. My camera was on the wrong settings and had to do the readjustments during the performance. Andrea had a huge grasshopper land on her lap while she was adjusting volumes and when my return speaker blew out I just relaxed and thought; come what may! Actually, nobody in the audience noticed. But it was one of those nights in which I was just wishing the play would end.

Life is completely different here in rural Brazil. My skin misses the beach. But there is a tranquility of the mind that has set in making me miss my days in Brasilia and even Amsterdam.

Maringá

I´m in Maringá, Paraná. Last night we performed in the most beautiful theater I have ever performed in. I´ll post pics soon. The city is small, 200,000, 60 years old, and very clean with lots of trees. It´snice to come to places like this because you get a sense that Rio is not the center of the universe (or Brazil) and that Brazil doesn´t have to be pessimistic like the cariocas are. There is a Rio-centrism that newspapers and TV networks like Globo like to put out... that the country is corruptand inefficient and that Brazilians are essentially bad. This "realidade brasileira" (Brazilian reality) which these networks like to sell does not apply to the entire country
At night this city is covered with grasshoppers. They cling to every wall and store front.

YouTube of the Day: Anthem Spoof

Here´s a pretty funny spoof on how R&B Pop Diva´s have been rendering the Star Spangled Banner since Whitney. (Whitney was the best, of course).

Ponta Grossa

So I´m in Ponta Grossa, an adorable art decó city in the State of Paraná, Brazil. 400,00 inhabitants. We´ll be showing Isadora.Orb tomorrow. This morning we tried to visit a national park with some fabulous rock formations but nobody here could give us the proper directions. We´ll try again next week when we are in Curitiba. We will be performing in a wonderful art decó theater. Will post pics asap.

Tour begins!

Tomorrow morning Andrea Jabor and I will go on tour through southern Brazil with our performance Isadora.Orb, The Final Metaphor.

YouTube of the Day: Jazz Dispute