Update Time

I think an update is in order. It has certainly been a long time since I wrote a real blog entry, and for that I apologize. However, the truth is there hasn't been much happening here that would translate into an exciting story (which is not to say that nothing exciting is happening). But I'll give you a peak at what I've been up to anyway.

First off, the musical is all consuming. We are currently practicing EVERY DAY FOR SIX HOURS A DAY (despite that fact that most of the choir either goes to school or works full-time). Last week we welcomed the Ghanaian-Scottish choreographer, Rozina into the fold. She's brought a new excitement to the musical, and things really seem to be coming together. It's amazing how fast Mascato has picked things up - an entire musical choreographed in a week! Thank goodness I'm playing guitar! The last element that we need to add this week is all the musicians (string quartet, french horn, percussion). Speaking of musicians, since Jen arrived last week, most of our time has been spent writing string and horn parts, copying music, arranging marimba parts, etc. It's great having Jen here though - there's no way all the work we did would have been finished in time without her (unless I stopped sleeping). So basically we have this week to rehearse and polish and then we'll be off to Windhoek, where we'll have another week to rehearse in the National theatre, and then the show will open at the Bank Windhoek Arts Festival. Working on this musical has been a huge challenge for me in so many different ways - it's going to be interesting to see the end results.

Next up, Jazz choir. Or shall we call it by our new name - "Ninjazz". Well, that's not officially our name, but it is the best name ever. Rehearsing with the jazz choir has been a ton of fun, but because so much time is taken up by Mascato rehearsals, it's hard to find the time. So basically we have to have very quick and stealthy rehearsals (sometimes for only 15 minutes at a time) much like a ninja jazz ensemble might. As for the gig, this could be really cool. It's not set in stone yet, but we may be performing with Afroshine on Sept. 7 in Windhoek. The plan is that we would sing one or two songs on our own and then back them up on "Ti Mama" and a new song called "Everyone". It's a perfect situation in theory, because the jazz people will be in Windhoek anyway because of the musical. Afroshine just needs to get approval from the promoter, so keep your fingers crossed.

So what else? Earlier this summer Scott and I compiled a list of things that we wanted to do while I'm here. We crossed off Dune 7 last week, and there's not much left to do. We might go for a round of golf or go to the gem gallery this week, but we've done all the major things. Something I need to do this week though is get together with Engelhardt and Linus to learn some music! Engelhardt is going to teach me this really cool Etheopian piece which he conducts, which I'd really love to teach to Kokopelli. And Linus is going to teach me some of his own creations - And he just arrived!

I'm also compiling in my head a list of things that I'm going to miss about Africa, things I'm not going to miss, and things that I look forward to in Edmonton. My time is seriously running out! Three weeks from today I'll be over the Atlantic Ocean.

-Joel.