faitala

so the details for Episode Two - one side to the other - go something like this: In about 24 hours sometime before Christmas much loved and acclaimed New Zealander composer Gareth Farr leaves his South Coast studio in Wellington New Zealand and flies across to Sydney, where he sits for a few hours, then up to San Francisco, where he runs to catch his connecting flight to Washington DC then on to arrive at Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey - 20 minutes early. What plane arrives early? I meet him around midnight waiting by the baggage carousel. We commute back to the East Village where we spend the next two weeks sharing a 200 sqft apartment, authentic with its shower in the kitchen, and a clockwork routine that begins each morning with cups of coffee on the way to the Shelter Studios at W54th and Broadway for a couple of hours of rehearsal with a piano, before returning back to the East Village where Gareth transcribes what we’ve begun by improvising, so that we may learn from the pages he’s written. At our first rehearsal he plays the piano and I sing. Words and notes tumble out to meet each other, and all is recorded. We separate after each rehearsal and I run errands returning to the apartment to catch up with Gareth working at the dining table, opposite his sofa-as-bed. One of the nights we go to Carnegie Hall and hear Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s ‘Einstein On The Beach’ in concert form. Philip Glass is performing on the stage. We are perched high up near the gorgeous ceiling, on the edge of our seats. We rehearse, we rehearse, we rehearse. Our goal is to learn and present during an open rehearsal on the last day of the two weeks. Gareth and I have worked together on different projects since 2001, when he was the musical director of a tv series called The Strip and I acted role of the choreographer of the male strippers. He composed the music for Vula directed by Nina Nawalowalo, and I was one of its three original actresses. Vula is set on a stage covered in water. I toured with this beautiful mystical theatre work around New Zealand, to Palau, and Guam.  In 2006 Gareth was the composer of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s commission The Wedding choreographed by Mark Baldwin of Rambert Dance Company to a story written by author Witi Ihimaera. I was the ballet company’s communications specialist aka media wrangler and program writer. Gareth and I’ve been planning to make work together for years, so to realise this in New York City is well worth the wait.