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Tomaz and Maja on the path to Franja
Originally uploaded by cukebrian.
Saturday 5/14
I see Narabov's Cabaret fantastic, an engaging performance artsy piece at KUD, the premise of which is these 6 aliens arrive and are checking out us (or the space, or earth). It's hard to describe, but I liked it, and they perform it well. At one point they come out into the audience and interact with people sitting down. I like seeing the different reactions from the audience. One woman got giggle fits from having attention given to her. The cast of this show, which is the Narobov women (Maja, Sonja, Alenka) plus 3 other guys. Their costumes look great, very neutral and androgynous. Before the opening a month ago, they all decided to shave their heads (like totally bald). They had a break from this show while they did an improv tour around Europe, so their hair has grown out a bit. Sonja looks like Tim Hornor to me. But there was a bunch of tension around the rest of the run, because Maja didn't want to shave her head down again but some of the others did. It was a drama that dragged out several days, and in the end, none of them shaved.
Sunday 5/15
Today we drive out of town, Tomaz and Maja take me to the Franj Partisan Hospital, a secret hospital built during WWII. I read about it somewhere after my trip here in 2003 and really wanted to see it. It's pretty cool... about 18 barracks set back in this gorge. You hike a short distance into it, the same route that they would have taken wounded soldiers in on stretchers. Amazing that this was never discovered - a fact that Slovenians seem very proud of. There was one american, a pilot, who was treated here. It's also astonishing when you realize it was a full working hospital. Up to 180 patients. Surgery. It's great, too, that it has been preserved very much as it was, just with some small signs added to give some info. Not very touristy at all. There was one sign on the first barrack that Maja pointed out to me, that said, in Slovene, "We know that you have a wonderful name, however we are quite sure that no one else needs to see it so please do not write it on the walls here."
I return to KUD with Maja and teach a class of her high school students. Man, high school students are the same everywhere. I had 5 guys and one girl. Thanks to eliciam for the "human prop" suggestion way back when. I find it always comes in handy.
Tuesday 5/17
Tonight we had an evening meeting for Improvision. This is an annual show that the Narobov folks put on, based on the Eurovision song contest. The show will consist of 12 or so songs, with genres and performers preassigned but the titles will be suggested by the audience. We went over the format of the show and set the genres. I will sing a country song with Alenka, and a grunge song with some other folks to be determined. My favorite genre that they have come up with is 'Laibach' which is an actual band, a popular industrial band. Laibach is the German word for Ljubljana, so they decided that this fake band for the improvisjia show will be called 'Marburg' - the German name for Maribor, Slovenia's second largest city. I find this really really funny. The kitsch factor for this show is supposed to be high. Tomaz promises a fountain (last year's big upgrade was the inclusion of a fog machine).