TV Shopping in Wandsworth

Up at the crack of dawn for breakfast and a walk to the bus station for the seven thirty coach to London. Another beautiful clear day, making the view of the passing countryside vibrant with colour and contrast. In a field outside Bristol I caught sight of a lone deer grazing in a field.

While I travelled, I received an email on my Blackberry from David McKenna, a dancer colleague of Kath's whom we've known for many years. He's a brilliant creative artistic entrepreneur who's done some ground breaking performance work with adolescent boys, and with male prisoners. The videos of his work I find inspirational. I wish I could get to see live performances of his more often. 

Anyway, since Monday, he and I have been discussing a project proposal of his by email. He's fascinated with the potential of digital media to extend into a performance environment what dancers communicate through their physical actions, expressing in fresh ways their visions, ideas, feelings, experiences. He's intrigued with abandoned and ruined church buildings, and what remains of that sense of sacred space and presence once believers have forsaken them. A small group of dancers want to work investigating a place to discover how their use of technology can help them articulate any remaining sense of the sacred, and what this means for them as secular artists with little religious background.

It's a privilege to be asked to be a sounding board as well as provide information and ideas for further investigation. Finding a suitable useable place in the Midlands and getting permission to take it over for a month or so won't be an easy task, but here's an opportunity for those who can facilitate, and/or do the theological reflection to engage in some real creative dialogue with modern experimental performing artists. This project really has me buzzing.

June met me at Victoria Station and we took a train to Clapham Junction to get a bus to Hammersmith to visit Currys PC World to buy her a new television, and a new digital camera into the bargain. It looked identical to the Cardiff store, so navigating to the right place in the vast cavern of a store presented no hassles. She settled for the smallest Samsung in the shop 22" screen, and the cheapest Sony Cybershot to replace her existing one whose on/off button has become unpredictable after four years of use. We returned to her flat for lunch, then I set up the camera and the telly, and moved her old telly into a back room and set that up. It all worked, so I left her, to go and catch the seven o'clock Cardiff bus, delighted by her new acquisitions.

The journey home under clear skies into the setting sun was also tranquil and beautiful, with the colours in the landscape slowly changing. The sun had just left the horizon by the time we reached the Severn Bridge and the twilight brought touches of purple and silver to the greens and grey of the estuary. Back in the house be quarter to eleven, mission accomplished.