Progress At The Tent

Monday was a long, long day.  By the end of the night the morning's wake up adventure was last week.  Mia is actually still at work doing lighting cues at the tent.  Mia and Kate from Shanghai Circus had to spend a good chunk of the day doing radio appearances, so working late was a necessity.  Here are some pictures from today's work getting ready for the show . . . we'll have two shows a day for 10 days starting July 2nd.  Who am I kidding, you're here to see pictures.  Let's get on with it!

A reprise of the view from our hotel room.  Note now the blue rectangle in the distance.  That is our tent.  To the right is a two story driving range that I will examine more closely later this week.  Strictly for research purposes - the sacrifices I make for science.

Morning.  Our gear still has not arrived but the tent is coming together.  The stage is largely complete and some of the lights are hung.  That's Mia in the center.

The risers for the audience are halfway finished . . . and so is the skin of the tent.

The gear has arrived.  Late, a couple of pieces damaged, but all of it is here.  Poor Jeff (the rigger). For reasons we could not understand, the shippers made him open and inventory everything in his three cases of gear.  Lengthy delay followed by pointless, frustrating tedium is the breakfast of champions, Jeff.  Dig in!  Ah, we can laugh about it now.

The "ceiling" is under construction and some chairs have arrived.  In the foreground is the table/platform for the Rola-Bola act.  The two women in the picture are our media coordinators, and are about to take Mia off for a series of radio interviews.

Me and Atot, a member of the technical crew.  We are working with a lot of good people here.  I'll get pictures of as many of the gang as I can.  In the background, we still haven't gotten the backdrop quite right.

The future entrance to the venue.  In the background, some almost surreal towers of the financial district. A very interesting view at day and night, reminiscent of the Emerald City.  Due to the hazy weather, the buildings take on a washed out appearance in the day - almost looks photoshopped.

Night.  Lighting and sound systems are largely in place.  Both backdrops are hung and the tent is nearly complete.

Danny, Mario, Jeff, Carly and Ivan preparing for tech rehearsal.

Andrei testing out the space for his German Wheel act.  The Boss observes, pensive.

Late Night

I mentioned previously that lighting is key to the show.  Mia and Ferry (the lighting engineer) have to write the lighting "cues" for the entire show and program them into the lighting system as pre-sets.  Each act and each transition can have multiple lighting cues.  There are huge trusses of lights in front of, behind, and to either side of the stage (more on that later) and 4 articulated robot lights at each corner of the stage to light performers from below.  Lastly, there are two follow spots at the rear of the venue that are manually operated.

Each lighting cue depends on stage placement and must not only make the performance look good, but also  has to be checked out with the artist to ensure the lights are not blinding or create distracting shadows, etc.  It is a very time consuming process and requires the entire cast to be present for most of it.  After everybody goes home, Mia and Ferry still have a lot of work to do.

Mia and Ferry are testing some lights.

Most of the lights on the trusses are the big colored gels but there are also these high intensity articulated robot lights.  I am sure there is a shorter and more appropriate name for them, but I am equally sure I don't know what it is.  I do dig these lights though.  They can be programmed for some really cool effects.  Here they are running through some wave and strobe effects, and the haze from the fog machines allows the lighting engineer to see precisely where the lights are targeted.

For Mia it's been an 18 hour day - less for me, as I cannot help with the technical end of the lighting.  When I was hanging my shirt before bed, I noticed we picked up a hitchhiker on the walk home.  I put him on one of the plants in the floor lobby.  Godspeed, my clingy little friend.

Local Fauna

Now, understand that we are in a big city - Jakarta is home to nearly 8.5 million people and is the 12th largest city in the world.  But with a park immediately across the street, and knowing how much bio-diversity lurks beyond the concrete jungle in the actual jungle, I had been hoping to see a few critters.

Up until tonight, the only animals I have seen have been cats, house sparrows and a dove.  Sparrows are everywhere.  Anywhere the British have been, you will find sparrows hundreds of years after the Brits have been booted out.  But tonight I spotted a bat, a local toad (pictured below) and a lizard of some sort.
This toad made my night.

There are many stray cats.  I was saddened today to see what appeared to be a dead kitten in the remains of a trash fire.

 

It turned out the kitty was alive, though clearly down on its luck.

I've decided the kitten bears a striking resemblance to Scut Farkas.

You'll be glad to know that the kitten's squalid existence is not entirely grim.  He is camped out right across from a security checkpoint, and it looks like the guards have been feeding it.  But he still looks like Scut Farkas.

"Cry for me, crybaby!" taunted the Farkas cat.

Breakfast!

Our hotel room has one of those European style key card slots where you place room key in order to make the lights work.  Makes sense, so that you can't leave the lights on and waste energy while you're out of the room.  Unfortunately, the mini-bar also shuts off, and when I eventually have one of those Bintang Pilsners I'd like it to be cold.  One of the Russians, Andrei, taught me trick.  Any card will work to activate the system. I tried it with my health insurance card and sure enough, it worked.  Right up until 5:45am this morning, when suddenly it beeped and turned on every light in the room simultaneously.  To my sleeping eyes, it was like the Griswold Family Christmas display.  For future reference, I would not recommend this "trick".

But just as well we were awake, because Mia's local cell phone started buzzing literally one minute later.  Possibly due to the sheer number of us (now that the whole cast of Le Masque and Shanghai are here, along with a half dozen Europeans coming in tomorrow,  about 50 circus peeps) we will now be taking our breakfast on the 9th floor instead of in the lobby restaurant.  I was disappointed because I love the breakfast downstairs.  My fears were unwarranted: everything except the egg station has been replicated right on our floor.

First off, the coffee is to die for.  At least on par with, and likely better than the best we had in Costa Rica.  Along with that, fresh guava juice and OJ.

Cereals, toast, croissants, excellent jams.

Salad, fresh cut fruit, meats and cheeses, yogurt, and then the steam tables: today bacon, tater tots, fried rice, sausages, and other local breakfast items.  There was some kind of chicken fried beef dish that was great.

Last but not least, this is a chicken porridge.  The rice base is on the right, the chicken broth on the left.  Throw in your other items and get a hot bowl of delight.

A late update - breakfast returns to the first floor tomorrow by popular demand - unfettered access to eggs for our heroes resumes.  (Mothballing my plans for an Ursula K. Leguin parody entitled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelets".  Deep man.  Really deep).

Statuary, Random Notes

Only here a few days and already a statue has been erected in my honor.

Earlier this week we met with the team that organized the circus festival.  I was very pleased to be mistaken for a performer because I'm broad across the shoulders.  Apparently I am pretty big by local standards as several people have commented on my size.  Nice to hear!

Color contacts are surprisingly popular here.  A lot of part-time blue eyes in Jakarta.

One of the local crew that I spoke to was totally surprised but also delighted that I knew the names of the first three Indonesian presidents since independence.

GrandLucky

On our first day here Mia and I went over to the Citibank building to get some local currency, and decided to walk around a bit more.  We are in an area with a lot of financial businesses - the Indonesian Stock Exchange, major banks, brokerages and insurance companies have towers in the area.

Tucked away behind the Stock exchange was a giant grocery store that sold all sorts of toiletries and incidentals as well:  GrandLucky Superstore.  Cheap prices and  big variety.  Purchases so far: 4 1.5 liter bottles of Nestle water (can't drink from the tap), a bottle of Listerine, a 6-pack of the local "Bintang Pilsener", and a package of cookies for Mia (see below).  Total = $11.  For reference, the exchange here is 9000 Rupiah = $1.  Domestic things can be had very affordably but one should be wary that imported things can be expensive.  For example, you can delicious, cheap local juice.  But Florida's Natural OJ can also be had for about $8 a half gallon - why would you want to spend that kind of cash on the same old juice you can buy at the corner store back home?

An unexpected wrinkle: wine is expensive here.  It's all imported and for public policy reasons apparently carries a steep duty.  Your run-of-the-mill Yellow Tail merlot will set you back $30 here.  There will be no wine for the Reilly's this trip.  Beer on the other hand is quite reasonable.

I was looking for a treat for Mia and had picked this up before I spotted the brand name that sealed the deal.

I couldn't resist taking a few shots of the fish:

Rest in peace, dear stingrays.

I found this angle with the fish all staring at me with their dead, accusing eyes to be a tad unsettling.  

As always, more later.  Mia is obviously much more busy with work than I am.  Tomorrow we'll both be working pretty much all day long from 8:00am until 11:00pm.  I will still find a chance to sneak in an update.

Get Down To The Business Of Getting Down

We are here for the Indonesia International Circus Festival - the first of it's kind in Indonesia.  Cirque Le Masque is headlining along with New Shanghai Circus.  There will be dozens of other attractions including local circus acts, magicians, traditional dance, live music and a European Clown Circus.

In this shot from yesterday the skeleton of the tent is rising (in the distance, you can see the structure before the skyscrapers).  Cirque and Shanghai each have their own huge tent.

Today, the roof has been added and the blowers for the air conditioning are in place.  The stage and stadium seating are well under construction.

There is still much to be done - and it has to be finished by tomorrow.  From another angle:

A closer inspection reveals a gremlin nesting in the rigging: