Andrea Ariel reports on attending the Brazilian Magdalena Festival in July 2010.

On July 12th, at Auckland Airport, with ALFONSINA packed in a few bags and a team of six of us ready to embark on a 47 hour plane ride to Brazil, I could not help thinking back to the day when Pedro Ilgenfritz invited me to start a theatre company with him and two more actors, both women. Back then, VÉRTICE was only a dream goal.

The second of three one-day Gatherings for 2010 will be held on Sunday 29 August, 9am-10pm, at the Berhampore School Hall in Wellington.

The theme is "Art & Practice" and there is an exciting line-up of presenters. Lunch will be a shared pot-luck meal, and we'll go to a local cafe for dinner before reconvening for the traditional, legendary, not-to-be-missed open mic cabaret extravaganza closing concert in the evening.

Watch this great documentary about Red Mole on NZ On Screen (in 6 parts of about 7 mins long each):

Issue 35 (April 2010) of the Magdalena Aotearoa newsletter is now in the letterboxes of those who subscribe to the hardcopy, and available to download as a PDF from this web site.

You're invited to a Magdalena Aotearoa Networking Party!
Monday 1 February 2010, from 7pm-10pm
Newtown Hall, Daniel St., Wellington

RSVP online here: http://www.magdalenaaotearoa.org.nz/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=8

The Networking Party is an evening of networking and information sharing - come and learn what the Magdalena Aotearoa Trust and the Magdalena Project are all about, and network with other theatre practitioners and artists. We'll provide some drinks & nibbles (contributions to the refreshments are welcome).

i've tried to set up new user registration notification using triggers; i created an action (send an email to info@magdalenaaotearoa.org.nz) to happen when a new user registers. but it doesn't work. i don't know why not.

it is really stupid that this is not something built in to the system - seems like a fairly basic function, & if the system can cope with emailing the new user, then it should also be able to email the admin.

You can't pay for the newsletter unless you are logged in.
You don't find this out until you get to an access denied page which is both rude and discouraging.

One option is to hide the subscribe menutitem until you are logged in, and have a "log in to subscribe" button instead. Though they still then have to choose to pay again. I wonder if Logintoboggan might fix this problem - or would it hijack all logins rather than just these ones?

There could be some benefit in playing around with the way things are organised.

http://www.optimalsort.com has a free card sorting online survey, where up to 9 people (free version) can arrange items and give them headings, or arrange items under given headings.

Saturday began with a Randai demonstration by Megan Collins & dancers Bronwyn, Linda and Lutu. Randai is a dance form from the Minang region of West Sumatra, & involves wearing pants that are sort of like a long skirt, with a fold of material between your legs that is slapped percusively. After the demonstration, we got to put on the pants & learn one dance, which involved clapping, thigh slapping, & flap-slapping as well as lots of "hoop!" & "hos!" calls which was pretty hard to do at the same time as remembering the moves & trying not to collide with others. Good exercise & good fun!

This morning after the training we had a discussion/workshop about writing about our work. We talked about the different ways of writing (reviews, feedback, etc) & places to publish (web sites, newsletters, magazines, etc), & about writing as a means to continue the conversations & exchange that takes place at the Gathering. we talked quite a lot about reviewing - how no-one wants to do it & it is difficult to do. what makes a good review? how do you start? we then took 15 minutes to all write a short review of the last performance that we'd seen, & read them out & 'reviewed the reviews'.