on monday 4th january, while most of the country was still on holiday, a group of us gathered at janet's for a database party. the purpose of this party was to learn how to use our shiny new CiviCRM online membership database. this is the system that we installed in conjunction with this new site, & already it's made a great improvement in how we manage all our contact information, and communicate with our members.

In the editorial of the December 2009 Magdalena Aotearoa newsletter, Helen Varley Jamieson reflects on what’s happened since 1999 - what the 1999 Magdalena Aotearoa International Festival of Performance inspired and the ways our lives were changed by it.

A Decade of Consequences

last week the newsletter went to the printer & a small group of dedicated stuffers gathered at madeline's on wednesday night to get it stuffed & in the post. if you're a newsletter subscriber, it should be in your letterbox by now : ) & if you're not a subscriber, you can download the pdf (1.2MB).

thanks to all our subscribers for supporting this valuable newsletter & hope you enjoy the latest issue.

The theme of this year's Transit is peripheries - of all kinds, geographic, artistic, cultural, etc. in my presentation i talked about my own peripherical work, on the edge of theatre & also on the edge of digital art. i also talked about peripherals - things you attach to your computer to expand its capabilities such as a printer, web cam, external hard-drive, etc. periphical things have important roles to play in relationship to the centre(s) as well as to each other.

packed festival days continue! after giving my own presentation yesterday, as well as helping with projection for gabi's show earlier in the day & eva's show the night before, i'm having a quiet day today to upload & offload rather than try to take more in.

another full day at Transit - trying to get an early night but already it's half past midnight. dawn (pictured resplendent at the bar, below) is now horizontal, while madeline has returned from her bar shift & we are discussing the performances from this evening. i can't discuss & write at the same time ... more later ...

The festival has been going for a few days of workshops but this evening was the formal opening for the presentations and performances. I have tried to capture the essence of Julia Varley's opening address below:

I have been looking at the lovely and relentlessly-reminding-me scroll of things I said I wanted to do to develop - and am keen to record one of the steps taken. I found another place to tell a tale, to perform. Work! amazingly, and even through a meeting request had to be sent and a meeting room booked, it worked. I told a variation of the Sunday Afternoon Drive tale I shared at the Gathering. to a tiny group of three women. AND I have made another appt to tell another next month. actually, this one is more than a step, it's a surge!
How does any one else go?

I am in Holstebro, Denmark at Odin Teatret for the 6th Transit International Festival of Women's Performance. Organised by Julia Varley approximately every 3 years since 1992, the Transit Festival is a highlight of the Magdalena calendar. It's a great coming-together of women theatre makers from all over the world, for an intense period of workshops, work-in-progress showings, discussions, performances and of course a lot of great conversations over good food & drink : )

Tonight I read a piece from the Guardian called this. "Art criticism is not a democracy" - hmmm.
"You might think it's arrogance or snobbery that leads me to criticise a work of art, and maybe it is – but I'm still right," says Jonathan Jones.
His thoughts are interesting, as are some of the comments. Are critics born not made as he suggests? Is being brutal the right way to review new art?
Here's a reader's comment: