Last night I danced on the top of a partially submerged submarine piloted by the man who built it, while accompanied by a beautiful woman playing beautiful music from a wireless electric violin on a floating raft beside us.

I also performed a variation of the solo I performed during the Men’s Solo Night of Discourse Off The Walls. This version I performed suspended inside a massive welded metal globe (25ft diameter?), itself suspended from a crane, a few feet off the ground and accompanied by live cello and text.

I’m in Copenhagen at the summer performance/installation/labs of a group called Half Machine. Actually, at the moment I’m in a small café on the edge of a river that is one of countless waterways and parks in this massive, bike-bustling city.

I’m taking a breather from the boat.

The boat is a vessel bought two years ago by Half Machine as a floating home base. The place is filled with tools, barrels, electric equipment, all kinds of industrial everything, diodes, explosives, and musical instruments, and converted wheelchairs. Everything to keep an artsy-techno crew engaged while they create bizarre and ingenious installations.

Some of the other installations included the Explosion Village, where people drummed on amplified 100 gal+ water drums until their continues stimulus caused a climactic and powerful explosion of fire at the top of an incredibly phallic metal tower. It was, literally, hot.

There is a spiral staircase suspended four feet off the ground and spinning and a sand spewing pendulum big enough to stand in.

A caged in living room with a man who follows the commands dictated to him by buttons the audience push on a panel. Mostly they are commands for aggressive and destructive behavior involving smashing televisions and destroying books…

I’m here as a dancer, so all of this is my playground.

So, all of this, and Copenhagen…

The location of Half Machine is pretty removed from the rest of the city, but I did get a chance to visit Christiania, where the festival used to be held. This place is unrteal, and you should all visit it given the opportunity. It’s a sort of squat village in the middle of town that’s been squatted for 30 or 40 years. Complete with restaurants, outdoor market, art galleries, kindergarten… It’s mostly walking paths and probably five city blocks with beautiful gardens and strange art and living structures all over. It is an island of organic community that has fought off the demands of current day bureaucracy and structure for decades and it is just beautiful. Think the rough and tumble aspects of Tacheles and some of the Berlin squats mixed with the healthful vitality and hippie influence of Santa Cruz. When you leave, there’s an arch that reads “You are now entering the EU.” And this is how it feels. Like you are entering and leaving a different country, or even reality.

Anyway, there’s some snapshots for now.
I’ll write more from Edinborough, Scotland next month…