Last week I got back from NRLA which again was a fantastic celebration of live art. I saw so many great artists and works, colleagues and friends that I’m overwhelmed just thinking about it… This year was the 30^th anniversary of NRLA and maybe because of that the sense of community, support and live art family was heightened. What ever the case, it was truly magical and beautiful to be part of it all. I saw just amazing works by Kira O’Reilly, Guillermo Gomez Pena, Marcia Farquhar, Ron Athey, FrenchMottershead and Los Torreznos, and many works that were not mind blowing but important to see such as Forced Entertainment, Sheela Gelani, Kate Stannard, Francesca Steele, Silke Mansholt… to name a few. I also followed a La Pocha Nostra workshop lead by Guillermo Gomez Pena and Roberto Sifuentes at the Univerisity of Glasgow. That was just great. It was also fantastic to see Jennie Klein, Dee Heddon, Lois Keidan, Colin & Debbie, Richard DeDomenici, Ange Taggart, Manuel Vason and the ASFLA partners of course. Like always, it was all really inspiring. Check out the photograph of the NRLA crowd by FrenchMottershead here.

The only thing causing a little bit of a headache was the BA strike which cancelled my flight from Glasgow to London. In the end, I managed to change my flight and fly to London on Monday night, but had to stay overnight at Heathrow and fly to Finland the next day. This was truly exhausting. And with my knee still in recovery, I was pretty fed up dragging my luggage around Heathrow airport in the middle of the night…only to sleep a couple of hours at the airport hotel and get the shuttle bus back to the airport in the early morning hours. Anyway, I managed.

As soon as I landed in Helsinki, Risto Löf from Savon Sanomat newspaper called me and wanted to do an interview because of the prize I received from the regional arts council of North Savo. I didn’t have much time to talk then so when I finally got home I called him back and we did the interview on the phone. I think I was about 1 and half hours at home before rushing to the VB photographic centre to receive my prize. It was a small & cozy little event but at least I got to wear my golden Finsk shoes… This was the second time as I also wore them at the Tramway in Glasgow. They are so comfortable! I must say I find a bit strange the way the regional arts council organizes the prize reception. For one thing, I still haven’t actually ‘received the prize’ but the way they inform about it (or rather the lack of informing about it), invite people to the event (or rather don’t invite people) and celebrated with me was rather dull. Well, luckily Pekka, Anniina & Tatu came by later and we had some champagne.

Last week, weekend and this week have been very busy at the ANTI Festival office. I’ve spent a lot of time on the proposals, skyping with Gregg, thinking about the programme, organizing the annual association meeting etc. Luckily Kaisa started her work last week as the producer of 2010 festival. I think we’ll make a great team. There’s so much work at the moment that I’m all the time tempted to jump to work but I need to take these Easter days easy as I’ve worked the last two weekends. Yesterday I forced myself to finish my tax papers from 2009. It took me 7 hours. I’ve always hated doing the tax papers but especially now that the regional tax office of North Savo has refused to accept physical training costs as part of a freelance dance artist’s professional costs I’ve kind of lost faith in the Finnish tax system & authorities. 

Although things at the ANTI office have been exciting and interesting, I’ve been a bit concerned because I haven’t had time & energy to exercise much. It’s ok for a week or two but cannot become routine. So I’ve been catching up with exercising and it’s all gone pretty well. Last week I also returned the crutches that I had borrowed from the health care centre of Kuopio. The day before yesterday I walked 8.3km and today 8km. These are the first ‘longer’ walks I’ve done after the surgery (I know they are not that long but keeping in mind that I had a ACL surgery 7 weeks ago it’s not that bad). Probably many people don’t recognize anything strange in my walking but I know it’s far from ‘normal’. I cannot fully straighten the knee or push from the left foot they way I can from the other one and especially after a while, this shows in slight limping. The first hour of walking went on both days pretty well but after that the knee starts to feel a bit unstable and wobbly. Yesterday I went to the gym to do some strengthening exercises and also cycled on an exercise bike for 25mins and 15mins on the cross trainer. So I think the knee is definitely getting better, I just have to be patient with it. It’s great to be able to walk outside now that the ice has melted from the streets and there’s no danger of slipping and falling. But for now I can only dream of running. I was so envious of people who went by me running or jogging. I just wanted to shout ‘I also would be running hadn’t I had a knee surgery 7 weeks ago!’ Anyway, I think it’s soon time to find my bicycle from the storage and repair it for another spring-summer-autumn season of cycling.

Tomorrow I need to prepare for next week’s works as I’m involved in many things. But it’s great to be back at work, much nicer than being stuck at home with an injury.

Johanna