This weekend Caroline and I are driving to Dartington College in Devon to join Barbara for the closing festivities of the school. It has functioned as an center for the arts for over 50 years, and as is now being reorganized by the Trustees, so this is the end of the school as it has been, but it will continue under a different arrangement. Our piece will be performed twice. Caroline who has taught there for a long time, will also be performing in a couple of other pieces.
Caroline and I rented a car. Caroline worked through a central agency and that was a nightmare requiring 24 hours of phone calls, but when we got to the local rental agency worked out, and the staff were very friendly. The young man behind the counter, wearing one of those ill-fitting suits that young men who stand behind counters are required to wear, was very funny and helpful. They gave us an old driving map of England that turned out to be very useful. The drive down to Devon from Warwickshire was tantalizing. British motorways are so constructed that it is impossible to see anything outside of the motorway except in brief flashes where the terrain has made it impossible to keep the outside world completely hidden. There was also a nice elevated stretch where the motorway passes through Bristol between the port and the city where one had some views. Once we left the motorway the view was also obstructed by the tall hedges Devon is famous for but I did not mind that so much because the hedges were very local whereas the windbreakers along the motorway were planted with generic, motorway trees that gave me no sense of where I was.
I stayed in Totnes with Barbara Bridger, one of the three collaborators, and her husband Clive, in their house, “The Old Vicarage.” “The Old Vicarage” is their official postal address and Barbara is worried that when she sends her writings off to publishers that they will return them without reading because they think they will be about knitting or kindly spiritual advice. They are shortly moving to another house called “The Dairy” – not much of an improvement. Totnes is a beautiful ancient town built on the side of a hill. It is on the sight of an ancient castle and abbey. The exterior of the castle is intact and serves as a landmark. Not much of the abbey remains except for parts of the principal church. The high street runs past the church from the top of the hill to the bottom. The high street is about a five minute walk from Barbara's house so I walked their every morning to carve out some personal time for myself during the weekend. Totnes was a magnet for hippies and there are still tell-tale signs of a town with a hippy past that has evolved into a middle-class artistic retreat and tourist center. There is an Oxfam used bookstore there and I bought a small book, the memoirs of a woman who grew up in Cairo with recipes included – one of my favorite kinds of book. I am looking forward to visiting the Oxfam bookshop in Coventry and finding another little book as I have finished the first one.
This morning I walked to the High Street, bought some playing cards for Chloe, stopped in at the church, admired the stone screen and the graveyard and saw maybe my first squint in real life. Then walked down High Street, couldn't find the silicone film for my face, had a coffee and meat pie. Stopped into a cheese shop and bought some fresh goat cheese for breakfast. Then came home. Went with Barbara to Dartington to see Caroline perform, first singing and then moving in a long piece where she moved with another woman and played with melting ice. The band was good and I liked the songs. Helen, Barbara's daughter, played the mbela. Then I saw a very good video that was shown against these screens that had cutouts of the scene. It was great. The Ice Book, I believe. I think I have the web site. After that I walked to Barbara's, she is making dinner. After dinner, we are going back and seeing a theater piece.
The weekend was very intense. It would have been even if we hadn't been performing. Caroline was a student here twenty-odd years ago and both Caroline and Barbara taught here, each for about 20 years. The two of them were always being caught up in conversations with former students and teachers so it was hard to walk with them for more than 2 minutes before they stopped or were stopped by someone and began talking. Also, since this was the closing festival of Dartington College of Arts, they combined the annual weekend where students showed their work with the Dartington Festival at which teachers showed their work. Since this was a historic occasion, there were more people here than had ever been or for either festival, or probably for both festivals combined.
Dartington College is on the site of a former country manor, formerly owned by the kings of England, Richard II's name comes to mind (I heard a history of the place from the Head Gardener who gave a tour but already everything is a little hazy). The site is located at the top of the tidewater stretch of the River Dart as well as at the last ford of the river before the sea. Therefore it was been inhabited since early times and the church is located on a pre-Christian site. There is a beautiful medieval Great Hall and courtyard with a Saxon entrance arch and barn closing one end. It was owned by one family from the 16 century through the middle of the 18th century but they ran out of money and moved away and by the early 20th century, Dartington was identified as a ruin on some maps. Then an Englishman went to America to learn modern farming, met and married the fifth richest woman in the world, and brought her back to England where they looked for a place to practice modern farming. They found Dartington and bought it shortly after the First World War and spent $4,000,000 pounds (at current currency value, much, much more than that) restoring the place, establishing a colony of artists to help restore and decorate. Gropius did some work here and there are beautiful banners in the Great Hall that were made at a local weaving facility the owners established. When the owners died, they left the estate in the hands of a trust with the provision that there had to be an educational instituion on the land.
Our performances went well although Caroline and Barbara wished more people had seen them. I thought the audience size was just about right. Unfortunately, the Festival was chaotic and it was difficult to keep track of what was going on and where things were going to be. Also, they had recently renumbered all the studios, so the old students didn't know what the new numbers referred to. We were gioded bu Barbara sp we saw m,aoinly good work.
The theater work I saw was very physical, non-narrative, quite funny. I saw one dance piece which used ordinary actions like holding one's breath as its basic vocabulary. At the end they poured lines of water and salt across the length of the floor for tears and there was a long saying good-bye. The piece broke into two halves, with the first half more interesting for me.
I avoided the closing ritual and my instincts were good. Everyone hated it. The final event was an outdoor concert in the Tiltyard a field about half football size surrounded on three sides by grassy terraces that form a wonderful amphitheater. There was an African drumming ensemble, a Japanese taiko group and a gamelan. The African drumming didn't carry very well, but the Japanese drumming and the gamelan were wonderful. Barbara, Clive, Caroline and I were sitting facing the principal flower garden, a beautiful yellow and blue planting along an old wall. Behind that we could see the Great Hall. And below us the Tiltyard was filled with people in colorful clothes and children running around and dancing to the music. To our right, the view opened up to the beautiful hills of Devon.And now Caroline and I are on the road driving through Devon on our way back to Coventry. It is a beautiful morning and the hills are very green with the fields marked off by the high hedgerows I noticed on our way in. The computer is in my lap. I am a little irritable and depressed which often happens when I have been around a lot of people and in intense situations. Caroline is crying and apologizing for being sad. We are driving through Riverford Organic Farm, one of the first organic farms in England. And now we are back on the motorway. It has been a wonderful weekend.
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