For the last two weeks we've been working all day, every day with Yossi berg and his assistant odette from Israel. They came to set a piece on Aura for the dance festival in October. (I know it is far away, but I guess this was the best time for them.) On Friday we gave an informal studio showing of the finished work, which was very well received, and had a party to celebrate the completion. You can see some of the pictures of the piece in my photo album. Very interesting work. A nice combination of dance and theater, physicality and emotion. It wasn't a new piece (there wan't time), but we all put a lot of energy into making it "ours". We learned all the choreography by the end of the first week, and spent the entire second week working on how to do the movement and how to express the appropriate emotion reliably and consistantly. I've never done so much "acting" in my dancing before. It is a really good experience, I think. The other wonderful thing about thier visit was that they really wanted to get to know us (and the city), so we spent many nights dining together or just sitting around chatting and drinking beers. We had a couple of parties in Sigita's garden, and even went on a picnic in the countryside on our one day off. Then yesterday, as a going away celebration, we all piled into the bus and drove to Palanga to go swimming in the Baltic sea. The weather was perfect, the sea cold and refreshing, the sunset beautiful, and we all had a wonderful time. Of course, I'm sad to see them go... But there was talk of bringing them back to perform in the October festival, so maybe we will see them again soon. :)