THis our last day in Turkmenistan, we have our major concert and one workshop at the institute for culture. I am sooo tired this whole day and Sean is very sick. Somehow the sleeping gods would not let any of us sleep, i woke at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep. But we woke up by the time we got to the institute for culture, it is one of the big new buildings that is sided with marble! it's really beautiful inside, the president had us up to his office where he had 5 televisions showing all the ashgabat TV stations, and one of them showcased some of the theatre students from the school. We very welcomed to this concert it was very comforting especially on this day.
The hall was beautifully decorated and all of the students were dressed in their traditional dress, it is very classic and beautiful looking. Also the Ambassador was here at this concert, it was nice to have him at one of our workshops, but honestly he introduced us and surprised with how much information he knew about traditional american folk music. the crowd was lovely, we had lots of audience participation they also showered us with so many flowers. a beautiful tradition to bring up in the middle of the set.
Then we all crashed out at the hotel to get ready for our big show. we were welcomed at the venue by a big marquee with our faces and names on it. It's fun to feel like a rock star for even just one day. Pretty cool. the concert was great. We got the audience to dance, not just the little kids but the teenagers and some adults!!! Sean pulled off some elvis moves and the crowd went wild. We signed lots of autographs and took pictures and were given loads of beautiful flowers and chocolate. It is nice to be able to make someone's day just by playing some music and signing my name. If that all it takes to make a couple of smiles i can totally do that!
we left there and headed to the British pub to see our friend we met at the Susan's house, he was playing the saxophone in this band playing american cover tunes, basically wedding band material. They were really great. it made me think of all the foreign music that i play and what would it be like for me to play the music and have a native be there and have all the cultural context that i don't have with those tunes. They played pink floyd, bob marley, eric clapton, every tune i can have a vivid memory about some experience i had with it, how it is on every classic rock station in the mid-west and probably played 30 million times. But it made me realize that music is music. playing something you love is playing something you love, that is enough and that is communicated clearly when done from pure passion. These guys had that. A beautiful thing. They called it jazz music, and this pub was the only place that they could play that music.
after this we packed our bags and left for the airport at 1am, trying to stay awake till at least Baku where we change for our long flight to frankfurt. it is a trip the flying we leave at 3 am on Friday morning and arrive in NYC at 1:30pm on Friday. We are traveling back in time. So wierd!!!
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