9.1.2010 von Ines.

Today was Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) talk series “China Story 6” that they invited my do on “Unstoppable: Fixed Gear Bike Culture in Beijing”.

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is a non profit, comprehensive art center founded in Beijing by collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in November 2007. UCCA presents exhibitions of established and emerging artists and develops a trusted platform to share knowledge through education and research. The core of UCCA programs includes conferences, lectures, special events, artistic performances, and films. UCCA activities are a magnet for many kinds of audiences, from art fans and specialists to families and children.

We had arranged with the UCCA management that we could bring some of the fixed gear bikes inside and display them during my talk and performance.

It was nice to see that many people came out to the contemporary art district despite the cold weather, snow on the roads and traffic jams. Even though some came a little bit late. This picture shows part of the audience before I started my talk.

And it was very nice to see some of my friends come, even from as far as Germany.

My talk started with a brief bicycle history explaining that the first bicycles were fixed gear. Then showing the bicycle messenger scene around the world and how that created a sub-culture with many people doing urban cycling and wearing messenger bags. Then I showed how the first people started riding fixed gear in China and how big the Beijing fixed gear group now is with over 80 cyclists.

I then also asked some people of our Beijing Fixed Gear Group to come on up and explain why they ride fixed gear bicycles. The first one was my friend GMing.

And then I took off my clothes and did a trick bike performance. Well of course not all clothes. My bicycle show was very well received and I had many people come up to me afterwards.

In the question and answer session one Chinese person made a nice comment saying that he hopes that I can inspire people to follow me and ride bicycles like Forrest Gump in the movie when he started running across the USA and then had many people follow him. All in all it was a very nice event.

Afterwards I went with my friends to eat some cheese fondue. Julien found a nice way to explain to geeks what fixed gear bikes are. They are like Linux: Most people do not understands why people use it but the people using it have huge fun. And there are more and more people using it. And actually I am a linux user too.

Just recently I uploaded my talk I had given last November at the Beijing TED event up to slideshare. You can click here and have a look at that presentation. The topic I had chosen for that event was “Changes of Perception - Bicycle Culture in China”. At that TEDxBeijing conference I wanted to inspire people to ride bicycles and change their perception of bikes being something for poor people.

Geschrieben in Performers, Cycling, Fixed Gear, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

13.12.2009 von Ines.

The Beijing Actors Workshop in Beijing has been holding workshops on playwriting, directing as well as acting. And those three disciplines form the theatrical triathlon which was displayed this weekend at the Beijing International New Short Play Festival. Today they had 5 short plays on stage.

The first one was called “Sex and the forbidden city” and was about the issues of foreign women in Beijing and how hard it is for them to find a date. I could relate with the four female characters. It is so hard for us strong willed Western women here in Beijing. The Western and Chinese men prefer the fragile Chinese women.

A very interesting but slightly confusing short play was called “lovely country”.

Funny was the beijing version of the musical “West Side Story”. The short play was called “Lao Wai Story” menaing the foreigners in Beijing. It was a fight between the foreign students living in Haidian district of Beijing and the foreign Expats living in Chaoyang district of Beijing. They sang songs of the musical with altered funny lyrics only understandable to Chinese or the foreigners living in Beijing.

This was the last time for Anna Grace to be on stage in Beijing for a while. She is moving to New York city. So this was her goodbye performance. I hope she will be back to Beijing with many new ideas and inspiration.

Geschrieben in Performers, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

6.12.2009 von Ines.

I met my good friend for dinner. I have not seen her for a long time, especially not with some time to talk. So it was really nice. But we did not have so much time as I was wanting to see the theater performance in Penghao theater. I heard that it was very suitable for children and I assumed it would be very funny. It turned out to be 3 different monologues. First the “Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, then “The Massacre of the Innocents” by W.H. Auden and last “The Sea and the Mirror” also by Auden. All three were played by Ian Reed. He is a good actor but they were difficult monologues, especially after a day out cycling in the cold fresh air.

Geschrieben in Performers, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

3.12.2009 von Ines.

Today the German Center for Industry and Trade in Beijing had their 10 Year Anniversary celebration in the Landmark Hotel. They had well prepared the vent with a huge wall of pictures of the past 10 years.

They had requested me to perform on their tiny stag. It was very long but unfortunately very narrow and un-expectedly covered with a quite soft carpet making it almost impossible to do any bicycle tricks. I did what I could do on my trick bike. The following pictures were taken by the photographers of the German Center.

Our French friend and contact juggler Muakine also perfomed on an even smaller stage than mine.

There was also a Chinese face changing performer and a typical Chinese Kungfu group. Then Zack and friends played some nice Jazz music as the huge buffet was opened.

It was a very nice event. Here is a picture of the German Center management team in traditional German clothes and me wearing a Chinese qipao.

I cycled back home together with Zack. He now goes to his gigs carrying all his drums on his tricycle. And I was cycling home on my slow trick bike.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Performers | Keine Kommentare »

30.11.2009 von Ines.

For my next upcoming performance I had to really train as the stage is only 3.9meters deep. That is extremely narrow, especially as it will be a real stage. So I cannot ride to the absolute border in the front, but also not in the back as there will be a wall. I had huge difficulty finding tricks that I could do on such a small space. But with that I can soon start performing in discotheques. I uploaded a clip of my tiredsome practice to the Chinese version of youtube. You will see my friend doing some funny finger movements. That shows you how boring my practice for this show was.

Geschrieben in Performers, Fixed Gear | Keine Kommentare »

16.11.2009 von Ines.

As every Monday night the Beijing Jugglers group met at the bar called Yugong Yishan. Today probably due to the very icy cold weather not many people came.

Fede was mainly juggling balls.

And I tried some tricks on a static bike for a performance in Tokyo where I will only have 3 times 4 meters.

Geschrieben in Performers, Juggling, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

14.11.2009 von Ines.

The “DiVINE” CD Release Party of Jess was so great! Such a good concert, great performance and nice vibe in the venue with energetic afterparty. Here are some pictures of Jess with Sarah Vossler (background vocals) and Zac Courtney (drums) and other musicians:

The Italian juggler Federico Moro did a ball juggling performance with up to 5 balls choreographed to a new song of Jess.

After playing all the new songs that are on the Divine CD then Meiyouwenti Records brought some reggae music with the DJ Oscar who gave us a nice grove for dancing.

There was a nice article about the concert published in the Global Times. Check it out!

Geschrieben in Performers, Music, Juggling, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

14.11.2009 von Ines.

I am so looking forward to this. Jess Meider has just finished her new album and is having a special CD-release concert tonight at Dos Kolegas starting at 10pm. The album is called DiVINE. Her new songs are so beautiful… If you are in Beijing come on out and listen and experience!

Geschrieben in Performers, Music, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

13.11.2009 von Ines.

Do you know about TED? Well if not then you need to check out their website: www.ted.com

Today was the first TED event in Beijing. As it was an independently organized event but with the TED license it was called TEDxBeijing. And I was selected as a speaker! I was so excited when I heard that news on October 30th!!! Since then I was in an extreme speech preparation mode. I re-wrote my speech about 8 times. There were too many topics to talk about. It was hard for me to chose. In the end I chose the title: Changes of Perception. I was wanting people to change their perception about bicycles and re-consider to ride. Especially in Beijing.

And to inspire people that cycling is not just about pedaling I also did some tricks on my artistic bicycle. Of course…

There was some pictures of it on tech.sina.com of me speaking as well as doing tricks on my bicycle. Also I found some pictures of the event on flickr. And more pictures.

This was such a great event! So many great speakers and interesting topics. It showed the different perspectives of Beijing and China. We had live online screening of all the speeches. And the videos will be edited and hopefully soon uploaded. I am looking forward to that. Now I first need to get a good nights sleep!

Geschrieben in Green, Natooke, Performers, Cycling, China, Fixed Gear, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

18.8.2009 von Ines.

Yes, here it is: The first bicycle shop in China focused on fixed gear bikes! The logo is a green banana and the name is NATOOKE

This store is dedicated to urban cycling. You will not find a bike with gears in this shop, so no road bikes nor any mountain bikes. All bicycles are single speed and mainly have a fixed back wheel, meaning no ability to coast. Like the bikes used in the velodrome these are track bikes with horizontal dropouts in the back end of the frame to be able to adjust the chain tension. This is extremely suitable for cycling in the flat and nicely paved Beijing urban city. The shop has all the different parts required to build up a fixed gear bike like the fixed gear hubs, flipflop hubs, cogs, lock rings, rims, tires, seat posts, saddles, stems, handle bars, handle bar grips, chains, cranks, chain rings, pedals, cages, toe clips, straps… Each customer can chose what brand, what style and which color he prefers so that we can put together that one-of-a-kind unique bike.

This shop also has a huge selection on urban cycling accessories, like T-shirts, lights, bags, reflective bag covers, anti-pollution masks and other things related to cycling in the metropolitan areas.

The NATOOKE store is even more unique: It is the world’s first shop dedicated to fixed gear bikes and juggling equipment! You can find anything here around the topic of juggling: Different sizes, weights and colors of juggling balls, glow balls, contact balls, acrylics, juggling rings, juggling clubs, devil sticks, diabolos, poi, fire juggling equipment, staff, yo-yos, frisbees, rola bolas (also known as balancing boards) and many more fun toys to play with. This is the best juggling equipment that you can get in all of China. It is mainly imported from Europe.

This fixed gear bike and juggling store is located in the center of Beijing city in the trendy new hutong called Wudaoying. That is right next to the North Second Ring Road just West of the famous Lama Temple. There are 2 subway lines that have a station here as well as many bus lines. So if you do not yet have a bike you can easily come by using public transport. Here is a map of the location of the NATOOKE shop indicated by the small green banana:

Geschrieben in Performers, Green, Natooke, Cycling, Juggling, China, Asia, Fixed Gear, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »