In hindsight, my wrist might have been sending me a warning sign when, for the past three weeks, it hurt every time I put weight on it. Possibly that was not something I should have ignored.
But, in my defense, putting weight on a flexed wrist (like the top part of a push up) is very different from holding a trapeze bar, a rope, or basically any part of a hoop. As far as my (limited, mostly apocryphal*) knowledge of anatomy goes, my hand should not have freaked the heck out during hoop class on Friday night merely because I pulled up on the top part of the hoop. But there you go. Color me bewildered.
So I took about five days off to deal with the fact that my right hand seized in pain whenever confronted with such everyday objects as doorknobs and sink handles, much less trapezes, and to try to figure out if I could train myself to write with my left hand (answer: not legibly, not in five days). I have basically no idea what I did to it or what's happening under the skin, but it never swelled. Since swelling is my only red flag to go to the doctor--barring such subtle indicators as major blood loss or loss of limb--I have not gone to the doctor. The doctor would probably tell me to quit monkeying around on trapezes. Therefore I have resigned myself to living in ignorance.
Five days felt like an extremely long break, especially since I haven't quite gotten to the end of my post-Showcase high, so last night I went back to hoop. I only irritated it a couple of times--and it was for a really cool new skill, which I feel should balance it out. (My wrist feels otherwise.) It helps that I just now discovered the power of two incredibly simple things: tape and icy hot. Taping my wrist makes it roughly 100% less tweakable than it would be without (possibly because I can't flex or twist my wrist significantly). And icy hot is friggin amazing. I have no idea how some menthol has given my wrist full, painless range of motion mere hours after I made it angry by hanging from a hoop. Magic, probably.
After being nice to it and judiciously applying magical icy hot, my wrist is more or less functional, although pens continue to thwart me. I'm realizing, however, that this may be one of those things that never actually goes away: my right wrist, after all, is both my dominant wrist on trapeze, and the hand that uses the mouse/track pad and all of that carpal-tunnel-syndrome-inducing stuff. It gets the worst of all possible worlds.
I'm now making a concerted effort to use my left hand more for trapeze, but I'm also reconciling myself to the fact that I may have a cranky wrist for a good long time. And as with any injury, I have been given many opportunities to reflect on the marvelous fragility and complexity of the human body. You only get one. I mean, I do have another wrist, in this particular case, but it can't write its way out of a paper bag, so I had better start taking good care of the right one. I have a long career of awesomeness ahead of me (if I may freely toot my own horn), and how am I going to accept all those congratulatory hand shakes and high-fives with my left hand? Now you see the full extent of the problem.
--
*So excited that I got to use "apocryphal" in a sentence.
At one time, when I'd fallen in love with circus but decided (incorrectly) that it wasn't something I could ever do, I set my sights instead on working backstage in some capacity. The logic was that if I couldn't be onstage, backstage was just as good.
Hoo boy was I wrong about that. I mean, I'm sure there are things that are better for body and soul than getting up in front of people, doing something you love, and basking in their adoration--but those other things are probably illegal. Performance is intoxicating. Circus is intoxicating--I kind of knew that, already, what with the waiting hungrily for ten years to go to circus school, but still: whoa. I love watching other people put on their makeup in the green room (more proficiently than me); I love Nancy the stage manager (who, like all the crew, rocks) walking through to tell us we have fifteen minutes, five minutes, two minutes; I love the opening procession, where no one but the Youth Circus and the clowns seem to know where they're going; I love the look of blank jumpiness on performers' faces when they're about to go onstage, and the sweaty elation when they come off; I love hearing muted applause from the green room; I love the happy traffic jam in the lobby after the show. You guys, I am totally hooked.
Most of all I love the three minutes of my act. Not surprisingly, they are the fastest minutes of the day. (Also not surprising: the twenty minutes between the start of the show and my act are the longest minutes of the day.) As soon as they're over, I am both intensely relieved and also I want to be back on the other side of those three minutes. Last night and tonight both went fabulously for me: all my skills came off like they're supposed to--and even if they didn't, nobody knew the difference.
I had been a bit worried about getting onstage, since there's a lot of striking (putting away) of mats and ropes from the previous act, and my trapeze has to be brought out and hung up. The crew are impressively fast, but there was nothing to cover it up, and my walk onstage was conducted in awkward silence. (The previously-mentioned tango act was moved earlier in the show, so I didn't get to hitch a ride on their coattails.)
Thank goodness for clowns. The Pi Clowns noticed my predicament and kindly offered to provide a little distraction and a clever way to get me onstage. Now I hide behind them as they cross the stage in a clump; they drop me off at my trapeze and continue on their way. It's super cute. Also, I'm pretty sure that mere association with the Pi Clowns will make you a better performer.
The new ending has also sorted itself out: people clap as soon as I hit the mat. I don't think I'm faking anyone out with the fall, as Stefan perhaps intended, but at least I haven't heard giggles. Last night I did miscalculate the edge of the mat when I was getting up, and nearly rolled off, but they didn't even laugh at me then. Bless them.
(If you are reading this and you were in Thursday or Friday's audience, bless you in particular. If you are reading this and you are planning to come to one of the shows, know that these guys have set the bar high.)
The most pleasant surprise of this experience has been the discovery that people clap for everything. Everything. Before Thursday, I only ever performed this incarnation of the act before other performers who have seen (and often, done) everything that I do before. But now the audiences are, if anything, biased in our favor; most of them have friends or family in the show. I'm certainly not complaining--it blows my mind. I had no idea people would applaud things like my ankle hang. Friggin amazing. It even keeps me from rushing, since I want to linger and soak it in.
So now, all that's left is the weekend. Between my three shows, I will have had nine minutes of pure, unadulterated solo trapeze time. That means I am owed six more minutes of fame... but I think I am going to need more than that.
Over the past few days I have been inducted into the wide world of rehearsals. I've had a rehearsal which I flat-out missed because they were running ahead of schedule, and a rehearsal that started late (for which, of course, I arrived about half an hour early), and a rehearsal that was perfectly on time but required only five minutes of my participation.
Considering that Helene has more than 70 people to organize for this show, it has gone amazingly smoothly. Or if it hasn't, I haven't been able to tell the difference.
And today is the dress rehearsal. In classic nervous-performer fashion, I have gotten my costume and makeup and juice boxes and book (critically, because it is scheduled to last five hours) all ready... and I don't have to leave for another hour.
My tech rehearsals were largely for miscellaneous things: this tango act, for example, which was at one time before my own act and has since been moved; and the finale. (It was the tango rehearsal that I missed, which might be okay...because I still don't know the steps.) But I also had my own tech rehearsal earlier in the week. This was where the crew and I figured out things like where my mats would be placed, and exactly how high I wanted the bar hung. (I am also learning all kinds of fascinating stage jargon: "spiking" the rope means putting a bit of fluorescent tape in the spot where it should be hung for my act. Different from spiking the punch.)
We also made a small change to the end of my act: I still hit the floor (gracefully), but then I roll off sharply instead of pressing up slowly. This is in an effort to keep things crisp and dramatic and energetic. I had a small audience of about a dozen for my tech rehearsal, and I only heard one person laugh when I dropped to the mats at the end of the act. One out of twelve is pretty good. I'm interested to see how it goes this afternoon, when there are likely to be more people watching.
Only for "interested," read, "slightly terrified."
Because, yes, this is all slightly terrifying, but when I was in my rehearsal, and the lights were on (kind of) and the music was playing and I was in costume, I was hanging from my ankles in the fastest part of the spin and thinking, "wow, I'm really doing this. I've been wanting to do this for most of my life, and now it's finally, actually happening."
So the one thing I'm not worried about is remembering to smile.
And now, some obligatory self-promotion:
(And if you happen to be in Austin and not San Francisco this weekend--which is your only possible excuse for not coming to the Showcase--my good friend Jason also has a show with the fine folks of Blue Lapis Light.)
T-minus one week to Showcase. There are now bleachers and lights in the gym, and there is an atmosphere of intensely constrained jumpiness. It's getting real.
Yesterday I got to show my act to both directors for the Showcase, one being the incredible Helene, who had already thumb's-upped my act, the other being the impressive Stefan Haves, who can only be with us at Circus Center for a week because he's needed in Montreal, to work on Cirque du Soleil's next project. Well.
So that wasn't intimidating at all.
No, it went fine: Stefan said that I have a nice act, and since I figure his standards for "nice" must be pretty nice, themselves, that may be one of the finest compliments yet paid to my performance skills. I also got some fascinating insight into the Cirque-du-Soleil-style creative process. Sometimes Stefan starts sentences with, "This might just be my sick sense of humor, but..." and after that "but," he says something that I would never have considered in a thousand years.
In this case, the "but" provided a new ending for my act. Previously, the plan was for me to stop spinning, walk forward, and bow. Yawn.
New plan: fall down.
Before people (read: mom) get all freaked out, my trapeze is hung five feet, three inches off the ground--no, not even the ground: five feet, three inches off a panel mat on top of a crash pad. Since I finish the act while hanging from my hands under the bar, I think I drop a total of three feet.
But an impressive three feet they are. Some would say that the first rule of trapeze is "don't fall off." Yes, but rules are meant to be broken. Hitting the mat is a dramatic way to finish the act. An exclamation point instead of a regular old period, if you will.
I admit that I wasn't feeling dreadfully excited about this when I went home last night: the idea is "dramatic," not "funny," and though I've gotten clear instructions on how not to make it look like I fell off the trapeze by accident, one can't help but worry that people will laugh. I also have a gnawing feeling that, so unexpected and dramatic is the ending, people won't remember anything else about the act. Which is all right, I guess--better that they walk away going "wow" than not--but it took me five minutes to learn how to fall correctly, and six months to put together the other three minutes of the act. I don't want to sound picky, but I'd prefer if people are enthusiastic about, you know, the trapeze part.
But after talking to some innocent bystanders, who saw the new ending as it was formed, I feel better. If all else fails, I remind myself of my directors' credentials and feel a bit better.
Also, I have a hella flashy costume, and it's pretty hard to feel doubtful or anxious about anything at all while I'm wearing it:
It makes me feel like a big red lightbulb, and I mean that in the best possible way. You can see how bright and shiny it is in the crappy half-light of my room (which, yes, is a mess...and, no, I obviously don't know how to take a picture without screwing up the light: moving on...). Just imagine what it'll be like under stage lights; moths will be drawn to me.
The first couple of times I wore it at Circus Center, several people in the gym felt compelled to stop what they were doing and tell me how retina-searing it was. I felt self-conscious for about 0.3 seconds, but if the purpose of a costume is to draw extra attention to the performer, my costume is doing a hell of a job.
And really, let's get serious about this: I get to wear glitter pants (if you use a loose interpretation of "pants") on stage!
Someone pinch me.
Now that it's June, I find that telling myself, "I'll figure that out in June" is no longer as comforting as once it was. June looked pleasantly remote even from last week--certainly mid-June and the Showcase seemed months away...
Now I find that today I'm meeting with Helene, co-director #1 so that she can cast her professional eye over my act. And on Saturday I'm meeting with Stefan Haves, co-director #2 and the former assistant director to Kooza (yes, that Kooza), so he can cast his professional eye over it, and hopefully slap some transitions on either end. There are two shows in the coming weekends. Then it's showtime.
Between now and then I have to get the third and final iteration of my costume in the mail, which will fit properly or else I will be forced to perform naked. I should probably re-tape Trappy (it looks super dirty, I think because the leather is still getting broken in and it's...I don't know...shedding black stickiness onto the bar. Or something.) I have to wrangle some practice time during tech week. I have to volunteer myself for the Pratfalls show, as well as the Showcase shows that I'm not in. On that note, I have to find out from Helene if I'm really in the shows that I think I'm in. I have to learn very small parts for two additional acts--they need a lot of warm bodies on the stage at once, and I volunteered to be among them. One of them is a waltz, so evidently I will be learning how to waltz sometime in the next few weeks.
Looking at my calendar (which I have been doing nonstop since I realized it was June), I notice that there are not many days where I have written "practice" in and amidst these other things. My act as it is right this second is pretty much what's going onstage.
This is fine: I make most of my cues, most of the time, and get pretty much all of my skills all of the time.* Although I feel like it's not ready, it's ready. Honestly, I could have shown it back in April and no one would have thrown fruit at me.
Knowing me, I could nitpick this act forever, and never feel like it was "ready." And I'll even get to do that...after the Showcase. I'll be sorry it's over, then, because one of the many things that I was putting off until June was figuring out what comes next. Eh...yeah...
I'll figure that out at the end of June.
--
*Except for that one time on Sunday when I didn't flex my feet enough while sliding from back balance to ankles, and ended up in a slightly perilous handstand with my feet on the bar. Hoo, was that exciting.
Yesterday was my birthday!
[cue horns blowing, streamers drop from ceiling, parade]
Among my other birthday celebrations (mmmm sushi) I went in to train at Circus Center. I know: you're allowed to skip training on your birthday. (Although, as my birthday falls, let's see... less than a month from the start of the Showcase, that is questionable.) But I wasn't just training. I was playing with my birthday present:
Friends, this is Trappy. Trappy is from Montreal! (As much great circus is.) She lives in a bag at Circus Center with her friends, Swivel and Carabiners, as well as Sock Filled with Rosin.
As I had hoped, there is 100% less rope-twisting action going on with Trappy. The cables in the ropes are no big deal, but the stiffness/stickyness/not-broken-in-yet-ness of the leather on the corners has, to date, burned me twice. Through tights! Other than that, it's been smooth sailing.
Here you can see Trappy (and me) in action at last week's Works in Progress Show.
There was also a professional photographer slipping around taking pictures of us at WIPs; I have seen some of the photos but not full-sized. I'll post some once they're available, though. As you can kind of see in the video, I had my very own natural spotlight, which makes some of the pictures kind of cool.
There is so much excitement happening that you should probably sit down and back up from your monitor a little bit, otherwise you will be dazzled and blinded by the exclamation points!
The First Excitement!
I am going to be in the Student Showcase at Circus Center next month! I will be getting up in front of people who paid to be there! They even have days of rehearsal beforehand!
There are six shows, and I will be in three of them. Most slots for different acts have been split among two or three people in order to get as many people as possible into the show (without it being, like, six hours long).
I have about six weeks between now and then to tone my act. I've been asked to cut out the swinging middle section, either because the choreography's a bit drab or in the interest of time (I would accept either explanation). That means having to rethink a bunch of my music cues. I also have to find a costume of some type. And I have to devise a grand entrance. The amazing Helene, who is organizing this madness, told me that the clowns will be helping with stage entrances and exits, so if I could think of anything for them to do... and then I stopped listening, because I was floored by this revelation:
I will be escorted by clowns to and from my trapeze.
How can you not be excited by that? And then there's---
The Second Excitement:
My parents have very casually offered to buy me a trapeze for my birthday. A trapeze! My attempts to warn them that they didn't know what they're getting into (trapezes ain't cheap) fell on deaf and generous ears, so I've spent the past couple of weeks acquainting myself with the thousands and thousands of technical specifications that come with buying a trapeze. Or that's what it felt like. How wide do you want the bar? What diameter should it be? Solid or hollow? How long should the ropes be, and what should they be made of? What diameter should they be? Cables in the ropes or no? And on and on and on.
After soliciting the professional advice of, let's see, everyone at Circus Center, I have at last reached a conclusion. I will soon be in possession of this beauty.
No, go on. Click. Take your time. Soak it in.
You'll notice that this is really and truly a single-point trapeze, not a static trapeze adapted to single point. There's nothing wrong with the latter--it's what I've been using since I started--but the ropes have a tendency to twist around each other when they're hooked together. Suddenly, you stand up and have no space, though there is three feet of twisted rope above you. This can be fixed with hardware (something like this. No, that's not brass knuckles...for, um, a person with six fingers) or by cleverly splicing the ropes together, as in this (my) trapeze.
Getting a trapeze is like bringing home a new puppy. You have to buy it a bed to sleep in and a crate and dog food and so on--but in this case that's a bag to carry it in, and a locker for it to live in at Circus Center, and, um, tape to eat? And when it comes I expect there will be a little house-training, namely me learning my way around it. The ropes have cables in them, which means that they are stiffer if you're rolling up into them (as I do), and the whole trapeze has less "bounce." It'll take a little adjustment, but if all goes according to plan, I'll be squared away with it in plenty of time for the Showcase.
Which I am in.
With my own trapeze.
Let's celebrate with a video!
(I did warn you that you should be sitting down to read this.)
(Heh, get it? Plucky? Banjo...plucky...Okay, fine.)
As promised, here are some video clips from my most recent hoop class:
I have no particular comment, except that my friend Diane calls the skill at 0:20 "open for business." To which I say: some people should get their minds out of the gutter.
Although...she has a point. Most aerial skills aren't renowned for their modesty.
Also, the little drop which Marina spots (why does she look so nervous, I wonder?) is supposed to look that way. I mean, I didn't just fall off the top part of the hoop, in case you were wondering.
Oh! And! This was filmed with my very own camera. (It's ridiculously simple to use. I'm reasonably sure a chimpanzee could operate this thing. Or a dolphin, if it had thumbs.) No longer do I have to beg other people to film me! I've started filming myself while I train, which means that now I do my act over and over and over and then I go home and I watch it over and over and over. And take notes! Ahh, circus. Without you, I might be forced to go outside and interact with other people.
My goodness. So many new things to report. Let's make a list.
#1: I have a new teacher. Another new teacher. She is Marina, and she also teaches the hoop class, and over the course of two lessons she's thought of a number of clever things for me to do to my act, to make it shinier. There was some complicated bureaucratic business that meant Gretchen couldn't teach me anymore--which is sad--but she's nice enough to let me continue using her trapeze. (Another trapezist recently petted this trapeze and exclaimed "it's like riding in a Cadillac!" Indeed it is; the corners and ropes are covered in hand-sewn leather. I'm sometimes tempted to curl up and go to sleep on it.) I feel as though I just need a set of eyes to look at my act and tell me whether or not I look like an idiot. If it could be the same set of eyes for more than two weeks running, that might be helpful, too. But I'm secretly pleased to be getting so much good advice from such a variety of teachers.
#2: Last weekend was the second-ever Works In Progress Showing (better known as WIPS), and here is what I showed...
Compared to last month, the observant viewer will note that there is a fancy new swinging section near the beginning (which means that my act requires an obnoxious number of crash pads) and that I did not do that stupid thing where I slide the wrong way out of the back balance at the end and wind up in crucifix. (There is also no meat hook at the end, because I've pulled a small muscle in my ribs that hurts all out of proportion to its size whenever I do a meat hook or skin the cat.)
We did the feedback differently: last month, we all sat down on the floor and talked about it until the poor cleaning staff (who were waiting for us to leave so they could go enjoy their Sunday evening) threw us out. This month, in the interest of time, we all wrote down our feedback and handed it in to the artists afterward. Little known fact: people say different things in print, especially when their notes are anonymous, then they do when they're having a chat. Sometimes these things are slightly incoherent (I know it made sense in their heads when they wrote it...). And some of them don't come out sounding like they meant to, I'm sure.
My personal favorite: "get your hair out of your face." What are you, my MOM? (Hi Mom.)
But most of the feedback was fairly predictable: straighten your legs; nice music (how could you not love Zoe Keating?), and good match between the music and the style of the piece. Nothing earth-shattering, but all useful. If you, beloved readers, have anything to add, the comments are at your disposal. The internet is also a fine place for gathering anonymous, semi-coherent feedback.
#3: There's this thing at Circus Center every summer called the Showcase (or the Student Showcase, or the June Showcase). It's a show for students of Circus Center, as well as for the Youth Circus program. Audition notices were posted awhile back, informing those interested to turn in a video and application. It concluded with the enigmatic words "Auditions will be held in mid-April."
Today, you may note, is the 24th, but if auditions are happening, I haven't been invited. This is the sort of thing that generates a deal of paranoia--wait, am I the only one who hasn't been contacted for an audition or is everyone else in the same boat?-- and I've had several conversations with my peers this past week, in which we monger each other's rumors. Have they already picked their performers? Is there going to be a physical audition or is it just the video? (Had I thought that the video was all there was, I would definitely have filmed it seven or eight more times to get the best possible version. But at least the one I turned in is an honest sample.) Have you heard anything? No, I haven't heard anything either, and neither has my friend.
To the best of my knowledge-- which, I'll be the first to admit, is not very good--they have not yet chosen their acts. Cross your fingers for me.
#4: I have hoop video! I do not have edited hoop video! Rather than punish you with four thirty-second clips, all of which begin with me frowning at my (brand-spanking new!) video camera as I sort out whether or not it's recording, I will instead spend some quality time with iMovie this weekend and post it next week. Stay tuned...
This semester I'm taking a hoop class: not this kind of hoop, or this kind (though those are also cool), but aerial hoop-- also known (in the grand aerial tradition of never calling anything by the same name twice) as aerial ring, cerceau, and lyra.
Like this:
I've seen more great hoop acts than I can count (for real) and I've wanted to try it out ever since I saw it on the schedule at Circus Center. This term, it's my goal to go in and train six days a week, and I figure it'll be a good mental exercise to hop on something that's not a trapeze on one of those days.
In some ways, a hoop is just a giant, curving trapeze that doesn't have ropes where you expect there to be ropes. (I say this as a trapezist; hoop people almost certainly feel that a trapeze is just a hoop, three quarters of which has been removed and the remainder of which has been pointlessly flattened.) As a mental exercise, getting on a hoop was instantly successful: every time I reached across and my hand encountered bar, I went "hey! that was supposed to be a rope right there!" Or, for that matter, whenever I reached above myself and found-- yes!-- more gently curving metal bar... friends, it blew my mind.
Marina, the teacher, said that student unaccustomed to working with a single-point apparatus tend to find its wobbliness the biggest difference from, say, static trapeze. Since I'm used to a wobbly, spinning trapeze that's not such an issue-- although I have to say that since the hoop we were using is literally only connected by a single point at the top of the hoop, it has all kinds of wobbliness that I'd never thought about. If you reach up and pull down on one side, the other side rotates upward. (There are hoops that are organized more like a single point trapeze, with two points attaching to the top, and Marina says these are more stable.)
Marina started me off by teaching me the hoop equivalents of a lot of basic trapeze moves. These were basically the same, and not at all hard especially when we switched out the hoop that was up and gave me a slightly smaller one. We all grumble when the static trapezes are changed out and the bar becomes narrow/wider/thicker/thinner/differently roped, but there's really not that much difference in what it allows you to do (or prohibits you from doing). Having a slightly smaller hoop, on the other hand, made a BIG difference to my dinky little arms-- I didn't feel like the other side of the hoop was miles away. This is a comforting feeling.
From there, we kept going with more and different skills: some are trapeze equivalents (fish/mermaid, gazelle, monkeyroll) and some are special for hoop (the "man in the moon" position is surprisingly comfortable). What I found interesting-- because I'm a geek-- is that some things became much easier on hoop because of the curvature: I haven't been able to do pinwheels on a trapeze to save my life, but I got it right away on hoop with Marina spotting me. Any skill that involves hanging from and/or balancing on the hoop is easier, whether it's be heels, toes, a back balance, a front balance-- because the hoop is cradling you just a little.
And then some things become harder. It's hard to start a good spin in the way I usually do on trapeze (i.e., holding on with one hand from the bottom of the hoop), because a hoop is much heavier. I didn't appreciate this until I had to get it moving. The flip side, of course, is that once you get your spin, it'll keep going forever. You know what else is harder? Hip circles. I know, right? I just figure them out on trapeze, only to go to an apparatus where they are damn near impossible. I inderstand why, though I'm not sure I can explain it; basically, the same shape that makes it easy to pinwheel makes it very tricky to hip circle. You would not even believe how riveting I find this. I could talk about it all day.
Suffice to say that I had a lot of fun and that we covered a ton of ground over the course of an hour and a half (I was the only student, but there is someone else signed up; I'm happy either way). By the end of class, Marina was talking about stringing skills together in a combination, which I love. I even found myself plotting to start coming in and using the hoop on my own (in a month or so, once Marina feels assured that I won't kill myself on it) but for the short term I have to confine myself to trapeze. Because last week, fliers appeared announcing that the June Showcase auditions are coming up in mid-April.
Mid-April. Let's all ponder how close to mid-April it already is.
Unless I'm mistaken, next weekend is mid-April. Between now and then I
have to come up with some video to submit to the (gulp) audition
committee and then hopefully they'll let me come do it for them live.
While this is my chance to a) shine and b) reap the rewards of all that
training... gee whiz, am I ever not looking forward to that audition. And until then, hoop will have to be my once-a-week mind-blowing experiment.
