all fall down
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.
