9 posts tagged “circus”

Two very exciting things happened yesterday while I was training.

First, I did six hip circles.  Six!  In a row!  My previous record was three, and I'd only done that one time.  I think I could have even kept going (except that I was kind of stunned) because when I grabbed the bar to stop myself, I peeled right off.  Then I got up again and did five in a row.  Of course, no one was watching any of this, and I when I woke up this morning I wondered if maybe the whole thing was a chalk-inhalation-related hallucination, but no: my stomach is just as bruised as it ought to be after 11+ cumulative hip circles.

(On a related note, I AM still working on a video, but it's of hip circles, and every time I think I'm finished, Diane records me doing more hip circles than I've done before, and then I have to wait for her to send me that clip... by which time I've moved on to doing even MORE.  But if I can duplicate six, then there will be six on the video.)

Since spinning makes everything weird I don't think I'll be doing that many hip circles in my act tomorrow (I'm aiming for two), but I do feel as though the act has quite suddenly, and at the eleventh hour, coalesced.  I ran through a few times last night and for the first time it started to feel like a whole, not an assemblage of skills.  I feel as though this isn't entirely in my head, since as I was packing up, Helene (this Helene, no less) remarked that it was looking good.  Yay!  Good is good!

All this means that instead of being Category 4 nervous right now, I'm more like Category 2.  (Yes, I currently swamp small boats and contain winds up to 110mph.  It's somewhat uncomfortable.)

But if I think about the fact that I will be receiving feedback from my peers (i.e. people who will not be impressed that I simply didn't fall off), it climbs back toward Category 3...

I'll have video of the show to post too!  See you on the other side.

OH MAN, YOU GUYS.  Static trapeze class yesterday was exciting.

About three quarters of the way through class, Daniela whipped out the gloves (for her) and fashionable belts (for us) and popped us up into lines.  The class mantra is "Julia will demonstrate."  Any time Daniela announces that next we will do some new/slightly obscure skill, someone else in the class will not have seen it before and Daniela will say, "Julia will demonstrate."  It's okay, I don't mind.  I just know to go get some chalk as soon as people start furrowing their brows.

That's a long way of saying that I went up into lines first.  Daniela had me start with gazelle to ankles, which is a drop that we'd been working, either in lines or with Daniela hand-spotting, for the whole semester and earlier.  I'd been getting the hang of it, especially as my brain got used to the fact that hanging by your ankles is actually a pretty secure way of being on a trapeze.

We did it a couple of times.  Then Daniela asked me to pass her one of the lines.  I figured I'd somehow managed to get it tangled and did so... but she kept it.  I was only hooked up on one side of my belt.  This way, she told me, she could save my life if I fell off the bar, but she couldn't help me.  And she asked my classmate to get off the bar to the right of mine, since I only had the right-side line attached and in event of life-saving, I'd swing way the heck out to the right.

This made me a little bit nervous, but I've "tested" the lines before:  Daniela caught me, a couple weeks ago, when I fell off the bar from a heel hang.  She flew across the mats, but I landed on my feet.   The lines work.

So I did the skill: gazelle, extend leg, flex feet, square hips, slide to ankles.  Done and done.  We did it twice.  I continued to not fall off the bar.

"Now pass me the other line," said Daniela.

The woman knows how to ratchet up the suspense, you have to say.  My classmates goggled up from the floor, and I sat back up on the bar with no lines.

I've heard people say that they like this scenario: you're wearing the goofy safety belt, you can see the teacher holding the lines, and your brain feels safe enough to do the skill on your own.  I'm not so sure this false sense of security is a great thing-- not that I ever do tricks deliberately sloppy, but I don't want to be relaxed when my ankles are the only thing between me and a fifteen foot fall.

Therefore, as I did the skill again I was mentally screaming "FLEX YOUR FEET FLEX YOUR FEET FLEX-- oh thank god we've stopped moving."  It was totally fine.  I came down after practicing another drop (back balance to ankles-- it's the back balance that sucks, not the actual drop) WITH lines, and then hopped up on another bar and did gazelle to ankles without lines/belt/false sense of security.  I have broken it in.

That's the "good news!" of the title.  The "good news?" arrived in my inbox this morning.  Something called the Circus Center Open House is happening in late December, and Daniela suggested that I do my act-- in whatever form-- for the occasion.  I literally know nothing else about it, except that it's during the afternoon on the weekend and it's "very casual."  I assume this means my act doesn't have to be polished... but that I do have to have something that doesn't look totally goofy and provoke onlookers to say to each other, "is she in Static 1?" or "Oh cute!  She must have just started!"

As I mentioned previously, Daniela has been plotting to put me in front of an audience in December anyway.  Her original suggestion was for me to pick a Friday evening (not too crowded), summon/bribe/blackmail friends and coworkers into coming round to Circus Center, and showing them my larval-stage act.  I agreed to this proposal with nausea and dread, and my reaction to today's e-mail was initially the same.  But now I'm starting to feel a bit better about it: I didn't like the idea of having a "fake" performance-- just me, with only people who I knew in attendance.  These people, because they mostly like me (except for the blackmail), are unlikely to provide useful (i.e, realistic) feedback, and there's the possibility that I'd show up for work the next morning and my coworkers would be all secretly, "dude, she's a terrible trapeze artist."  Awkward.

Instead, I now have to face the possibility that a bunch of near-or-total strangers will walk away thinking "TERRIBLE" and who cares?  I'll probably never see them again, the losers.  Plus, there will be other aerialists and whatnot performing at the same time, meaning I don't have to carry the show.  Steal it, maybe, but not carry it.  I do actually want to perform: I just want to perform well.

Guess what that means?  A month and a half of serious practicing.

In case you were under the impression that my feet, these days, are whole, painless, and free from unsightly bruises and scrapes:

You stand corrected.

And I stand very carefully.

So, Circus Center just wrapped up a pair of shows: the first, "Pratfalls and Rising Stars," was put on by the graduating students in the Professional Aerial Program and the Clown Conservatory.  The second was the school's annual Showcase, and acts were provided by regular-old-students like me (except, like, better than me) and by the Youth Circus.  Although I would normally have nothing but dark feelings for any conjunction of events which kept me off a trapeze for almost two weeks, I saw both shows and they were both good, so I guess I forgive them.

The website had a little blurb about the Showcase that actually applies to both shows-- and, as a matter of fact, my life:

"What happens when the circus takes over your life? Our performers from varied backgrounds train hard for inconceivable reasons, all for a few moments of glory. Circus Center celebrates their dedication and bravery with music, sweat, laughter and applause. Join us and leave happy!"

Note the insinuation of madness ("train hard for inconceivable reasons").  Very apt, that.  When the circus takes over your life, your friends usually decide that you're nuts.

Nor do laypeople necessarily intuit the compulsive, life-consuming power of circus arts, but this was on display in every act to take the stage in both shows.  Here were people who spent all their time, at least for the past few months, practicing.  In the case of the Pratfalls show, the students had been hard at work for between a year (for the first level of the Clown Conservatory program) and three years (though some of the aerialists get off with two).  I can personally attest that the aerialists work hard, since there has rarely been a day between April and June that I didn't see one or several of their acts being rehearsed while I was practicing in the gym.  The end result was spectacular: any of the acts could have been plopped as-is into a respectable circus and no one would have blinked.  This wasn't by any means a hi-tech production (the gym, the school's main space, had been converted into a theater with some lights, some bleachers, and a handful of black boards to create the illusion of a backstage), but the simplicity of the apparatuses meant that the talent of the performers shone brightest.  They conveyed that combination of grace, strength, and daring which makes aerial work so delightful to watch.  At the end of the night, I was inspired: this semester, I'm going to practice more!  And better!  And with enthusiasm!

The second show, the Showcase, was a little more diverse.  The tone was a little less sophisticated, a little more relaxed, which suited the fact that there seemed to be more children attending.  (A note to parents: I applaud your support of circus arts and your attempt to interest your small child, but if said child is terrified of clowns, perhaps a show that is 50% clowns, such as the Pratfalls show, is not a good first step.  Nor should you and your screaming offspring sit next to me during the performance.  Thank you.)  The aerial acts, always close to my heart, continued to be largely excellent: there were not one, but two static trapeze acts that thoroughly impressed me, and the show opened with flying trapeze.  I always forget the sheer pleasure of watching people fly around and catch each other. It's so beautiful, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The Youth Circus, a gaggle of acrobatic teenagers, showed up regularly.  They themselves were good, but there were some questionable music and costuming decisions made on their behalf, and the clown gag that was used to introduce them got old, fast.  But then, if you're fourteen I guess it's your prerogative to be a little awkward, and I can't but be impressed by a group of people who performed floor acrobatics, Chinese pole, and hoop diving (and some of them did more than that) in one night-- and that was the day's second show.  Some of the other acrobatic acts were impressive, too.  How about Chinese pole with roller blades?  Or hand balancing on tiny little wooden blocks, stacked end to end?  During the second act, my little peanut-gallery brain was certain he was going to fall, and I wanted to cover my eyes, which never happens to me.  But I didn't, because my desire to see him not fall overwhelmed my fear that he was going to fall.  He didn't, and the crowd went wild.  Which is the way it should be.

(And once again, by the end of the show, I was inspired to go practice.)

But I'm forgetting the clowns, and you should never do that (they can always pluck you out of the audience and make fun of you).  Many of the clowns did double duty in both shows, but they recycled very little material, which must have meant a lot of work for them.  In the Showcase, a lot of their work was bring out or taking away crash pads for the aerial acts, or otherwise distracting us while equipment went up or came down.  In the Pratfalls show, though, they were the stars.  A clown orchestra provided music (you haven't heard Beethoven's Fifth until you've heard it done by clowns), and its component members demonstrated a wide variety of clowning techniques, all of them funny.  I can't recall a single piece in the Pratfalls show that wasn't at least mildly entertaining, and some of them made me really laugh.  Really: one piece brought tears in my eyes, and I couldn't breathe, and my abs were starting to hurt.  (I won't try to re-create the act, but it involved making fun of the aerialists.  Always a good time.)  Incidentally, they delivered on the actual pratfalls, too: there were a couple that looked so real, I thought the clown had actually fallen, but I was already laughing in spite of it (the Clown Conservatory curriculum includes a lot of acrobatics and body awareness so that this kind of thing is possible).  If this makes me a bad person, I'm okay with that.

And it was a couple of clowns that gave me my favorite moment of both shows-- and before the show began, no less.  I volunteered to help set up the concessions area, which first involved climbing a lot of stairs and retrieving tables and things from very strange little storage areas throughout the CC building, and then required me to stand behind a table and sell drinks.  Before the show began, some of the clowns came out and started mucking around in the lobby to entertain people as they arrived.  There was a little girl-- about seven, I guess-- sitting with her parents, and she could not stop giggling.  Like, cracking up.  The clowns could do no wrong by her, and her laugh was infectious.  Soon, we were all grinning at each other behind the concessions table, and the people buying tickets and popcorn were smiling.  Even during the show, I could hear her way across the gym, laughing her lungs out whenever the clowns got going.

It made me remember, for the first time in awhile, why I wanted to be involved in circus.  It's not that circus performers have super-human powers, though it might look that way sometimes: we have human powers, and the connection a good circus act forges with its audience is uniquely and fundamentally human.  I'm not a clown and I don't know that I'd make a very good one, but I have the same goal of crossing the barriers that we put up.  My goal as a performer is to lift hearts in the way that mine has been lifted so many times.  It was lifted by both of these excellent shows, and even by thinking about them now.

So, yes.

Now I'm going to go practice.

Yesterday, this happened to me at work:

Girl: What do you do at circus school?
Me: Aerial stuff.  I'm interested in trapeze.
Girl: Oh wow!  That's cool!  Can you walk on it, yet?

Walk on it?  I think, trying not to look perplexed. Where would I go?  Wait-- is she talking about a tightwire?  She was, and this isn't the first time this conversation has happened.  At least three other people have explicitly assumed that "trapeze" means "tightrope," and there have been plenty of times when the other person says "right... trapeze..." and looks vague.  I hardly need mention that explaining "silks" is even worse.  Those conversations usually go like this:

Me: It's two* long pieces of fabric that you climb up and roll down... and stuff.
Other Person: Uh... like a trapeze?
Me [uncertain whether they're actually thinking of tightwire, but realizing it will be useless to press the point without employing diagrams and possibly a youtube video]: Yes. Exactly.

(*This is actually untrue.  It's one piece of fabric, folded in half at the top, but unless you're talking about rigging, which is usually not the point of these conversations, then this detail will only gum up the works.)

The term "trapeze" is non-descriptive, I realize that, and "silks" could be anything.  However, the terms "tightwire," "tightrope," and/or "highwire" are descriptive.  And my brief survey of circus-related literature and lore has lead me to believe that trapeze is the quintessential circus act.  Trapeze artists have, in the public imagination, a level of glamor that isn't given to many other performers.  I've heard plenty of people assert that it isn't a circus without a trapeze act-- though I've also heard this said of elephants, and I disagree.  (And they're almost definitely referring to flying trapeze, if they're picturing any kind of trapeze at all, and it's impossible to explain the difference between flying and static trapeze to someone who potentially thinks a trapeze is actually a tightwire.  I'm just happy if we arrive in the vicinity of any manner of trapeze over the course of the conversation.)

It's possible that this is all a conspiracy perpetuated by trapeze artists themselves.  They're a clever bunch.  But still: if the trapeze is a distinctive act which everyone knows and loves, why do so many people get it wrong?

So, my new purpose in life is to increase circus literacy, starting with the trapeze thing.  No more shall my casual conversations with strangers be tyrannized by misinformation and confusion!  No more will I be reduced to scribbling little diagrams of three-sided rectangles on scrap paper and saying "see? this is the bar, those are the ropes."  Instead, I will scribble a little diagram on the computer and post it here for worldwide dissemination:

If you'd like to help, you can print out and distribute these wherever you think circus illiteracy is rampant (which... seems to be just about everywhere, except maybe inside a circus school).  Cash donations are also warmly welcomed.  Together, we can make Trapeze Confusion a thing of the past, and move on to bigger issues, like Clown Discrimination and the dreaded "They're Just Doing That With Lights/Wires/Special Effects" Phenomenon!

San Francisco is a circus mecca.  I don't know if the multiple circus schools came first, or if the circuses produced the need for places to practice and create new addicts.  (I do know that there's a definite relation.)  Either way, on my first day at Circus Center, I took one pass by their announcements table and came away with a handful of fliers, and a circus to go see every weekend in January-- and that's not even utilizing the fact that Cirque du Soleil is in town.

Last weekend, it was the totally delightful Sweet Can production company.  Their six-person team includes several past and current teachers at Circus Center, and after seeing the show I recognized a few of them warming up or practicing.  The absolutely incredible Kerri Kresinski is practicing on tissu almost every time I have a class in the main gym.  The show had fantastic, Eastern-Europe-inspired music and the artists-- aside from being immensely talented on an individual level-- had great chemistry in their quirky dance and group acrobatics numbers.  It was quirkily homegrown, professionally executed, and totally magical.  As all good circus (or dance, or theater) productions do, it made me remember why I'm going to all the trouble of circus school: so that I can someday make people walk out of a theater feeling like they're floating, and send them home feeling inspired to create something beautiful for themselves.  Sweet Can pulled it off.

As a bonus, I got to see two skills that I had only heard of or seen in videos: slack rope (which is like tight rope, but, you know... slack) and single point trapeze.  Single point differs from static trapeze in that only one rope, not two, is attached to the ceiling, making it possible to spin the trapeze.  It looks like fun.  Slack rope looks just plain hard.

Then, last night, I trekked out to see Circo Zero's return production, Sol Niger.  Again, six artists; again, minimalist sets.  But this was a whole different circus: this was, according to their flier, "postagitprop political theater."  I'm not going to pretend I know what this means.  I can tell you that there was a lot of stabbing baby dolls with forks, and people walking around in Abu-Ghraib-syle black hoods, and that it often felt clichéd and heavy-handed.  The two aerialists-- one of whom I recognized from the Circus Center-- were excellent and their acts were innovative, but I would have like to have seen more of them.  (And, yes, there is something to be said for the technical difficulty of performing trapeze with a hood on.)  The show pulled off its metaphors when it made fun of them, but that wasn't often.  Overall, it wasn't my cup of tea: I like less politics with my circus.  And I heartily embrace my status as a middlebrow.

The next item on the menu-- the New Pickle Circus, next Sunday-- promises more conventional fare and another heaping dose of faces from Circus Center, as the two organizations are closely intertwined.  I have to admit, it's pretty cool to see some dude practicing his juggling across the gym every night and then seeing him doing it onstage.  Maybe someday the roles will be reversed, and some eager circus newbie will recognize me as "that girl who's always practicing at Circus Center."  Oh, the glamor...

The final paper is finished, the exams are done, and I'm here in San Francisco on Day 3 of a four-day house-and-job-finding trip, or as my dad called it once, the "exploratory mission" (makes it sound official).  I have, in fact, been successful on the "house" part, and found a room to stay in over on the west side of town.  It was the second place I looked at, which both makes me think I've been slightly hasty, and makes me glad that I cut out all of that running around town to look at crappier rooms.

Although I've been running around the city anyway.  Yesterday I came up with some spare time and was a tourist for a little while in spite of a constant, cold drizzle and blustery wind that frequently turned my (cheap) umbrella inside out.  All so that I could bring back pictures:

...and the Japanese Tea Garden, also in the rain...

Then I went to the Circus Center, even though it's closed for the holidays, just to stand there and go "Wow!  I'm at the Circus Center!"  It worked.

(sorry about the raindrop in the middle one.  I had to prove it was actually raining.)

And guess who else is in town?

Since I'd gotten all my business done, I made a last-second trip to worship at the shrine of Cirque du Soleil.  I'd never seen Kooza before (it's new) and though I'm still not thrilled about the name (makes me think of koosh balls-- remember those?) it was pretty good.  They didn't have silks, but they had a swinging trapeze act that made me think "maybe I'll look into some trapeze stuff at Circus Center..."

I still have another day and a half here in town, and almost no plans.  So maybe I'll go play the tourist and take some more pictures... especially since it stopped raining the moment I got back to the hostel yesterday (but I'm learning all about microclimates!

Incidentally, anyone thinking of moving or even visiting Sa Francisco would do well to invest in the Not For Tourists Guide.  It's already saved my life about nine hundred times, as it contains lots of information about where to get coffee, or catch the bus, and is fairly frank about the quality of that coffee and how late your bus is likely to be.

And look at that discreet black cover. Every other guidebook has a big ole picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the front that screams "I'm a tourist!"  Now you can pretend not to be a tourist, until you bust your cover by not knowing where to put your money in the BART ticket machine.  Or you whip out your camera every ten seconds to take pictures of rain-sodden landmarks...

I set up my class schedule (and wrote a big old check to the Circus Center) yesterday evening.  Here's what I'll be up to:

Aerial Conditioning
Aerial Skills
Aerial Silks (picking up on a theme here?)
Extreme Stretching

I admit, items 1 and 4 are slightly frightening to me, since in my experience conditioning=agony, and well, even ping-pong is threatening when you put the word "extreme" in front of it; my ligaments quake in terror at the prospect.

But the rest of me is thrilled!

Ah, another Sunday night of avoiding writing my (monstrous, slightly daunting) final paper, going to bed at a reasonable hour, and posting my damn furniture on Craigslist.  But while doing nothing productive, I found a video about the Circus Center, where I am destined to be in [checks calendar] 35 days.  Picture me climbing those steps, jumping around on that equipment...