43 posts tagged “trapeze”
Okay! There was an incident with the music (short, "don't get me started" version: WMG seems to think their music will do better out in the wide world if no one is allowed to hear it, which seems strange to me, but what the hell do I know) so this week's act has no music. Background noise, yes...but no music. Hopefully this is not a recurring problem [laser-beam eyes at YouTube].
I encourage you to put on the song of your choice and pretend. And then you can also say, "oh, Julia! You have such good taste in music!" Everybody wins.
Actually, this week has been full of incidents. And I have learned many important lessons. Such as: "Don't work on two sequences at the same time, because neither of them will be very good come Video Reckoning." And also, "Make sure you know your choreography before you get up on the bar with the camera rolling." And "If you insist on filming everything, bring extra batteries." And maybe most importantly, "Invest in better rechargeable batteries, because, seriously? All I get is TEN MINUTES?"
Important life lessons, friends.
Three unfortunate things:
1)
I really did forget my sequence, so I was "improvising," i.e., a lot of
this looks suspiciously like my act. There are also a lot of "why am I
up here again?" and "oh, my leg is supposed to be over here, actually,"
moments.
2) There was supposed to be a toe hang in the beginning, but guess who
tore up the front of her foot/ankle* doing toe hangs on Friday? [raises
hand]
3) It was much better with music. [more laser eyes]
Three excellent things:
1) It may look like my act, but the
sucker is four minutes long! I'm pretty proud of myself for coming up
with anything four minutes long that's not exactly like my act.
2) Changing the speed of the spin in angel (when I stick my arm and leg out, then pull them in): I could do that all day.
3) That final spin? The one with the one leg back? Highly recommended. You can crank up some speed there. I could also do that
all day, although I wouldn't be able to walk in a straight line
afterward.
More next week! Three to go!
--
*Is there a name for that part of the body where you hang in toe
hang? It's not really your foot OR your ankle. May I propose: the
fonkle?
If you didn't catch the post below: I am coming up with (and then posting video of) a new short sequence every week for the next five weeks. My goals are:
-somewhat fresh choreography
-dust off those skills I don't use in my act...
-new music
-posted Sunday or Monday (YouTube gods willing)
Embarrassing anecdote about the song: for nigh on two years of
listening to it, I have been mentally translating the title of this
song as "a green bottom." (Bottom as in what you sit on.) Only
tonight did it occur to me to check my high-school French: verre means glass, not green; turns out I was thinking of vert.
(In my defense, they sound the same to my badly-trained ear.) "A glass
back" (i.e., of an object, not a person--according to my French
dictionary) is more dignified than my translation, but not nearly as
funny.
You guys! I just had a cool idea:
I've been fooling around with different little mini-sequences on my trapeze, these past weeks. Different heights (for the bar), lots of different music, whatever. I'm thinking it would be a good challenge for me to slap together a new sequence every week for a set number of weeks. Every week, I post the new thing. Then on to another new thing. I will try my darndest not to repeat choreography, but since I only know a limited amount of moves, you may also have to use your imagination. ("Drop to ankles?! Why, I've never seen the like!")
I'm thinking five weeks, five sequences is pretty good--that gets us right about up to Thanksgiving (crap, really?), when Circus Center's schedule gets wonky. I'm aiming for two or three minutes each week. This is extra challenging because at the moment I'm grateful and excited if I can get on my trapeze twice a week.
And it will be extra EXTRA challenging because all but two of these weeks will overlap with the delightful literary mayhem that is National Novel Writing Month. I'll be writing a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. I'm sure I'll have lots of free time!
The first of these sequences, I can already tell you, is going to be fairly cohesive and well-put-together, because I've actually been tinkering with it for a few weeks. So before you laud my choreographic skills (if...you were going to do that), wait to see next week. Next week we'll see what I'm made of.
I'll have a video up by Sunday night! (Monday at the latest.)
Are you psyched? I'm psyched, are you psyched?!
Three things to note:
1) Whoa. Windows. I knew there was a reason I never film from this angle.
2) Toe hang. There is no toe hang. PROBLEMATIC.
3) That upside-down thing at 2:30? (I call it "kiki twist"--I don't know any of its real names.) That looks really good in this video, for some reason.
Also, if anyone knows where my costume is at this time, I will pay ransom money for it.
Three things to note:
1) Whoa. Windows. I knew there was a reason I never film from this angle.
2) Toe hang. There is no toe hang. PROBLEMATIC.
3) That upside-down thing at 2:30? (I call it "kiki twist"--I don't know any of its real names.) That looks really good in this video, for some reason.
Also, if anyone knows where my costume is at this time, I will pay ransom money for it.
I turn my back for a week and August disappears. This is so typical.
Okay, so it was a BAD idea to give myself a one-month deadline in a month when I'm away from my trapeze (and city) for a full week. Duly noted.
I had a good time cavorting in the sunshine of Lake Tahoe, but the month of August suddenly seems a lot shorter. Now I am back and I have a great deal of work to do in--let's see here--sixteen days. Here's how she breaks down:
- New choreography: Check. I even had the gratifying and rare experience of planning out a combination and having it work exactly as planned. That never happens. I would describe what it is, but it involves a pose with no known name (we here call it "Jen twist" after the Jen who created it/introduced it to Circus Center) and one with about fourteen names (unicorn, seahorse, gazelle twist...), so that might be less than instructive. I will try to come up with some video.
- Music: Check. I came up with several musical options, all of them my old music ("We Insist") plus something else. Marina has cast her vote for "We Insist" with the last forty seconds of another Zoe Keating piece called "Coda" patched onto the end. (I am getting handy with Audacity.) I agree with her. Now I just have to:
- Fit choreography and music together: No Check. No matter how much stuff I add, I always end at the same point in the music. It's starting to weird me out a little. Once I slow the heck down, I may need to re-re-tweak my musical selection or the choreography. Or both.
- Costume: Mostly Check. I've ordered something that retains the back and red color scheme of yore and has something of the same striped/slashed look, but it does not look prone to getting stupidly stretched-out and floppy after a dozen uses, unlike certain costumes I could name. But it hasn't arrived yet, so I can't say whether or not it fits like I want it to.
- Self-promotion: No check. I'm thinking that if I'm to be able to successfully volunteer for gigs, I need to have a more-or-less current video to show people at minimum. I'm not sure what else I ought to be doing on this front, so if anyone knows better than me, your advice will be warmly accepted.
Of course, now that I need to shake a leg and get all my ducks in a row (to wantonly mix metaphors) my body has decided that it really enjoyed not being on a hoop or trapeze for over a week. Last night I took a hoop class and then trained afterward. Today, my wrist is grumbling (in fairness, I did wake up this morning and find that I'd slept on it funny), these stupid callouses I have from toe-hangs are already bothering me again, and all the parts of my body which I would expect to be sore are definitely sore. Come on body! Get your head in the game!
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.
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.
