I got cast! (And not the broken-bone kind 😁)
Next audition on my radar is ballet-related, but I’m not sure when it is. Dates haven’t been posted yet.
Category Archives: cirque
Just A Quickie Before Rep
Two things: first, I’ve had plentiful occasion this week to reflect upon how radically dancing has altered my life.
Three years ago, I had a tiny handful of local friends and didn’t really really feel connected to anything or have any overarching vision guiding me.
Now I’m increasingly knitted into this strange, tiny, amazing world of dance and aerials people as my life furiously churns (ohai, unintentional modern dance pun) towards some kind of future in which dance and aerials are central.
I am stunned and awed and grateful every time I think it.
Second … Well, crap, I’ve forgotten what the second thing was. Honestly, it was probably about class this morning and still feeling like a space cadet whilst struggling against allergies.
So that’s me: an allergic spaceman.
If I was Matthew Bourne, I’d almost certainly write a ballet about it.
Remember That Audition Where I Fell Off The Trapeze?
The most interesting man in the world doesn’t always fall off the trapeze, but when he does, it’s during an audition … and lands him a callback!(1)
- Okay, so falling off the trapeze may have had exactly nothing to do with it. But still! I got a callback!!! YASSSSSSS!
Pretty much a perfect depiction of how I’m feeling right now 😀
Very Funny, Universe
Before tonight, I had managed never to really fall off the trapeze before. I’ve dumped myself off handstand-style once, but that doesn’t really count.
Tonight, I managed to take a legit fall—during my audition.
In retrospect, I made the wrong call abotu my music: instead of just going for the piece I’d intended, “La Mer,” which was a little too long, and letting them cut it off, I opted for “Beyond the Sea” (Bobby Darin’s version).
It turns out that the tempo of Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” is actually quite a bit faster than the recording I have of “La Mer.” I was tired and attempting to adapt, and somewhere along the line my brain decided halfway into an egg-to-pike inversion that I was actually doing the arabesque roll to sit that comes at the end.
Uh-oh. Here comes the Failboat.
Since one wraps one’s arms for the inversion in question, it’s not possible to do the roll in question without breaking said arms. I’m more afraid of breaking bones than of falling, so I basically just let go.
Allll Aboooooaaaaard!
Apparently it was a pretty spectacular fall—and a technically-correct one 🙂 I tucked and rolled, and as a result the only parts of me that hurt are my forearms, which is what happens when you wrap your arms and then do crazy shizzle.
I popped back up and was ready to hop back on the trap before they even had a chance to cut the music (though they did, in order to make sure I was okay). I sorted my way through the rest of the trap routine, though I didn’t do the arabesque roll at the end; my arms weren’t digging that.
Ironically, the rest of the audition went pretty well, and apparently my trapeze improv looked pretty great (the fall was evidently quite exciting as well :D).
So, that’s my life for you. When I do finally manage to fall off the trap, it’s in the middle of an audition.
At least I didn’t fall down during the dance portion? I did fall down during the acting part, but that was on purpose.
So there.
~
Oh, also, ballet was good today, petit allegro was far less bad than usual, and we discussed rehearsals for showcase, etc.
We also had a Physical Theater workshop, and afterwards I was chatting with the teacher, and she said something like, “So, you dance ballet?”
And I said something like, “Yeah, a little modern, but ballet is really my first language and my first love.”
Then she said, “I could tell—the legs!”
😀
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Eat All The Food.
The Morning … Erm, Evening After
Yesterday, BW said something like, “Just wait, you’ll hate me tomorrow,” when we were all gushing about how much we love his class.
Happy to report that my legs (and arms—even he said, at one point, “Wow, all this port de bras is really tiring!”) are doing fine today. Backs of the calves are a little tight, but that’s what I get for neither properly stretching nor thoroughly foam-rolling them.
Tonight we begin integrating the partner work in Knockin’ (which, you guys, really needs a better working title). We’ll see how things feel after that 😛
Last night, as I was attempting to fall asleep, my brain conveniently remembered that we have an audition coming up for which we need to whack together 3 minutes of trapeze or lyra work. It proceeded to keep me awake for two hours choreographing 
Have I mentioned that I really wish my Muse would at very least move to this time zone? I don’t mind if she chooses not to live in KY, but FFS, could she maybe try living in New York instead of San Francisco or Seoul?
OTOH, feeling better about the audition now. More worried about the dance part thanks to the fact that I’m sometimes memory-challenged when it comes to remembering modern dance combinations.
Work Song: Adjustments
So, I’m writing this at 3 AM, but scheduling it for Actual Morning.
We’ve had a late casting change for Work Song. My other boy wound up with a bounty of work projects, and he’s swamped. I’m fine with that; in the gig economy that feeds so many artists, you have to strike while the iron is hot. I love his work, so I’m excited about seeing more of it down the line, even though it means losing him for this piece.
Last night I asked GM, a fellow aerialist, if he’d like to try jumping in. His formal training in dance is pretty minimal, but he’s a very good mover. I think he’ll be able to roll with it. AM, AS, and I will be able to coach him on technique.
Interestingly, bringing in a less-experienced dancer has helped me to streamline my choreography a bit. I had about five different ideas for the third phrase, and only one of them is something I’d feel confident handing to someone with limited dance vocabulary.
It’s good to work with limitations. They make decision-making easier and help to shape the finished work. Just as the stone tells the sculptor what figure lies within, sometimes the dancers shape the vision of the choreographer.
We should be able to start rehearsing next week or the first week of January.
Ultimately, this piece is only about 3.5 minutes long. The rehearsal process will be less about learning the choreography, which shouldn’t be too hard, and more about making it really sing. There’s a lot of partnering in this piece, though it’s largely not of the classical-ballet bent. GM takes acro with me, so I suspect he can handle it. Timing and musicality are the open questions, one everyone learns the choreography.
I guess, really, this is my first professional project as a choreographer-director. I’m learning on the fly how to cast dancers, schedule rehearsals, teach choreography to four busy performers with very different backgrounds, make costuming decisions, and so on and so forth.
Having done it once, I feel like doing it again won’t be so difficult. The biggest ongoing challenge will be finding rehearsal spaces on a budget of $Zip.ZilchNada. The nice part in this case is that rehearsal space is built in. I teach with AS, and this performance is part of the Instructors’ Showcase, so we will be rehearsing at the studio.
Finding dancers isn’t incredibly difficult. I’ve managed to connect with a decent handful of adult ballet students who want to perform, including a fairly advanced core group. My aerials family is made up mostly of very game performers, a few of whom have reasonable dance training.
I might have to learn how to do fundraising stuff. The internets should make that easier.
I’m pretty excited about all of this. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the cat-herding involved in scheduling rehearsals 😛
That might not be as bad as it could be, though, because we’re all attached to the aerials studio, and we all spend a lot of time there.
More to come. It’s weird how far 2016 (the Year of the Dumpster Fire) has taken me as a dancer. No matter what I’ve said, one year ago I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be staging a piece (for four dancers!) with so much confidence.
Gives me something to look forward to in 2017 (which, hilariously, is the Year of the Cock).
Not Really Complaining
… Or, okay, yes, but really only whinging a bit 😉
I saw the nurse-practitioner (you guys, autocorrupt suggested MURDER practitioner! W… T … Actual … F?! o_O’) at my doc’s practice today.
She confirmed that I have a sinus infection and also a wee ear infection, which explains why it sometimes feels like the spirit level in my head is borked.
I’ve been handling this thing very conservatively — actually resting basically all the time, staying clear of strenuous activities (except for the part when I decided to be helpful and uninstall two of the three window aircons in the house by myself, which I did successfully, but which knocked me onto my backside). On the balance, I think it has paid off. In the past, my sinus infections have often progressed into bronchial infections by the end of a week and change, so the fact that this one had constrained itself to the confines of my head is comforting.
I’ll be taking doxycycline for a week and I’ve got a script for plain 12-hour psuedoephedrine for a while, so that should get me sorted and back to the studio.
I may attempt Killer B’s barre tomorrow, but I may not. It really depends on my balance and energy level. Today I am definitely listing to port (and not just politically speaking, though I did go and vote), so that’s a huge if. I might also hit up Trap 3 tomorrow night as a semi-spectator, but I don’t want to pull out all the stops right away. I have figured out that easing back into things is part of the deal for me.
On the upside, my blood pressure was stellar (110/56) and my heart rate was fine (75, which is lower than it often is in doctors’ offices, because I am still mildly stressy about being in them, which can be weird and hard and awkward if you’re an intersex person).
So things look doable.
Now I’m going to lie around and watch stupid movies and otherwise bury my head in the sand until the US General Election is over, at which point my friends will tell me whether it’s safe to come out or I should start burrowing a tunnel to Canada. Except by then I’ll probably be asleep.
In other news, I’ve been reading horse blogs, which reminds me how much I miss having horses in my life, which is why I avoid horse-related content.
Also, yes, I’m apparently a sucker for bright orange animals (though I’m not particular about the color of a horse; it’s what’s on the inside that matters).
Lyra Photos!
Nov 6
This gallery contains 10 photos.
My friend Kevin Spalding is a budding photog of the first order. Last Monday, I took a metric shedload of decongestants and pried myself out of bed in order to go dangle from the ceiling with my friend and trainer, CL, and another classmate of ours, AM2, who works in television media and did some did some […]
One Weird Thing
I will traipse happily through a store openly carrying underwear I have not yet purchased.
It seems I will also happily traipse across the studio openly carrying my dance belt.
Once changed, however, I feel weird traipsing back to my cubby or my dance bag carrying my underwear.
So, um, seriously:
WTF, self?
Edit: I just thought, “Well, I wouldn’t have any compunctions about performing in Just A Dance Belt, since that happens all the time.”
And then I realized that, apparently, I have absolutely no compunctions about wandering around in my skivvies at Burning Man.
So, apparently, it’s just carrying my underpants around in my hands that’s a problem?
Trapeze Thingy
This afternoon, things went well. “And So It Goes” (got the title wrong before) sets really nicely for an adagio dance trapeze piece. I roped Denis into doing some acro for the opening, though it was awkward because our portable crash mat is mas squishy — not particularly stable.
The performance piece was very much a work in progress. I forgot to do a couple of things I meant to do, which meant there was more improv than I intended, but the improv resulted in some nice moments, so I really can’t complain.
Our friendly photog, Kevin, shot pictures, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing them. After I finished, essentially everyone wandered up to em and said, “I wish I had your back flexibility.”
I am learning to basically just say, “Thanks!” without launching into a long and boring explanation of how one achieves that kind of thing.
Secretly, inside, I’m like, “BALLET, Y’ALLS.”
Well, okay, ballet and genetics.
But mostly ballet: ballet will make the most of whatever genetics you’ve got. The secret isn’t so much flexibility — it’s strength. Nothing teaches you to use your back like ballet. If you want to be able to draw your body up into an arc while dangling from one knee, do a billion arabesques (but they have to be good ones).
Anyway, after I did my thing on the trapeze, we also got to play on the lyra and do some crowd-pleasing acro. We had extra time because we all kept forgetting that we had 10-minute time slots 😛
That’s it for tonight. I’m itching to see the pictures, but also completely exhausted.
danseur ignoble 