Holding Friends Hostage Proves Useful (Repost)

Oh, it proves ever so useful. Just strap them down. I prefer to use straightjackets, double reinforced cotton duct. Or if you find yourself without, and following a theme (I love themes) use duct tape. In this case tape them to their chairs. I am also fond of packaging twine. Thin yet strong these little wonders are very deceptive. Bonus – got some old dentist chairs lying around? They allow you to strap their heads back so they’re always facing towards your stage. They won’t be going anywhere. Now you have yourself a captive audience. If you feed them and promise to release them unharmed they also might provide you with some (honest?) feedback.

Ladies and Gentlemen, enjoy the show!

This gives you a chance to improve, to work out an idea you’ve had, to stretch out something to an extreme to see if it works. It’s like a mini workshop. You want to try out a new character you been batting around your head for a month, whip it out. Want to see if that extra flip or stunt will fly or flop with the audience, let ‘er rip. How about that secret new act you’ve honed on your own, shine baby shine!

Performing in front of your friends isn’t just a great workshop it’s also great chance for simple practice in front of an audience. Cirque and Sideshow performing is still performing and some still have stage fright. Wonderful point here is that with your bondaged audience members they really are captive and they aren’t going anywhere, so you have no fear of someone getting up and leaving for any reason. Potty breaks are just going to have to wait. You can relax, breathe. Take an extra moment and then start. Adrenalin will be pumping and half working against you in this respect, so just breathe.

Friends are wonderful, so giving, so accommodating, so selfless in giving up their time without hardly having to be asked. Their gift to you is your extra preparation and workout with your art, act, and self. *Just allow an hour of lead time to catch and tie down said friends.

(*this blog is assuming an audience of 5-10 friends, depending on how fast they all are)

(Originally written for CircusGeeks blog 12-27-11
http://circusgeeks.wordpress.com )

Oh, This Old Thing? (repost)

I am amazed, in awe, truly dumbfounded that anything we do could possibly become old hat; but sometimes to us it does. I have to wonder if my fellow acrobats go through this as well? Let me explain.

Sideshow by definition is based on the different, the oogie, and the thing that gets a visceral reaction out of people. A common pitfall in performing these stunts is that we become used to doing them, compare it to a long run of a theatre production if you like but on a longer scale. We get so used to the stunt we start to become numb to that which makes it special. What may be even tinged with a little sadness is we forget what it was like the first time we did the stunt, all those emotions rolled up into a tight little ball inside us. I dare say we may even become just a tiny bit jaded in this amnesia.

I recently had the luxury of watching my troupe’s latest round of trainees, whome I’ve termed our ‘Debutants’, train in fire eating – my specialty. Now I would hope I have not become jaded in the least with my love, but you never know. I just so happened to catch them on the night, after all the nights of lecturing and safety rules and prep, that they were going to put fire to torch and do their first eat. I was giddy.

I was amazed and in awe. I couldn’t take my eyes of off them, it was rivetted. It was as if I was seeing fire eating again for the first time, so raw. They were fighting with themselves. Well, actually to be more precise they were fighting with the human ingrained fear of fire hard-wired into the amegdala – it resides at the center of the brain and is the oldest and one of the first parts of our brains to evolve. It’s like stepping in the ring with Ali him-own-self. Believe me the first time you eat fire that torch looks for all the world like a flaming meteor coming towards your face. Every fiber in your being is screaming at you, “DO NOT DO THIS.” But we have a great coach, our Yoda, and we trust him enough to think for us in this moment – if need be – as our own thinking might be overwrought by the all too human fear of fire. These Debutants fought with themselves, which is a unique sight to see. A one-handed fight, torch in hand the other hand on hip; bicep, trice and carpi all in dynamic tension not knowing if it’s coming or going. She is trying to lower the flaming torch into her mouth and her amegdala is trying to save her from herself. Some balk and don’t finish the eat without shame. It is a difficult struggle undoing milliniai of genetic programming; but those who do succeed are forever changed. Those who conquer their ingrained fear of fire and finish an eat, even if they never eat another torch in their life, come away from the experience a different person. For at the very least, whether they know it or not, if they can do that they can do anything.

My eyes are wide, and my jaw is dropped, there’s a chance I might be drooling I’ve been frozen in this position for so long. But that is how drawn in I am by what my girls are going through. Their experience is captivating, so literal. I remember my first eat, the nervousness, the sweat, my flinch, the elation after the eat. I was Wonder Woman and I felt so free.

I don’t ever want to forget what that feels like, the fear, the fight and the triumph. Teaching and watching the lessons is a wonderful way to remember and keep the old feelings fresh. Even something as simple as remembering what the stunt looks like to the lay man helps. In glass walking I kid about “make the noise, we live for the noise” from the audience. But it’s also about the noise of each pop and crack of the glass that is singular and unique to the audience like their gasps are to us. So if they aren’t making the noise we’ll pick and pop through the glass until they do, and then we smile

(Originally posted for http://circusgeeks.wordpress.com on 12-3-11)

Don’t Try This At Home . . . For A Reason

“And the risks are what?”

Ok, so technically I’m not supposed to say that out loud.  I’m in circus sideshow.  I risk my safety, and sometimes my life,  for your entertainment.  But here I am about to learn a new stunt and we’re going over the details, and it just pops out of my mouth.  Oh, my new stunt?  It’s the Ladder of Blades.

I’m giddy

But first I have to build the thing, and my coaches have this very wax-on-wax-off philosophy about teaching.  It’s like this TV show I saw once where this kid wants to learn to ride a motorcycle but first his dad makes him take apart and rebuild the engine first.  So I’ll need wood, nails, and – oh yeah – 4 to 8 sharp blades.  Hehehehehe.  So, I’m writing down all the specs for the build and some notes on the stunt itself, and then he gets to the part about the hurting.

Course I knew this.  I mean come on, it’s a LADDER OF BLADES.  My feet are good and we can all thank my parents for the ballet lessons so my balance is fine, so I’m not too worried about slicing my feet open.  Sure sure, he says, but if I slip – and here it comes – I run the risk of taking a CHUNK out of my CALF.

Ok, let’s take a moment a give the public service announcement and say, Please for the love of all that is good -> Do Not Try This At Home.  Thank you.

Now back to you regularly scheduled blog.  Now normally I associate a chunk of missing calf with a shark attack.  Then again I eat fire, so this isn’t stopping me; I’m hand picking my blades this week.  But still it gives even the most hardened sideshow freak pause, and I’m thinking frankly it should.  Cause the day I stop worrying about the dangers I should probably hang up my top hat, for I shall be on a short time line to a mortal accident.  (Yeash.  Ok I’m starting to understand why my family looks at me funny now.  Ah well.)

So for now I’m thinking that I’m going to build one very sturdy ladder and get back into dance class, ’cause I am way too pretty to have asymmetrical legs.

 

(Originally posted in CircusGeeks http://www.circusgeeks.co.uk/ on May 17, 2011)

Event May 19th

May 22nd, Los Angeles

If you’re in Los Angeles this Thursday May 22nd, come on down to The Mezz at the Alexandria Hotel.  Circus Maximus is a great variety show full of Sideshow, Musicians, Clowns, Artists, Vendors and a bar.  Woo-hoo!  Starts at 9pm, see you there!