Big E Festival

Anthony on the rig

Helped woman the aerial rig for NECCA at the Big E Festival in Springfield, MA today. Drove up around 9am this morning with my buddy Anthony who is also in Protrack. Arrived at the festival a little after 11am. Serenity showed us the basics of working the rig and how to bring the apparatuses up and down. I felt a might intimidated by the responsibility of the task, so good thing Anthony has loads of experience. He spent the summer touring eastern Europe with the Aerial Angels, so he's dealt with his share of rigs. Here's a pic of him cat the top of the one we used today.

Some great performances by young people who are students at NECCA. I particularly liked the duo trapeze act performed by Fern and Megan. And watching nine-year-old Emily on hammock. Awesome! Also, Anthony and I got to perform a little partner acro at the beginning of three of the shows. It was fun noticing my comfort with the crowd building each time we were out there.

After helping Serenity strike the rig we were free to explore the festival, and to go see the Big E Super Circus. T, another NECCA student, joined us. Ben and Jerry's gave us free ice cream cones for working the rig and I bought a hot dog for dinner, the single cheapest food item I could find at the festival. I got it with sauerkraut, so I sort of ate a vegetable today.

The Big E Super Circus was pretty fun. Amazing female tiger tamer act, great doubles trapeze, hooping, juggling and a quick change magic show. I had never seen quick change before myself, so I will explain briefly for those of you who are unfamiliar. Quick change is a version of illusion or magic show in which the performers appear to change their clothing multiple times throughout the act with impossible lightening speed. Sounds silly, no? Well, yes, but I must admit I was impressed. T pointed out that the woman appeared to be carrying more weight at the beginning of the act than at the end when she looked relatively slim. All those layers of clothes I'm guessing. Wow!

Overall a good third week at NECCA. We celebrated Anthony's birthday on Thursday by surprising him at Fireworks, a local Bratt restaurant, when he and his girlfriend Christina showed up for dinner. There were about twenty of us their and we all crowded around and sang to him when he arrived. He was so touched he even shed a tear of two. It was very sweet. Loving this Protrack crew and how we are coming together as a team of performance artists. It's very, very sweet.