Trapeze building and pipe construction

So on Monday Vern and I put the peddle to the metal and started building the blocks for my pipe walking/hand balancing apparatus. The whole process of planning, design and building took a week. Actual construction just took a morning. The blocks are four feet tall and will eventually do the job of holding my 12 foot long, inch and 5/8ths thick walking pipe in place. Still planning to add some little flourishes here and there, like a plank off one side to hand balance on, and holes in front to walk up, but these are the basic building blocks (hehe) of the thing. I ordered the pipe at Dunklee's metal and will pick it up on Tuesday, so the whole thing should be done this week. Yay!

There's Vern working on drilling one of the walls.

Aren't they beautiful! We left the back end of both blocks
open to make placement and removal of the pipe easier.

Yesterday's trapeze building workshop was equally fun and productive. Turns out I'm a natural at splicing rope. I'm already in love with my new trapeze. Just need to finish constructing and sewing the arms, then I'm good to go. I guess Khoja the one eyed cat likes her too :)

Ah, splicing. Not bad for my first time, eh?

There she is.

That doesn't really look too comfortable, but she looks
totally blissed out. Maybe she has secret kitty aerial
aspirations. 

I've always enjoyed building things. Man, circus just won't stop giving me the opportunity to do ALL the things I love!

Majors and Minors

Back in December we had to choose our majors and minors, the apparatuses/disciplines that we would focus on and use to create acts for the end of the year show. These two acts, hopefully, will be ones that we can use to market ourselves and sell our skills. Yes, it's true, one of my ultimate goals is actually to make some money as a professional circus performer!

I came to NECCA with skills primarily in individual and partner acro and hand balancing. If your interested in what I was doing before school check out the act I created and performed with my buddy Micah in Jan of 2009. One of my goals for the year has been to build some skills as an aerialist. I spent a fair amount of time on the trapeze the first half of the school year and decided that it was definitely my preferred aerial apparatus. I like that it is swing-like. I like being able to sit, stand and hang on it. I like being upside down and right side up on it. And I like that you can do tricks in the ropes or with the bar. For a while there I thought I might like to do single point, or dance trapeze, but ultimately decided I should build a solid base of knowledge and comfort on the static trapeze before incorporating the dynamic swinging and spinning involved in single point.

So I decided to major in trapeze and considered a number of different possibilities for my minor. I thought about German wheel, wire, and duo lyra (with Morgan). Ultimately I decided to minor in hand balancing and floor acro. I knew I wanted some kind of platform or apparatus to do my hand balancing on, but didn't have any particularly compelling ideas. Early on in January I went to talk to Elsie who suggested I check out the pipe that they use in the children's classes to teach kids basic balancing skills. I went down to studio two, took one look at the pipe, and immediately fell in love with it. I could hand balance on the blocks and the pipe itself, and do tricks on the pipe, kind of like a balance beam.

So I spent the month of January suffering delighted and inspired by my pipe apparatus, and alternately crying and shaking through my trapeze classes. Ultimately, I've decided to switch my major and minor. I'm not giving up on trapeze, I still want to come away from NECCA with a comfort and working knowledge of an aerial apparatus, and an act that I can sell. But I've decided to major in pipe, where I already have significant skills, and the learning curve is not so steep.

This weekend I started working with my buddy Vern on designing a pipe apparatus similar to the one at school, but four feet off the ground instead of two. My coaches and I are thinking that this change will increase the possibilities for what I can do on the pipe, and raise the wow factor for the audience a bit if I'm a little further off the ground. It also raises the yikes factor for me, but I think it will be a good challenge.

NECCA Calendar

It won't surprise anyone to learn that I go to school with a group of unusually talented and motivated people. After all, these are folks who spend hours every day conditioning their minds, bodies and souls for the purpose of creating performance art to amaze and delight people of all ages! One of these great performers is Vanessa Vortex, comedian, juggler and strong woman extraordinaire. Between bouts of hoisting people in the air and standing on her hands, Vanessa came up with the idea of creating a calendar to document our year  at NECCA. Included are numerous pics of my multi-talented classmates, coaches and associates. You can check it out online and even order a copy of the calendar for yourself if you feel so inclined. Enjoy!

NECCA Calendar

Bohemian Bacchanalia at Oberon

Last weekend, in the company of the lovely Morgan Oldman, and many other fabulous Boston based circus performers, I took part in the lively, luscious, and at times ludicrous Bohemian Bacchanalia at Club Oberon. A couple weeks earlier, at home in Colorado for Christmas break, I was excited to receive a phone call from Morgan inviting me to perform with her again in Boston. Back at school in Bratt we worked out a souped up version of the duo lyra piece we'd done at Royale a month earlier. Accompanied by a fantastically seductive, emo tune from movie Twilight, and fantastic costumes (all thanks for Morgan) we took it up a notch from our previous performance. Nima came with me to Boston and took video of the event in general and our piece in particular. If he keeps it up I'll need to make him my official videographer. Check us out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJCLlU6OHw!

I absolutely loved the rest of the show as well, and performing with and for the Boston Circus Guild again was fantastic! The Guild is comprised of an delightfully motivated, talented, friendly and fun group of people. Here is a link to a video a video showcasing highlights from the evening. Fair warning, there are some gorgeous ladies performing mouth watering burlesque acts, so if semi-nudity is going to offend you might want to shy away from this one :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnBP0I7SfA8 

There were some great photos taken that night as well by professional ToddLee. You can find them among my photos on my Facebook page.

Royale

Did my first paid gig at the Royale night club in Boston last Friday night. Got the gig through my good buddy Morgan and the Boston Circus Guild. Morgan is a talented hand balancer, acrobat, aerialist, and owner of "The Cat With The Smallest Arms In The World" (see previous blog posting). Boston Circus Guild is a wonderful bunch of people who are trying, with significant success, to grow the circus community and facilitate opportunities for circus performers in Boston. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to work with them a bunch in the future. It is a cool thing to hang out with fantastic people, making money, and doing what you love. The fantastic people I got to hang with on Friday night were Chuck of Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band, and Mooch of A Different Spin. Both of these guys do a ton of work to ensure that the Boston Circus Guild runs smoothly and continues to grow. Also, they are a lot of fun, and they bring treats!

Morgan and I spent a bunch of the time the previous week up on the lyra (aerial hoop) together putting together our act for the night. Really, it was more like a series of poses and tricks than a polishes act, since the gig was ambient and not performed up on a stage. It was my first time working on aerial hoop, but lots of the stuff I've learned on trapeze over the past couple months helped me pick it up fairly quickly. And Morgan is a good teacher. She was also fantastic at putting together our costumes, doing my make up, and just generally reassuring me throughout the night that this was not a high pressure gig and that I'd do fine. And, surprise, I did! Both sets, performed between the hours of 12-1am went really well. And just as an added bonus, we shared the green room with was a fantastic Bhangra dance troup also performing at Royale that night. They were really nice guys, and their costumes were fantastic. Only bummer about that was the rival Bhangra group in the audience who made trouble for our new friends during their set. I guess when you're a Bhangra dancer in Boston you have to watch out for that sort of thing.

So here are some pics from the night. I really had a ton of fun. As soon as I get the video from Morgan, I'll post that too.

Me and Morgan feeling all good about things after our
successful second set.

That Chuck on the left, Mooch on the right, and the lovely
Morgan sandwiched in between.  

Super cute roomies

I just thought I should share that I live in Brattleboro with two totally adorable young ladies, Lauren and Emelia. They are both in the Protrack program with me. Together we live a block from school in a fairly big apartment that makes up one half of a duplex.

That Lauren on the left and Emelia on the right,
at my b-day party at Shin La.

Lauren and Emelia became good friends last year when they both did the Intensive program at NECCA. They fight and tease each other incessantly, and spend all their time together when they are not at school or working. I feel like I totally lucked out when I scored these two for roommates. Emelia, an absolute homebody, entertains my family or friends whenever they come to town. She became best buddies with both my mom and Nima both when they came to visit. Lauren is one of the hardest working people I know, seeming always to be either on her way to work, work study, or school. But when she's not, you'll find her hanging out with Emelia, and they'll probably be on the couch watching reality TV. Just where two circus ladies should be at the end of a long day.

On becoming an aerialist

So there are a few ways you can tell when an aerial habit is forming. Bruises behind the knees are a definite indication. Shore shoulders instead of knees is another sign. The last clue...landing a gig at a night club in Boston to perform...duo lyra? Yes, that's right, I'm headed to Boston tonight for my first paid circus gig. And it will be in the air (no mom, not high in the air), not on the ground.

Mucho gusto to my friends Morgan and Mooch for handing me this opportunity. I'm excited and looking forward to it...and also a little nervous. Morgan, my lyra partner, says it should be a low key, ambient gig, not like being up on a stage with an audience watching. So that's cool. A nice way to get my feet wet and hopefully it will open the door to working more with the Boston Circus Guild in the future.