🎃 🍁 🤡 October: Pandemonium Progress Report

Dear reader,

When I left you last, September was cosplaying as August and I was in the belly of the beast with preparations for an updated performance of BARBETTE at a public showcase called SANS FILET at La TOHU. I’d decided I was going to shoot one last time for Cirque de Demain and I needed to re-film my act with all the higher level technique I’d been grinding towards this summer.

(tech. by Clara Laurent)

Let’s rip the band-aid off: SANS FILET did not go well.

In fact, I would describe it as having gone low-key disastrously.

I DID get my video for the Cirque de Demain submission out of it – but only because during one of my technical rehearsals the day prior to SANS FILET (September 27th) I had had ONE passable run of the act. 

(The second one was garbage. Nothing went right.)

Here’s how it all went down.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

THE LEAD UP:

I was living out my circus-meathead version of Groundhog day. Starting my day with ballet training with Isabeau, shoveling protein into my face and driving across the city, stretching my aching body, and then leaping into a hard session of aerial straps with coach Victor Fomine. Evenings were spent reviewing footage from training, reviewing footage from old performance runs, testing new costume elements with designer Michael Slack, and many very hot Epsom salt baths.

I stuck to my plan. 

Life was very simple.

If it did not contribute towards the goal of creating the very best, very strongest, video that I could submit to the Selection Committee of Cirque de Demain, I wasn’t doing it.

Everything was ticking along well.

My body felt strong; I had no sprains or strains.

I was eating well, sleeping well, taking my rest days.

(Big Boy Jumps sneaking into everything I do these days)

But –because there is always something– the classic 11th-hour circus fuckery reared its ugly head nonetheless in the final week leading up to the SANS FILET showcase.

First, a necessary pre-amble.

There’s a saying:

“nothing is new in circus.”

It’s generally repeated when someone  thinks that they’ve discovered an aerial maneuver or position that has hitherto never been executed before in the entire history of circus, ever … and needs to be politely humbled. Just a little bit. Such a thing is, at this point in time, unlikely in many cases.

But an idea for a movement (combining two existing movements, really) invited itself into my mind in an unsensational manner one weekday morning, around 11am.

I described the idea to William and asked if any of his students at ENC were doing it; but he said he’d never seen it before and told me to go ask Victor, too. I described it to Victor; he said the same.

Considering how influential both men have been, and are, in the world of training generations of top tier aerial straps artists… how much they’ve seen and helped develop over years (or multiple decades, in Victor’s case) of work …

I shivered.

So ... knowing full well that this runs the risk of being a grossly arrogant thing to say if I’m wrong (hey, simultaneous invention is a thing) — I might have found something … let’s at least say, new-adjacent … (just to play it safe.)

(If I’m wrong, I’m sure the internet will eventually bluntly correct me lol)

The Big New Trick is part of the finale in my “pull out all the technical stops” version of BARBETTE – a version designed expressly to aim at Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain submission.

I busted my ass feverishly to research it the entire second half of the summer with Victor Fomine.

(I’m still paranoid enough about it that I’m not going to share a video of it yet … even here on Patreon … [for now]. So here's a photo of my godson, Maui, to buy your patience for now). 

But back to the fuckery:

Sometimes, circus tricks are like outdoor cats: they go off on their own adventures, leaving you to fret and panic that a coyote might have eaten them, until several weeks later they show up again sitting on your front step, cleaning their whiskers in a self-satisfied way completely at odds with the emotional torture you were grappling with in their absence.

It’s a process that is helped greatly by a coach being present to reassure you and guide you through the psychological desert of thinking you’ve lost this amazing trick and it’ll never come back; but even with a (coach) Virgil to your Dante, these things take time. Your trip through the circles of Hell and back cannot be rushed.

For example, when I got my flare-to-flag for the first time, it showed up and stayed locked in for a few months and then randomly disappeared for a couple frustrating weeks before showing up again as if nothing had ever happened.

The Big New Trick did that funny thing that aerial skills sometimes do: it was going great, great, great – and then one day, just disappeared from my body.

What timing.

It held too much value in the Demain-submission version of BARBETTE for me to abandon it – but for six or seven lessons in a row, every attempt was a flop. And I didn’t have anything else that felt sufficiently virtuosic-technique-world to conclude the number with.

I grit my teeth and stayed calm.

If you’ve figured out how to do this trick once before, you’ll figure out how to do it again – even if you’re starting from the ground floor again. 

I clawed it back from the brink by the time September 28th rolled around, but it still was living very much in a 50/50 place.

When it worked, it looked incredible; when it didn’t, it looked … well, I’m not sure what it looked like. I was praying that the SANS FILET day would be one of the days it worked.

(no lol, it’s not this )

Background chaos filled in the peaceful blanks I’d carved out for myself between training and rehearsals.

With days to go before the showcase, TOHU replied to an inquiry email I'd sent informing me that there was no videographer or photographer present for this unpaid showcase – but there’d be someone there taking clips for social media.

#%^$&@*()!) … sigh.

It’s fine. You’d have to pay at least $500 to rent out a venue somewhere else – at least the stage dimensions and height are exactly what you need. That alone is worth it.

Just keep your eyes on the prize.

I jumped into finding a skilled circus-familiar videographer and all the coordination that required, tamping down my growing irritation at the disorganization and misrepresentation of the event.

Andrew Miller and fellow circus artist Clara Laurent stepped up to the plate and saved my ass.

Outside of the studio, costume updates that me and Michael Slack had been sure would work fell apart in the days leading up to the show.

(Specifically: rare earth magnets rated to hold 80 lbs of shear force failed to stand up to the [allegedly] 12-lb weight of the Big White Dress and under-cage structure).

(testing, testing)

Back-up plans had to be deployed, and these back-up plans required fresh research and rehearsals all their own.  The costume moments and quick-changes of BARBETTE require (bizarrely) equal amounts of research and rehearsal as all the most high-flying, shoulder-wrenching technique I’ve trained my body to do.

(maybe not this)

There is no replacement for time, volume, and repetition when it comes to wrangling these costumes pieces on, and off, my body in a way that looks effortless.

Anything less than ‘effortless’ robs the piece of its impact: the delicate, suspended bubble of magic and wonder conjured by the music, the images, is popped! the second that I’m fumbling with a strap, stuck on a zipper, wrestling a loop open.

The Universe conspired once again with a very dark sense of humour to only have pullers available to work with me to rehearse full runs of the act with one week to go before SANS FILET. The full technical run-throughs, the new costume rigging and transitions, all had to gel within seven increasingly miserable days.

I was not following my Golden Rule.

I was not having fun.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

THE DAY–OF:

The SANS FILET event had been presented as a significant one: when I had canvassed Montréal artists who had performed at SANS FILET in past, I was given descriptions of the huge theatre of the TOHU being filled (several hundred people), of beautiful production quality, of videos and photos of the work being made from the event for the artists to use.

It’s an unpaid showcase, but the ‘draw’ to artists is use of the world-class theatre of the TOHU and the production of professional video and photo for you to use for promotion, submissions, etc.

There was already crossed wires and scrambling to be done about the video documentation –unpleasant surprise– but it turned out that that wasn’t the only way this edition of the event differed from iterations that have come before.

It hadn’t been advertised to the public at all.  During our general meeting before the event, one of the production coordinators laughed that they’d be surprised if anyone came at all, and to please treat it as an extremely relaxed event. I’d invited all the friends, artist mentors, former casting directors, current casting directors that I knew. I was cringing internally – they showed up to a near-empty theatre.

It doesn’t matter if it’s 400 people or 4 people in there Ess, I told myself. You’re here to get that video for Demain. Just go out there and do your thing.

But this was not what I’d mentally prepared myself for. In part, I’d set my set on SANS FILET instead of using money from your Patreon support to rent a venue (pros: a more controlled setting; setting my own schedule; being able to do multiple runs if needed) because SANS FILET held the promise of the electric kind of energy that an excited crowd brings to a performance. I’d felt and seen, firsthand, the impact that had on my performances from my July Monastere shows and I wanted the same for this final submission to Cirque de Demain.

On top of this, the rigging, the lighting, and the usable stage dimensions at TOHU turned out to be (a) not accurate to what had been relayed through emails leading up to the event, and (b) significantly problematic for executing the number that I’d been rehearsing. (e.g. I was told the stage was 32’ x 32’ / nearly 11m x 11m; but because of where the only rigging point was dropped down from the ceiling, only a portion of that stage was usable … and I’d counted on using all of it).

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I looked out across the yawning, empty black theatre before doors opened on September 28th. One of the venue coordinators words rang out through my head again. I’ll be surprised if anyone actually comes! 

I tried hard not to let it affect my headspace as I prepared to do my new, hardest BARBETTE ever … but I think it did. 

Upstairs in the green room, as I swiped powers and creams across my face, I felt a bright, fiery little spark of energy in the centre of my chest I’d kept alive for the last half of the summer tried to dull and fade.

I warmed up my body. Listened to my music and marked out my movements with my eyes closed in the green room, spinning around in time with the melodies. I climbed into my layers of costumes. Trotted down the stairs to the backstage area, awaiting my cue to take my mark in the blackout.

Tanya Burka and Sido Adamson pulled me up high into the air, swaying in the darkness. 

The first chime of the glockenspiel rang out through the space.

The lights came up.

The act began.

At first, I was doing everything right – but nothing felt right. And it unraveled from there.

The expansive, synesthetic sensation of shooting my energy out of my body to every corner of the room when I’m really shining on stage was nowhere to be found.

The big dress slipped partially from its rigging for Ghost Dress, robbing the moment of some of its visual impact.

My Big New Trick at the end was somewhere out back of the building, sulking and smoking a cigarette, and refused to show up for me on stage.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

AFTERMATH:

Was it a passable run for the friends (and patrons! Waves wildly! Hi! Thank you for coming!) who had come out to cheer me on?

Sure, yes. I suppose that’s the silver lining of doing “new”(er?) things. If you do them wrong, people don’t really have much idea of what you were trying to do in the first place.

But was it a usable run, the triumphant conclusion, that I was willing into existence for this last hurrah? 

No.  

After so much work, and so much build-up, it was a crushingly disappointing conclusion to my second-half-of-summer push.

In many ways, this was not a surprising outcome:

It was a huge ask to increase the technical skills of the number.

It was another huge ask to research and try out a new, faster way to rig the Big White Dress back up in the straps for the Ghost Dress sequence.

There was nothing wrong with what I presented; and nothing wrong with the approach I took leading up to SANS FILET to try to be prepared. Other than that ... all of these things simply require more time, so much more time, than we think they do.

To be easy.

To be accessible.

To be effortless in a way that lets you dissolve into the moment, the character, and become a conduit for what needs to travel across the veil, through you, to the audience watching.

I was trying so hard to bring my best.

And I did.

But it didn’t show up in a way that I feel confident somebody outside of me, or my circle, is going to be able to see.

To put it more simply (though a much more bitter pill to swalllow): my best wasn’t good enough.

Friends and professional peers came up to me after the show, happy, complimentary. Some of them said beautiful things to me about the act.

I listened, smiled, tried to hide my disappointment in myself.

Mostly I just felt an oily mix of shame telling me that I’d somehow tricked these lovely people into thinking something average at best was amazing; or that these lovely people were lying about it to try to make me feel better, pitying me [because what if maybe I wasn’t hiding my deflated disappointment as well as I thought I was hiding it]; or that I’d just disrespected all my guests by wasting their time and presenting them a mediocre-feeling version of what I’d thought would instead make them proud of me; and all sorts of other intense-feeling things, in one long cascade.

I’m left with a mix of sticky feelings. I’m still trying to sort through them.

While the video recording I have from my Friday September 27th tech run is … acceptable … for submission purposes, it certainly doesn’t feel like my best.

It turns out that I really need massive stage dimensions for the Big New Trick to look its best. It turns out that I have so much more rehearsing to do to make the new Ghost Dress rigging effortless, easy, so that I can return my attention to being in character fully on stage.

Since September 28th, I’ve felt so frustrated in knowing that the Cirque de Demain 2025 Selection Committee can only judge me on what they see in the video.

I found myself really, really, really not wanting to submit to the October 15th deadline.

I did —I'll tell you all about that in your next post-–  but the dark cloud of pressure bearing down around my temples didn’t lift.

I’m in waiting-mode.

At this exact moment, there's nothing left to do but wait while the Selection Committee of the 44th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain reviews all the applications ... and makes their decisions.

Feeling bruised but not broken. More from me again soon. Strangely, wonderfully, exhaustedly – 

s.

(mama 'Beau)