Orange County Fair

This week I began performing in the flying trapeze show at the OC Fair. It's fun! It's the first real paid gig for flying trapeze I've ever done. I did help with a commercial shoot at Paramount Studios once by swinging on the trapeze for lighting purposes, but I was not the flyer featured in the commercial, nor did I end up getting paid for anything I did that day. But that's a different story.

I went down to the fairgrounds on Tuesday to try on my costume and practice a couple of tricks without a crowd (the fair is closed Mondays and Tuesdays), and it all felt great! I could get into my tricks just fine with the corset top, and my catches were solid. Wednesday I headed back down to the fair early so I could watch their 4pm show to see how everything went before replacing one of the other flyers for the 6pm show. About ten minutes before the 4pm show I got a call from the rig owner telling me that one of their performers was stuck in traffic and wasn't going to make it in time for the show, and asked me if I would be willing to take her spot - without having seen the show myself! I awkwardly made my way down the packed bleachers and let myself into the performance area to quickly change, stretch my arms and chalk up my wrists. I did my best to follow the other girls' leads throughout the show, and it went well! My adrenaline was pumping and my legs were a little shaky while on the pedestal, but everyone threw beautiful tricks. When the 6pm show came around my shakiness had subsided a little, but I had a new reason to be nervous since a couple of my friends (who also fly) were seated in the audience.

I did two more shows today, and was given the opportunity to do a hoop performance at the beginning of the last show of the day. Since I hadn't performed a solo hoop routine since New Years Eve, I spent time between my two flying performances watching some of my old videos and re-choreographing my NYE routine so that it would work on the hoop they had up. My routine ended up being a little shorter than the time usually allotted for their static performance, but wasn't an issue as they have a person running the music transitions during the show rather than relying on a pre-recorded soundtrack. I got quite a few compliments from the rest of the staff afterward.

I'm supposed to get my schedule for next week in a couple of days - I'm looking forward to more performances!