My circus show "This End Up" wrapped things up on April 27th after two awesome weekends of shows. It was SO fun! We had a cast of 8 performers and 1 tech guy, and let me tell you - everyone poured a little bit of their soul into this production! Many of our performers hadn't met before rehearsals began, yet everyone fit together quite nicely and enjoyed bonding with each other during our time at the warehouse. Just a week after our last show we were in full break-down mode; disassembling the truss, scaffolding, lighting, cleaning, packing, moving, etc. When everything was cleaned up and power washed it looked like we had never been in the warehouse at all! Kind of sad, but satisfying at the same time knowing we had completed the project Mike, Krista, and I had set out to do last year (sad that Krista was unable to stay with us to see the final project - she's traveling the USA with another circus!). The doors to the warehouse may be closed, but our circus will go on! Throughout the process of setting up the warehouse and running the rehearsals Mike and I were approached and in negotiations for a show contract, and by the time we finished breaking everything down Mike and I had officially formed our LLC and signed the contract to bring our show to the LA County fair this fall! We are over the moon for this opportunity! We open labor day weekend, and will be performing 3 to 4 shows a day for 23 days between August 29th and September 28th. Now come the production meetings, budgeting, the restructuring of the show to fit into a 30 minute time frame, wardrobe updates, scheduling of performers (we only need 5 there per day instead of the full cast of 8), requests for permits, etc. We are going to be TIRED by the end of this, but a very satisfied, happy to be doing what we love kind of tired. I feel so blessed right now!
I have so much to say and no time to blog! BUT I needed to post something before April disappeared without a single post. I have something like 6 drafts saved and waiting to be worked on and I still can't seem to get my thoughts in place to finish any of them. I guess I've been pouring too much creative energy into my show, WHICH WAS AWESOME BY THE WAY, and didn't have any to spare for a while. Maybe now that we've finished our first run I can re-direct some of my creative efforts here and make this blog semi-readable again. Wouldn't that be nice?
Wait, what? It's been a month since I blogged here? Geez. I didn't realize how long it had been with all my posting over at my sock blog. Although I'm behind on my posts over there as well. Let's see...update. Between my two paid jobs I'm working somewhere around 28 to 32 hours a week. My franchise is still moving slowly, although I was able to email a bunch of information off to the parent company a couple weeks ago. I'm still looking for land and investors. Slowest part of the gig I think.
This End Up is moving along nicely; we finally have all of our cast members and we run rehearsals as often as different schedules allow. I'm working on choreographing my routine for the show, purchasing final apparatuses for the aerial numbers, selecting/ordering/making costumes for most of the cast, and am in the middle of a large sewing project to make the main curtain for the set. It's a lot, but it's all coming together. I mean, it better come together - our first show is on April 18th! We've already had several people purchase tickets through our website. Will you be coming?? I recently saw Totem by Cirque du Soleil while they were in Santa Monica, and I didn't have to pay a dime! I won tickets back on Valentine's day by following a twitter lead and hunting down the Cirque street team at the mall in Culver City. On the evening of the show my friend Elizabeth came with me and we had a fun time catching up. A few weeks later I visited Las Vegas for a bachelorette party and found a cheap ticket to Zarkana at the Aria. I had been wanting to see that Cirque show for a while since they have a flying trapeze act, and I ended up really enjoying the entire show. In other news, Los Angeles had a bigger than (their) average earthquake (a 4.4) the morning of St. Patrick's Day. It was the biggest earthquake in LA since 2008, and yes, I felt it! I was in the back/storage area of work about five minutes before I had to clock in when it hit, and it lasted longer than other earthquakes I've felt. I ended up walking out of the back room into the main part of the coffee shop to be out of the way of our heavy shelves in case they toppled if the quake got worse. I realized this was the third earthquake I've felt on a holiday - Christmas Day 1994 in Colorado, Easter Day 2010 in Los Angeles (the quake was the big one in Mexico, but we felt the sway when sitting down to Easter dinner at my sister-in-law's family's house), and now St. Patrick's Day. Very strange. Alright that pretty much covers it for now! I need to sleep a little so I can work on sewing more curtains tomorrow! COME SEE THE SHOW!!
My schedule is out of control! I'm busy all the time, I stay up way too late for no good reason (like right now), and therefore I am not accomplishing everything I need to in a timely manner. I have decided I need to get my evenings back on a normal-ish schedule so I can guarantee that I'm getting enough sleep throughout the week, and allowing time to get some work done! Rules I'm going to start implementing to help me do this: 1. Lights out by 11pm when I work an early shift the next day; midnight on other days. 2. Electronics off at least 30 minutes before lights out. This means I need to set the alarm on my phone for the next day before the electronic curfew. 3. Up by 8:30am on days/mornings off. 4. 10am-11am on Tuesdays and Thursdays are specifically dedicated to working on my business. I must be dressed and fed before this time so I can give this work my undivided attention for the entire hour. No social media may be used during this time. Email is okay only if it's directly related to business. I can work longer if I want to, but I cannot work less than this hour.
I may add to this list if needed, but I think it's a good list to start with. Please feel free to check up on me to make sure I'm following through!
I know we're in a pretty severe drought, but it's really hard not to enjoy this sunny California winter! I get to drive up to Simi Valley about once a week to fly at the Cotton Candy Club and soak up the sunshine. This week I finally got the nerve up to try a swing turn around. This is not an incredibly difficult move to do, but for me it was a little mental battle. Last year before I left my old studio I had attempted this trick one time, and it was not good. When you first start learning this trick the cheater version is to begin with your hand gripping the fly bar from underneath so that you can turn your body 180 degrees at the front end of your first swing to return to the pedestal immediately. Once you get the hang of the turn around you progress to beginning with your hand gripping the fly bar the way you would for a regular take off. You do a full swing, this time switching your hand grip to grab under the fly bar as you're in your "seven" at the back end of your swing, turning around at the front end of your second swing. At the old studio I had been comfortable doing the cheater version and was ready to move on to the two swing version. I took off fine, but when it came time to switch my hand at the back end of my swing I let my legs get into more of a six o clock position instead of keeping them in front of me in a seven. This resulted in slamming my left foot down HARD on the pedestal. I kept my head together and didn't do anything else stupid like letting go of the bar - I just adjusted my hands and did a face-off to the net to come down. Have you ever jammed your finger? That's what it felt like I did to my ankle; it was sore and stiff for months! I half wonder if I may have fractured something. Anyway, after that I never felt confident enough to attempt it again. Until this last Wednesday. Below is my first attempt. It's about time I got back on that horse!
