Fire Pixie in New Zealand

I'm in New Zealand!  So far it's been awesome.

We had a mostly uneventful flight in spite of some Southwest screwups (which the subsequently fixed with no harm done).  I discovered that Ambien on the plane is just about the best thing EVAR and I'm never flying a long long way without it, ever again.  :) 

We're staying with my friend Josh just outside Wellington.  He's got an awesome crazy industrial warehouse space converted into ManCave(tm) and we've got a little Pixie Lair set up in one corner.  This means I've got a kitchen and unlimited internet access, which is awesome.  He's also got an aerial rig point, 3 Tesla coils of varying sizes, a theremin, a vastly overpowered hand-built electric go-cart, and an incredible vast array of geek paraphernalia.  (Yesterday he spent the afternoon making his own screws)

Josh is Mr. Google New Zealand, and used to be our Fire Safety guy when he lived in the bay area.  Incredibly interesting people keep dropping by.  He's friends with what he assures me is most of the circus community here in Wellington, and now we're friends with them too and planning a day of fun and circus training tomorrow, followed by a fire jam on Tuesday night.  Yay, Circus People!!

Last night Josh had a party at which we performed.  I did my newest tissu piece, which went off without a hitch despite the alarming proximity of a built-in bookcase with very pointy corners and the fact that I was on an unfamiliar and VERY stretchy tissu.  Evidently that's just how they are, down here.  Like, you reach up as high as you can and take your first climb, and you find you are still standing on the ground.  I had to do a few modifications to some of the moves I was doing (on a stretchy tissu you can't just "grab higher" on the pole because as soon as you let go it rockets upwards and you reach but then end up grabbing *lower*) but with a little practice, it worked out just fine. 

Andrea (the tissu artist whose tissu I was using) did a performance next which was gorgeous, and then we did our fire show and it was really well-received.  The rest of the night was meeting all Josh's fascinating and highly geeky friends.  It was a perfect mix of wacky circus people and geeky tech people, which really works better than you'd think.  :)

We've got plans to hang around Wellington this week and then visit the south island next week, where we will take plane rides and go canyoning and possibly bungee jump and ride the luge and have all kinds of lovely adventures. 

YAY new Zealand!

Free Standing Aerial Rig - First time assembly!

A week or so ago my aerial partner Miriam ordered and received a brand-new free standing aerial rig from Trapezerigging.com.  We found a day that wasn't too rainy and headed over to her place to unpack it and assemble it.  SO MUCH FUN

It's like a giant swing set!  A *giant* swing set!

Which piece goes where?

Set up at the 14' height

It's up!  Installing the tissu

Woo Hoo!  It's working!

I had to try it too

The web site claims that 2 people can assemble this rig in about 10 minutes.  There were 3 of us, and it took us about an hour, but that includes unpacking time and head-scratching time and a space that was juuuuuust barely big enough for the rig.  The base requires 24x28 feet of space, which is just about the exact size of the yard we were in, so there was a little bit of wiggling and scrunching to get it to fit right.

It was incredibly easy to put together.  I think having 3 people is probably the way to go, but could have done it with 2 in a pinch. 

Its height is 18.5 feet maximum, and it can be assembled at 14 feet by leaving out one of the pole sections.  The rig is incredibly well designed, and will be really easy to take apart for transport.  It will fit in a midsized car (if it's just the rig and the driver), at least, we *think* it will.  Haven't tested that yet.

So .. bring on the outdoor summertime aerial shows!  We are equipped!

Las Amigas del Fuego - New Tissu Routine

I love doing aerial tissu.  I love it when I've been doing regularly for a good long while and I'm feeling strong, and most especially I love it when I'm working on a new choreographed piece.  Regular practice is fun, but working towards a goal is just SO much more satisfying.

Right now I am choreographing a piece I'll be performing in New Zealand (!!!) for our upcoming trip in April.  It's about a 4 minute piece, choreographed to Las Amigas del Fuego, which is an original song by my hubby Darrell.  I sing harmonies on the song too, so this piece just feels creative all the way down to the roots.

It's got a bit of a flamenco "feel" to it, so I'm learning a few flamenco "florellos" and planning on working up a flamenco-inspired costume. Maybe I need a rose in my teeth.  Hmmm.

I'm at the stage where I've got all the moves I want to do, and I'm hammering out timing and synching with the music, and adding in flair and dance-y stuff.. and this morning, for the very first time, I completed the entire routine (including ending drop) in time with the music!  This is SO exciting, especially considering how a week or two ago I couldn't even get halfway through the choreography without gasping and losing grip and falling out of the tissu.  

Don't get me wrong.. I've got some good stamina, but learning a new routine is taxing on so many levels that one often forgets to do things like "breathe".   And I'm incorporating two rather scary moves, a dive and a drop - and that fear of letting go never seems to wane completely.

Still: I made it through!!  YAY!  Now it's time for tweaks and polishing and costume design.. and soon, performance!

Cirque du Soleil and inspiration

Yesterday being Darrell's birthday, I took him out to (an unfortunately mediocre) dinner and then to see Totem, the Cirque du Soleil show that's playing in San Jose.

There was nothing mediocre about Totem.

OH I loved it.  I had a smile of absolute delight on my face from the opening act all the way through to the very end.  The costumes!  The music!  The impossible feats performed in front of my very eyes!!!  Oh, I loved it.  Yes, I did.

This morning, instead of going to the gym, I stayed in and worked on my aerial tissu.  I started choreographing a new piece to Las Amigas del Fuego (which is a kickass original song by Darrell).  We've been kicking around "music video" ideas for this song for ages, and I've also been wanting to choreograph to it, and it seems that everything is starting to come together nicely.

I worked for an hour and 45 minutes and I have maybe the first 3rd of it sketched out, with ideas about the middle and the end.  I'm doing a dive!   I've always been afraid of dives.  I also feel like the choreography is already really unique.  I'm at the point in tissu where I am knowledgeable enough that I can come up with new transitions and stylings for moves, and have even made up a couple new moves over the last few months.  (New to me, probably someone somewhere has done them before, but I still think that counts)

Next week my aerial partner is getting a freestanding rig (!!!!!!!!!) and so here's hoping that she wants to take it to lots of fun places and rig a tissu on it and play with me this summer!

 

Purim Fire Dance Show

Last night we did a fire show for a local Synagogue to celebrate Purim.  Since I'm not Jewish, I didn't know much about this holiday.  I'd heard it was a rather fun one.  Last year one of my Jewish friends brought me cookies, called Hamantaschen which was OK with me (cookies are always ok with me) and I'd heard that this is a drinking holiday. 

I didn't realize it was also a costume holiday!  We got to the venue and more than half the audience were dressed in silly costumes.  Costumes, drinking and cookie delivery?  This is my kinda holiday.

We did the show in our Renaissance costumes (that costume always makes me feel so twirly) and we fit right in.  There were dozens and dozens of Princesses (of all ages), people dressed as food (notably a whole family dressed as pizza slices and a VERY cute little 2 year-old cupcake), people dressed as Esther and King David to celebrate the meaning behind the holiday, and a fair smattering of ninja, jedi, hippies, and the like.  There were also a lot of people dressed as Italians - an Italian bike racer, an Italian dancer, Italian gangsters, and Italian Renaissance costumes.  Also there were two kids dressed as soldiers from the Israeli Special Forces. 

I love these little slices of life and culture I get to witness as a performer.  :)  The San Francisco Bay Area is awesome.  Happy Purim everyone!

Mermaid Oracle at Pantheacon 2012

This past weekend I got to play the Mermaid Oracle at the Pagan Alliance's "Vampirates" party at Pantheacon in San Jose.

This was my first time visiting Pantheacon and I had a really wonderful time.  The Pagan Alliance folks were wonderful and hospitable - and they had the best party in the whole convention!

I was set up in the gigantic bath tub in my swimming tail, which had been decorated with all kinds of mermaid-y stuff and looked fabulous.  I sat in the tub, splashing people, telling fortunes, blowing bubbles and being wooed by pirates.   It was a fabulous night!  

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the fortune telling / oracle aspect of this gig.  I hadn't ever done fortune telling before.  Nobody expected "serious" fortune telling or true oracular ability, of course, so I just decided to keep it silly and fun.  After all, a mermaid who's allowed herself to be captured and confined to a bathtub in San Jose can't be *that* all-knowing, right?


But the very first "client" I spoke to had a semi-serious question.. will my son be happy?  I looked back at her and opened my mouth.. and the words that came out left tears of emotion rolling down her face.  (I made her cry?? Wow.. that was unexpected..)  But they were tears of gratitude.. it seems she had simply needed someone to listen to her and believe in her, and.... well, if a magical creature such as a mermaid believes in you, then you're gonna be okay, right?

I answered so many questions throughout the night - serious ones, silly ones, irreverent ones and flirty ones, and I actually felt like a few of the people got some real answers.  Is perhaps the value of an oracle simply a sounding board?  A magical-seeming echo of our own thoughts, stirred around in the sea and repeated back to us with a more confident tone? 

Or, is it simply that when we open up and ask for advice from a stranger, we get a new perspective on our problems?

Whatever the reason, this was a great party, a unique experience and a delightful crowd.  I hope I get to do it again next year!

Light Shows with Flow Toys

It's wintertime, and the weather is iffy, so we find ourselves doing a lot of light shows this time of year.  Light shows can be done indoors, so, no worrying about fire permits or ventilation, and they're fun to watch and pretty mesmerizing. 

We use a variety of light toys for spinning, but our favorites are from Flow Toys.  Their lights are recognized as the best by just about every light dancer I know, and are used by most of the troupes and larger circus groups in the Bay Area. 

They've got loads of different configurations and LOTS of pretty colors.  These toys were designed from the ground up by professional light dancers, so they really meet the demands that performers put on them - they're reliable and sturdy and bright and really flexible. 

My heart belongs to fire, but if I am spinning lights, I love me some Flow Toys.