Cirque

For Gina’s show (“Pieces” at Parker Electric) I helped erect the rig the day prior; I then did a test run and confirmed that my act would be quite different if I wasn’t able to spin. Because the cords were longer and extended onto the floor, it (1) generated a terrifying whip effect as about 6’ of rope rapidly rotated around me (2) the spin quickly attenuated from the drag and left me static for a lot of my act. ...

I often have conversations about this topic (how old is too old to start dance? to keep dancing? what does it do to us to use our age as the reason that we opt out of movement or feel bad?) with others, usually either amateurs or professionals in dance, or dancers at parties who don’t consider themselves dancers, but was thinking about it more in earnest today. Some background: I started training aerial disciplines and contortion in my twenties, with poor physical fitness and no prior movement background. I was fortunate to be near a training center that had affordable and frequent training for adults. Even though it was quite cheap (~$100 for unlimited classes!), I had not had disposable income for this at any prior point in my life. ...

Last night we worked on this duo move where the base is sitting and the flyer does a Russian split. Some findings: foot placement is key (the reason I come out so fast here is that I feel like the shirt is sliding) need to grab spansets to increase the “distance” between base’s chest (aka the bottom of the hoop) and the flyer’s arms base needs to start from horizontal and sit up, following the flyer (this way you’ll get a more horizontal split and also the flyer can push against a “vertical” surface)

Myles invited me to perform for the rigging component of Magnitude 2025 (a Folsom circuit party on Saturday evening). Rigging The venue was SVN West. We had some issues with rigging (the heights were not ideal, and we had some cross-talk between the chains and the hoop that meant the chains hit the hoop spanset a bit when spinning even when the hoop was pulled out of the way, and because we tried to set the hoop as far away from the chains as possible, it was slightly too close to the (already too-close) gogo stage behind us, which meant that we clipped it at full extension). ...

Worked on two spin concepts for multicordes when training in Berlin this summer. Toe climb arabesque Supported with amazon arms, opens and separates the cordes to distribute them during a spin. Can roll through to then lift and toe climb. Penché Worked on a spin concept today where the spin started with a leg tagged to the top in a penché split. Most of the time spin is generated in a top-down position, i.e. arms overhead and legs below. In this concept the body is more lateral. The closest thing would be a split-spin on hoop or trapeze with one leg high and in front. ...

This echoing effect over time is one of the things I’m really drawn to regarding aerial movements (which I’m most drawn to in multicordes, where you can see in the reverberations of the cordes, and other spinning apparatuses), and I wanted to emphasize that digitally. I wanted to use a video capture of my recent multicordes performance at KAC (recorded by Lucy) to generate a trail effect of movement to explore this concept. ...

Performance at Kinetic Arts’ Summer Circus Celebration was good despite my act being quite unpolished (I finished it a week before). This was my first time performing multicordes in about 3 years. Apparatus changes I was excited to develop a spinning concept for the first time (this required that I change the hardware from a straight bar and tune the height of the cordes: ideally the cordes are just above the ground so friction doesn’t degrade spinning over time). ...

Early experiment of gif notation for ~30s of a duo act. By contrast, a verbal description of the 6 panels above would be: mirrored frog squat and catchers, transition to back balance, roll to duo right meathook, R pikes over the bar and M left leg hooks and climbs, duo split to left-knee catch, dévelopée out for duo bell beat prep. ...

Just got back from a 5-week stint in Asia to see family and friends and hitting the ground running to condition and develop my multicordes act for Kinetic Arts’ summer festival. I like this festival because it’s a well-equipped venue where you exhibit mainly to other aerialists, who are better-equipped to appreciate artistry than a naïve audience.

This move is deceptively hard due to the requirement of side-bending (and I have a lot of mass on my lats so there isn’t a ton of room to manuever) and the very intense feeling of skin shearing that happens when you extend the front leg. It’s not a move I can get very frequently but here’s my closest attempt done a few weeks after training. I think I have the flexibility to do this with both legs straight but currently just need to build up the pain tolerance for it. ...