An unexpected adventure

Sitting in our studio apartment, we watched our social media as people posted that they were all converging on Ireland for our favourite event of the year. The European Juggling Convention 2014.

It had been a bit of a rough winter - Luke was out doing street shows and I was struggling to find the motivation to keep up with my training. For the first time in my circus life I was working a 'normal' job to pay the rent, and it was not making me a happy human.
We were still teaching the circus classes over the holiday program, but the gigs were few and too far between.

A week out from the convention something happened that most people have happen on a regular basis.. It was payday, normal job payday - A month of my wages in one single day.
So I did what any circus-obsessed individual would do, and decided to find my circus feet again.
I booked two flights, for Luke and I, to Ireland to join the other 3000 circus artists in what can only be described as the craziest, wackiest, convergence of humans on this planet.

The event did not disappoint! Each day was spent in different masterclass workshops, training sessions, a 24 hour juggling hall, an acrobatic space, an aerial rig, a bunch of big tops, open stage acts, watching a show of the juggling legends (AMAZING btw) and somehow finding time for sharing tricks, and ideas with new friends and old circus classmates.. The inspiration was never ending.

I really could rant about how incredible the adventure was, but to sum up:

51 hours of travel to get there, 6 hula hoops, 8 juggling balls, 2 travelers, 3000 artists, and 9 amazing days of circus in Millstreet, Ireland. Win.

Tent time!

The circus has begun a new tour in our tiny-top circus tent. It is back to caravan life for us and the mercy of weather, wind, ground conditions and wildlife. This week we have two towns of shows, one in Darlington Point and then, the weekend in Griffith.

 Darlington Point is a little one street town of  pub, a fish and chip shop and a little caravan park. We stayed in the caravan park for a week or so while we did the poster runs. The family that ran it are really lovely. The town is hot, dry and there were never many people on the streets.

The tent is going up here, while at the same time, we go ahead to Griffith to visit the schools and shops with posters. Everyone has a million jobs in this circus at the best of times - more so, in a two stand week. It is so exciting to be out of the halls and theatres and back in our little tent. The whole team is buzzing and the lifting of the tent has attracted more than a little attention from the people in town.

Here is a pic of the tent *almost* set up - Luke managed to get basically the entire thing up on his own while we were away for marketing - The whole time being attacked by dangerous swooping wildlife! (Aussies will know exactly what I mean, everyone else can imagine whatever flying beasts you think would be the most terrifying)


:D

Local fame for the little circus..

We have had an epic couple of weeks, with our international artists flying in, our first tent-up as a group and the final development session for the show. Over the week we had numerous interviews with press and now some of those have gone to print.. just thought I'd share

BMA Magazine This is a local arts mag, gig guide and local news magazine - free around Canberra

The Canberra Times - 17th Feb 2012
The Canberra times will be following us a bit over the next month, so check out what has been written so far, and stay tuned for updates.

The Canberra times have made us a little photo gallery :)

Konrad Lens, dropped by and took a few photos..

Waltzing with sledgehammers

 

It is a delicate form of dance that one invents when a sledgehammer meets the gentle flesh of fingers.. It involves a complex series of steps, leaps, aggressive marching, and grabbing at ones hand.. It also has an expressive facial distortion and sometimes  even a vocal element. This, my friends, is the Sledgehammer waltz.

 

Jerry helps with laying out and lacing up the big top

 

Luke battles the rock hard ground to beat in our peg-line

I must admit, that like most of the gender stereotypes might suggest - I am somewhat more familiar with the stardust of the show than the sledgehammers. In the last two circus jobs, I was assigned to marketing and performance for the majority of the time, and although enjoyed pulling the big top down after the show, had done a very limited number of put-ups.
Needless to say, although it was super exciting to be putting up our own circus tent - I think my talents are a little more suited to sewing on fringing and sequins!

 

Lacing the top of the tent together

 

Jerry tensioning the ropes

 

 

Heaving tent skins into position

 

The day was highly successful, despite the brief 'sledgehammer dance' interludes. The big top went up ok, and it was a great feeling to see it standing. We only had the field for a day, and a storm was threatening overhead - so we didn't put up the blue and white striped walls which will really finish off the look of the tent, but you can imagine what it will look like from some of the photos here.

Five weeks until we launch!

Music at the Creek 2011

This week, I had the amazing pleasure of performing over two perfect days at Majors creek, Music at the creek folk festival, NSW. My fire troupe performed a duo and a trio show for the festival, pulling a huge circle of spectators, and winning an applause to remember.

The show marked the premiere performance of the sparkling new show "Flame Eccentric" - a piece that was developed mainly by Luke and I when we lived with Circus Avalon in Newcastle earlier in the year.

The show is based on new beginnings and uses the legend of the phoenix as inspiration. Our performers walk the audience through a journey told in fire with contact juggling, fire fans, flaming hoops, ladder balance, fire staff, and fire club manipulation.. Basically as far as fire shows go - this one has the works!

Jerry Everard took some wonderful photos from the show and I have posted most of them up on our troupe website for Will-o'-the-Wisp Flame Arts

Artist Residency

So..... The project is well and truly underway. The tent has been shipped, the vehicles have been bought, the cast have been chosen and the pre production admin is well and truly a major part of every day. The new web site was launched last night - so feel free to check it out here: The Great Australian Bite-sized Circus The other exciting news to do with the show, is that this morning, Luke and I were offered a residency at the major circus space here in Brisbane to develop the first core acts of the show.

One of the struggles of being a performing artist is finding the aerial rigging space, crash mats, stage space and indoor juggling space that can be used to develop new work - for us, today this was solved! Flipside circus offer the residency and it just so happens that there could be no better place to develop the show - we paced out the performance space.. and what do ya know- it is EXACTLY the same size as our ring, and the rigging point is at EXACTLY the same height as the top of our tent!
Another nice touch to the residency is that it was named after one of Australia's most inspiring circus people - Reg Bolton.. He also happened to be my very first circus trainer.

I can't wait to start working on the show, but first, we have to take a wee detour via a festival fire show with Will-o'-the-Wisp! Later this week we fly away for a few days to revisit a lovely little festival near Braidwood, NSW. I will be sure to put up photos after the gig :)

The show must go on!

After a short tour with Eden bros circus, we have finished up our big top journey for 2011. There are lots of exciting plans for next year, but before I give away too many secrets, I thought I'd tie up the journal from North QLD.

Our last few shows with the circus were totally sold out. We had to pull in extra chairs from nearby venues, and lay down tarps at the side of stage for kids to sit on the cast were pumped, nervous, and excited -the energy from the audience was amazing. We stormed the ring and performed our acts beautifully. People clapped and cheered their way through the show and we were run off our feet setting props, making pop-corn and darting back and forth with odd jobs. Life at the circus is a whole lot more pleasant when we have good crowds to play to, makes all the hard work of putting up the tent and preparing the show worthwhile.

The last show came around, and once again, we were set with a full house. I stepped into the ring with Luke's juggling knives as he lightly made his way to the top of his 2.8m free standing ladder. I always get a little scared of this act - invariably the ground is uneven, or the board is on a weird wobbly angle or something else is happening to make the ladder more unstable than it should be, but Luke calmly reached out his hands to catch the knives. I threw them up, 1, 2 and 3, and stood back while he juggled and caught each one perfectly.
..Then as if out of nowhere, the ladder was down, he'd crashed backwards off the top rung and was lying in the ring with blood pouring down his face. Somehow we helped him to his feet and took him backstage where he collapsed on the grass in shock. It just so happened that there was a nurse in the audience. A moment later, she was back stage with us and looking at Luke's wounds. She shook her head and announced that the hospital was needed, so away they went, while we continued the show.

A little after half time, Luke was back on site, this time with 8 stitches, a large amount of injected painkiller and a dose of adrenaline. Everyone had been asking about him at interval but none of us had any idea how he was going. He sat down in the caravan for a few minutes while I went out to do fire hoop. To our amazement, he came out two acts before the end and announced that he would do his piece. We set his juggling equipment in the ring and watched as he waltzed back on stage as though nothing had happened. The show must, and did go on!
The crowd roared with applause all the way through, they were amazed to see him perform. The show finished and we packed the audience off home, it was decided that tent down could wait till morning.

The following day, poor Luke's painkillers had worn off and he couldn't even walk for the muscle tears in his legs. It took several days for him to be able to walk again ok, and a week or so later the smile finally returned to his face. By then we were on a bus back to Brisbane for the rest of summer. Tour done for 2011!

Now, I am happy to report he is fully recovered and back on his ladder. I am in rehearsal with a new aerial piece and both of us are madly applying for the next season of arts grants and residencies - I can't wait to tell you about what we have planned for next year, but that is a whole other blogpost..

The Last Stand - Ashburton

The tour had felt long, and yet all of a sudden it was almost over. The spirit of the circus had been lifted as all of the Ring Master's family had come down to join the circus over the school holidays. Our cast instantly doubled in size with our youngest performer being only 8 years old. The rain had cleared up and the sun was shining, and we had time to relax a little as Ashburton was a two week stand.

Luke and I were leaving a couple of weeks early as we had commitments over in Australia. The rest of the crew would be carrying on to Christchurch for their last stand.
It is a tradition in circus to make the last show as entertaining, and as difficult as possible for your cast mates - and most were already planning the cast pranks for the final show.. Apparently, it was decided that Luke and I truly deserved to get some last show prank action, even though we were not going to be there for the final show..

Just before the show, everyone was acting suspicious - I twigged that we were likely to be 'last showed' but had no idea what the cheeky scoundrels were up to. I was waylaid on my stilts out the front of the tent - just long enough it seems for the rigger to change the height of my trapeze by raising it 30cm - just high enough to make the routine hard!

I walked into the ring, and glanced over at the sound desk - the entire cast were standing there, giggling as I reached out to my uncomfortably high trapeze.
After my act, I watched as everyone raced back out to watch Luke.. the guys had taken his music and sped it up by about 20% so his juggling routine was in fast forward! It was hilarious to watch, and amazingly he carried the routine out to the end, scoring a round of applause from the cast and audience alike when he returned backstage.

All through the show they had set little glitches for us to 'enjoy', and as if that wasn't enough, when we returned to the car to drive away it seemed that they had hidden hundreds of grape drinks through ALL of our luggage, doubling it's weight and leaving us with the lovely experience of discovering grape drinks for days to come!

..little did they know, that they were not the only ones hiding grape drinks that day.. :-p

And a Grape day was had by all

I snuggled down into my comfortable circus bed.. It seemed unusually difficult to get my head  to rest on my pillow.. in fact, my pillow seemed a little solid. I poked it, slightly confused..it was hard, very hard, positively lumpy in fact. I traced the lump with my hand and in a moment worked out what it was.. some cheeky cast member had filled my pillow with grape drinks!

Instantly, I suspected Nick - he had been lurking around suspiciously - yup, it must be him.
I removed the grape drinks and snuck over to his bed, carefully placing them in his blankets and one in his gumboot for good measure. I smiled and returned to sleeping.

I was woken in the morning by an exclamation of confusion from Nick's side of the bus "What the?!" He had rolled over on to the plastic bottle.. "Briar! I am going to get her" he muttered, and quickly rolled out of bed, slipping on his gumboots "GAH! - Oh, that was a good one" he smiled and rolled on out the door.

When I came outside, he was over by the chuck wagon. Briar was at her caravan, throwing grape drinks at Nick out the window - He was dodging them, cracking up in fits of laughter.

I chose this as a good time to point out that it hadn't been Briar placing drinks in his bed. "YOU!?" he asked, astounded - "I blamed Briar!"
At this moment, Briar and Luke emerged from their various sleeping quarters and we stood around giggling. Briar had placed the drinks in what she thought was Luke's pillow after he had covered a grape drink in candy floss and given it to her as a joke.. She had filled my pillow by accident - I blamed Nick, Nick blamed Briar.. Sigh, what a grape day.

Bogged down in Dunedin

Dunedin was cold. In fact, more than that, it was icey. Rain poured down on the bus, turning everything to mud around us. The trucks sank deep into the grass, our boots squelched and filled with water within three steps of being outside and the wind whipped past our ears with a deafening chill.

I wrapped my jacket around me and bolted to the edge of the orange fence, handing over the quickly saturating posters to Hana. I collected the next set and hurriedly clambered over the fence, running for the open door of the little red car. We were heading out marketing as the rest of our sodden teammates set up the big top.

As we drove away, I glanced back, just in time to see Luke crawling through the mud to get under the canvas. I felt so sorry for him.

The tent goes up in Invercargill!

The bus shook and rattled as an over zelous crew member rapped on the windows and doors of our sleeping quarters. it was ten to nine and our alarm had failed to wake us, the circus lot was already a flurry of activity, a buzz with little balls of warm wooly coats filled with humans readying themselves for the day. Luke managed to drag himself out of bed with relative ease, while I lay there for a moment with the morning sun on my face still in a sleepy daze of dream state. The next thing I recall was waking again with Luke standing over me smiling quietly and holding a coffee, time to start the day.

I exited the bus and wandered over to the collection of performers by the chuck wagon, people were finishing breakfast and coffees and they all seemed to have one thing in common.. They were all far more awake than I. A moment later Damo walked away from the group, stopped by the side of the tent and belted out the fist instruction for the team, being a man of few words this instruction was simple "WINCHES!" Luke bounded up followed by the other winch handlers and within a tenth of a second, Les and I were the only two left by the food caravan. Lucky for me, today was a marketing day, so I have a few more minutes to wake my brain up.

There is something magic about watching the tent get lifted, even in my half asleep state I got a sparkle of excitement from seeing it go up, one minute there is a large stripey canvas lying in the grass, and the next it looks like the circus is in town. Every stand is so different, let's see what Invercargill audiences are like.

Can the pot call the kettle black?

Town: Gore, NZ
As twilight falls, a thick mist engulfs the big top. The lights from our food caravan twinkle in the foggy moonlight. For a moment I am taken by the true and intense beauty of circus life. Then I look down at my hands.. elbow deep in the dish water, soaked in chicken lard and constantly finding floating lumps of indistinguishable unknown food leftovers. I cringe as my vegan hands rub past something that was slightly slimy. Sigh. Reality, it happens.

Everyone at the circus is on the roster - except for the bosses. We have a rotation -first meal you clean out the food kitchen, second you are on dishes, and the third, on the drying and putting away. It is often a fairly merry task - the three performers on duties each joking around and attempting to avoid the horror.. the nightmare.. the dreaded task of washing the.. *insert a loud scary drum roll*.. the 'black pot of death.'

The black death was a large iron cauldron like pot, heavy, charred and black with age. It had this amazing ability to turn everything it touches black. It is so feared by the cast, that everyone would cover the tables in newspaper, and wear gloves, just to move it into the dining area. Once touched by the black.. it was there forever, a lesson learned by many of my favourite items of clothing.

Luke was on chuck, he gave me an apologetic look as he delivered this doom pot to my side. "I think that is everything" he reassured
Nick was drying "Ah.. the black death.. Ha! Glad I'm not on dishes!" He teased. I flicked him with dishwater and looked down at the black filthy pot.
I nodded to myself. Gotta love the circus life.

The tiny town of Te Anau

On Wednesday we started tent up in Te Aneu. The king poles were up, large parcels of tent were lumped on the lot ready to be laid out, and a scattering of tired performers lay by the chuck wagon with cups of tea, eagerly awaiting dinner. Luke was up on his ladder practicing a new trick and Briar was no where to be seen, some times we all just needed to take space from the group.

The three day tent up progressed, marketing continued and in between jobs, we found time for extra moments of training. Luke continued to work on some new free standing ladder balances and I practiced new hoop material. We returned to living on the bus and were parked up on the far side of the tent.. so far, bookings were high and everything was about to launch into action as our opening show was about to start..

Saturday morning was the first show.. we stumbled out of bed and crawled into costume via coffee and a handful of jobs. 11am seemed to rush at us like a bull at a flag and in no time I was dancing on stage and spinning in a pretty tangle of trapeze and glitter. It was a full house. So full that we had to put out extra seating at the start of the show and had extra audience members sitting on spare ring boxes.

They were lively, cheerful and so energetic! 80% of our audience were screaming children who were fueled on candy floss and sugar - at half time we had to pluck them from the ring and the support poles of the tent and prevent them from literally bouncing off the walls. They were so much fun - but a little hard to grasp when you have had little sleep and are running on coffee!

Stilt play

A quick photo shoot with Luke :) Enjoy.