Nothing beats a great review..

My hoop video has been reviewed on Hooping.org :D

http://www.hooping.org/2014/03/eve-everard/

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.

What ever next?

Luke and I arrived back in Australia to the unusual experience of being in a real house. My family have played Tag-team and disappeared to Paris, giving us the wonderful opportunity of house-sitting.

It is a strange thing to be able to make toast and tea at the same time without blowing out a generator. Or to be able to go to the bathroom without having to put on boots for the outside world. Or even to be able to walk in the door without unhitching the house from the car and putting stabilisers down - maybe this is a healthy break from caravan life!

Here are some pictures of our casual training sessions at our favourite park. Luke is practicing his 7 ball juggling, and I am practicing an 8-hula-hoop split.

However..
While at home, coincidentally, a circus rolled in to town.. 

Now most normal people might go to the show, tell their friends, and continue with their planned break from work. That really isn't our style - So we ditched the idea of a tour-free holiday and joined the circus.. We are still kind of having a break though as we are not performing in the show. We are working as front of house staff, ushering, and the occasional crew job.. That is still a break.. isn't it?

A Pizza from Mario

It had been a long day. We were set up in the outskirts of Melton in a small place called Bacchus Marsh. There, we were being hosted by a scout group that was madly fundraising for a USA tour. Lovely bunch - but still, I get off topic..



It was raining. (Surprise, surprise) So far our trip to Victoria had shown us nothing but wind, rain and a loot of crazy city driving. It must have been quite late as we pulled back into town.  The deserted streets and darkened windows of the restaurants taunted us with their "closed" signs. - Even the supermarket was shut. We were, it seemed to be denied all hope of dinner.



We came around a corner, about to head home to the lot when we spied a little sign, flickering in the rain. "Mario's Pizza" We were saved! 

The three of us piled out of the car and danced through the persistent and heavy raindrops and into the dry comfort of the little pizzeria.

A burley man sat in the corner, curly moustache and a crinkled face. He heaved himself to standing from his window seat and waddled cautiously over to the counter. "What are you doing here?" He asked us.

The three of us looked at each other, not quite sure what to make of this - It soon became apparent that the town didn't see too many outsiders. We explained that we were with the circus and that we wanted some pizzas, at which point he looked at us, almost as confused as we were. He reluctantly took our orders and began to enthusiastically rant about pizza.



He eyed us up and down, Kerry first. 'You look like a funny character' he said, "Is he a funny one?" He asked us, nodding at Kerry.  "Funny circus man, HAHA! Yes, he's a funny one, yes? You need a funny name!" He paused "I think your name should be Gretch! Do ya like that? mm? Gretch, yes"
Kerry thought on this for a moment, politely wondering what to make of this chortling pizza man.

He went back to his pizza for a moment before turning to Luke and I. It was our turn for new names: Ruben and Cynthia.

The boys had a bit of a giggle over these ones, but before Mario could get too excited about our new names, he remembered something important; The pizzas.

-He was so busy re naming us all that he forgot that we had pizzas in the oven and burned them.


He pulled them all out with an emphatic raising of the arms "ooh Mario! He said " The pizza!, *mumble mumble. Oh no, Mario!"
Thankfully dinner was salvageable and soon we left our new, excitable friend to his pizzaria.

We dashed our food back out to the car and waved good bye to Mario - He walked us out and waddled back inside. The flickering light above the door continued to blink, the outline of the pizza man rejoined the dim window, and we returned to the familiarities of our caravans.

Adminis-Trivia!

It is a funny thing trying to organise something from the ground up. Especially to those of us who are used to flying. I had heard tale of adminis-trivia nightmares but never had I truly experienced it first hand.

Even the simplest thing seems to have to involve 10 different people, all of which greet me with that glazed eyed look at the mention of something as obscure as a circus. Then I promptly find myself forwarded on to some other member of their department!

I was greeted with a particularly amusing attempt at booking some grounds recently.. it went something like this…

Phone Shire Council
Shire council informs me that I have to send an email
Write detailed email about what is needed, including when, where, what and with all booking info.
Email is returned 2 days later with only one line.. "Who did you speak to on the phone?"
Email is answered by me

Email is returned saying "Please phone for this kind of thing"
Council is phoned again, this time quoting email
Phone call is passed around 5 people in the office before returning to the original callee.
Callee states that perhaps I should put all the info in an email!

..Honestly.. The hoops they make you jump through-  All of this is enough to make a girl run away to the circus!

Blogging the Bogging - Soggy everything in Dunedin continues

The last show in Dunedin was the hardest show I have ever done. The backstage area, after two weeks of rain, was one huge knee high puddle of mud. We had long before put down sheets of wood in an effort to keep props dry, but by then, they had sunk so deep into the puddles that they might as well not be there at all. Everyone was in high gum boots back stage, changing into dance slippers only a moment before going into the ring. At every step on the stilts, the poles would plunge deep into the ground, and emerge with mud almost up to the foot plate. It was near on impossible to stay up on them.

The ring mat was wet, my trapeze was wet, and my costume was totally saturated to dripping point. Damian announced my act and a danced out onto the slippery mat of doom.
Somehow I managed to stay up on the stilts and I slithered in a semi-controlled fashion through my routine.

Off stage, five minutes later, however, I was in tears as the sheer exhaustion and the discomfort of our performance conditions hit an all time low. I took my stilts off, put my boots on and plunged into the mud. Backstage was a dreary sight indeed.. and after this show we would be pulling the big top down, I had all of the woe.

Tent down was pretty awful, so much mud, so much rain, and my patience and appreciation of tour life had dwindled and become nothing more than a loathed experience. That night held nothing for me but more tears, discomfort and a complete inability to even remember what it was like to be dry and clean. To make things worse, we didn't manage to get all of the tent down at once, so instead of having a day off the following day, we were ordered up before 7 to finish the job.. No time off this week, I thought.

Into the ring!

My first show in the ring was on Saturday morning. I sat in the bus adjusting my hair and decorating my eyelids with little sparkly beads. Luke and most of the cast were already standing out at the concessions stand, fully costumed and set for the show. Mary, like me, was no where to be seen. We both emerged from our trailers at about the same time and grinned at each other, exchanging comments of first show nerves. We lifted up the tent walls and carefully coaxed our neatly costumed and hatted heads under the tent, trying as we did so, to not to catch our hair in the wires or any the other random assortment of hair attacking obstacles to get past between there and the ring.

Briar was in the tent stretching. She had headphones in as the pre show music blared out of the sound system. Damo and Nick were over by the sound desk checking the mics for the Ring Master's introduction. Mary set abut standing her slack-line up, and I went through what was to become my standard full body warm up for stilt acrobatics and trapeze.

The ring mat was bright yellow and cool to the touch as I lay out, stretching. I tried to calm my mind, it was a mess of pre-show nerves, excitement and slight fear about working on a different aerial rig to normal. I looked around at the bright red sets and tried to picture what it would be like in 35 minutes. I took a deep breath - it was almost time to put stilts on and head out for pre-show entertainment. Quietly beaming with excitement- I thought to myself, that I really had no idea what to expect from this show - or the tour to come. Now, looking back, that thought seems ridiculous.. No idea was about the understatement of the year!

Arrival in Queenstown

With a bright teal green caravan lumbering along behind us we started our journey over the pass to Queenstown. The convoy of trucks and trailers was taken in three trips as we only had two drivers licenced for the larger vehicles. I was in the third convoy with Luke, Mike and Briar.
It had been a long day of rolling tent skins onto trailers and locking down caravans for travel. It had been hot, and with the Chuck wagon (our food caravan) packed down, there was nothing available to eat. We traveled in silence. We were all too tired and hungry to engage in conversation. The scenery was stunning for the entirety of the journey, this was enough to occupy our thoughts for the duration.

Just after 5pm we rolled into the new lot. We disembarked the vehicles and forced ourselves into action. Everyone was carefully arranging the caravans out ready to encircle the big top. We started the task of pitching the pre-tent (our dining room) and setting up the chuck wagon. The main big top wouldn't go up until the morning, but a few essentials had to be set… Tomorrow promised to be a huge day.