flexagon | Educational culmination (circus performance)

You want to know how the show went. And it went like: oh god, tech rehearsal and stuff takes the entire day. We were called at 2PM and at around 3PM we began to block out our piece in the space. There our troubles began: the configuration of mats we needed did not fit without running into the audience. The configuration of mats we needed, turned 45 degrees, did not fit without running into the audience. Scooting one mat over a couple of feet did not help. I think, though I am not sure, that we could have been informed of all this on Friday if the right measurements had been taken, given that we knew which point our trapeze would be hanging from; but that had not happened.

In the end we moved our mat (Goth Grover, for those who go to my school) to be beside the under-trapeze crash mats rather than in front, and we turned three critical pieces of choreography 90 degrees, and we re-blocked where a bunch of stuff was. Somewhere in here I got a sudden stabbing stress-headache... but we did a full run, then, and it went near-perfectly, and I went off backstage to draw myself a NEW diagram of the new places I go at what times. Then we practiced final bows. A one-hour dinner break meant fast partial dinner with

norwoodbridge & friends, who I left to hang out and get back for real call and do makeup. Which got amusing, assembly-lining us six zombies... everyone wore my grey lipstick, and I felt vindicated regarding that one impulsive MAC order a couple of years ago.

I jittered, and peeked through the curtain at Norwood (who saved a seat for

heisenbug, right in the front row: awwww), and waited all through the first half. It was no compliment, placing us right after intermission; it was because we had the most involved setup, with the trapeze and canes and all our mats. I couldn't tell if I was warm or not. Still, it was suddenly time, go go go go! And, well, geez, it was just like our rehearsal runs. We did our tricks, we did not mess up our simultaneous finger snaps. I zombie-sneered at the crowd, based stacks briefly on the horribly unstable mats, and flew high croc. Then it was hand-to-hand time. I don't remember the jump but I guess we stuck it, because I was upside-down and the crowd roared so loud I could hear it (the only time I heard it). Then I was being caught, and escorted to the canes for my final zombie-ish position.

The backstage seven-way hug afterward was a good one. :D

I still like training better than I like performing, but maybe there's something to this notion of occasionally assembling a thing to share with an audience, yeah?

EDITED TO ADD: VIDEO