ice water and ocicats

Yesterday's performance went well, in the way of live theater, which is to say it wasn't perfect but it was a good run. "Such a good run" according to my coach. Me, I count 1.5 mistakes, with one obvious one -- but that means I a) kept track of the music the entire way through, b) sold the character well to the audience and c) hit all my handstands. A mantis can't ask for much more, especially when we didn't get into the space until the day of the performance.

Detail:

• The earlier part of the day was moderately disastrous, in that I almost passed out during the tech rehearsal. Those lights were fucking hot, and I must've held my breath during my backbend walk because I got confused, found myself dizzy / out of breath and was quite quite unpleasantly unable, in my KN-95-based costume mask, to recover. It was a bad run. The show had changed to allow performers not to wear masks anyway, so I borrowed scissors from someone and cut holes in the KN-95 part so that I was really breathing through just a thin layer of costume fabric for the final performance. In the end that was so, so nice, and indeed I've never been so clear-headed all the way through a run. Breathing really does help and I'd been playing on hard mode for months.


• In a snippet of my choreo I stand up on my cane, do an easy Y-scale, then pistol squat down. That was not difficult at LCS but it was suddenly an extreme challenge in the performance space! Everything was so far away that my eyes couldn't fix on anything close enough to help me balance. I practiced a little, looking down at the front row of seats helped, but still missed the pistol down during my performance and stepped down early. I can't really blame myself because the conditions for that trick had legitimately changed so much at the last minute, despite all my practice. I mentioned this to one of the coaches/organizers and she said "oh yeah. That's real."


• Before my act the MC said what I had asked them to say -- that I'm a longstanding LCS student who's performed before in group numbers and was doing my first solo act. Also (joke) that no heads were bitten off during the making of the act. And then after my act they said some more, in particular that I give them hope about circus for the rest of their 30s, and into their 40s and beyond, "because flexagon is not a teenager." A REALLY big compliment coming from them. Also intellectually interesting because that giving-hope thing is something Helios thought would be good about the performance, and I had been thinking it wouldn't be, because there weren't many age clues to see with that mask/makeup/costume. Still, as I get older my age is going to start becoming more interesting to people in this context, and it gives LCS a good chance to broadcast that they're welcoming to older adult students, so I'm certainly okay with them saying it.


• I was the 2nd performance in the show (first half, at my request) and it was a huge luxury to get it over with and be able to enjoy the rest. Indeed, I got heisenbug to bring me a hard cider from the bar at intermission. After supporting my fellow handbalancer at the start of the 2nd act, I spent the rest of the show drinking that cider and eating takeout pad thai. NO REGRETS. Would be early in the show order again.

I was pleasantly buzzed by the time we were able to go out and talk to the audience members, and then we had a few people over for a (very chill) after-party. We opened a bunch of windows and mostly wore masks, and I foam rolled and let Helios work on knots in my shoulders and feet, and someone brought wine. It was late before I washed all the makeup and gel and glitter off me, and I woke up early today, but whatever. My sleep schedule will recover. And eventually there'll be video and pictures.

I can put the sewing machine away again now.

I still have a cold, but it didn't stop me from having SUCH a good acro-weekend.

Saturday's semiprivate lesson with the Ant was like a continuation of awesomeness from the weekend before. We worked on a few things and all of them had victories.

• Standing hand-to-hand is somehow the queen of tricks for me, and this is the first time that we literally stuck more than we didn't (I think). I'd be standing up there on his shoulders, and instead of "okay, here goes another try" I would really believe I was going into hand-to-hand, whether for a short time or a long time. And usually I would. I offer this still from a video as proof:
  
  (Props to you if you can spot the alignment problem we fought with all day.) We also tried pressing this up overhead a couple of times, which went rather badly, but probably also pretty well for a first lesson.
  
• Standing foot-to-hand, pressed way up overhead, after pitching to regular standing foot-to-hand. The Ant and I are both tall, and this trick puts my head almost 13 feet from the ground. But his hands are big, and we're stable: I feel safe.
  ( Picture of me feeling safe )
• Shoulder-to-shoulder. You've all seen this trick in some adagio act or other, where the acrobats un-twine their arms and balance as if glued together. Well, this weekend I got my arms to my sides and the Ant got his almost to his sides. We have to move really slowly to get there, and it doesn't feel great, but it's an advanced trick and we sure love our success rate.

This overlapped the acroyoga jam, which we continued into after a break for some almonds. I learned a new counterbalance with Rocky, flew a really good needle and some whips on Scooper, based the Ant in thighstand, and L-based my favorite small flyer for a while (I think I'll name her Chickie). Some other shenanigans; I don't remember, it's all lost in the druggie acro haze.

Today I showed up (late) for open studio, only to find out that it was Unofficial Banquine Day. Um, okay, handbalancing coach, sure! I'm set to fly if we have a belt and people are set to throw! So I got to fly a bit of banquine... on Rocky and Scooper at first, just tempos up and down, then toss up and lie back to basket catch. For those things I was fearless. I took a break while two other flyers went, on a mix of bases. One of them was an ex-gymnast and the other was my handbalancing coach. Both of them worked on doing a back tuck to a basket catch, so of course then I wanted to do that too. And I did! Holy crap, I guess I do still have the back tuck in my body from Z-dawg's classes long ago. The first time I was too tucked (and landed with a very loud squeak), second time too open, third time perfect. I could feel how pretty it was. And I was flying on Scooper and the Ant by that point, so it was the perfect three-way victory for my favorite trio. <3 I never, ever thought I'd do that trick in my life, so what a gift to be able to do it with them, today.

(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, it was almost exactly like this... but instead of landing back on my feet, I rotated 90 degrees more and landed with both bases cradling me in their arms. Safer, easier.)

Somehow in all that, I didn't work any more h2h and I forgot to demand any Russian Rolls. Well, there's always next week. For now I will smile, be glad I rested my shoulders, and wonder why my quads are sore.