As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the end of year one of my training program was really difficult. Consequently, I finished the end of year show and filed it all the way in the back of my brain and didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I barely posted anything about it. Even before circus school, after working on acts for so long I’d need to leave them behind for a little bit (which I’m sure is not uncommon). I put more time and energy into this act than any other act I’ve created in my aerial journey, so it makes sense that I had to leave it alone for so long after performing. Nearly every aerial act I performed before this one was for a specific themed show where I had to create something specific to that theme. This act I finally allowed myself to try performing an emotionally driven act to a song I find so beautiful that I’ve been saving it for “when I’m a better aerialist”. My act was inspired by the song “I Am the Anti-Christ to You” by Kishi Bashi, which I interpret as being about Lucifer’s fall from grace. My approach was to tell a story about someone who’s been ousted from their community and they’re desperately trying to get back. This is the first act that I focused on having a beginning, a middle, and an end to the story I was trying to portray. If you want to read specifically what I was trying to portray; keep reading! If you want to watch the act here and interpret it with your own story, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This act idea was spurred by the song so really that was the first step. But before starting choreography, I made a vision board on Pinterest full of renaissance paintings of Lucifer and examples of lighting or photography that had an ethereal vibe since that’s what I was aiming for. I also started adding photos of potential costumes and some specific silks poses I liked. As mentioned above, I had the three parts of my story in mind before I began choreographing: The beginning of the story was this character is lost, dazed, and seeking help. They find the silk and think that could be the way back to heaven; they calmly mount the silks and get higher and higher. The middle: they realize it’s not working and they start to get desperate. They move with more chaos and thrashing. The end: finally they reach the top of the silks and they fall. With even more desperation and now exhaustion, they begin climbing and climbing and climbing but not going anywhere until finally they’re back on the ground and they accept their fate. I wanted the audience to want to help me, I wanted them to sense my desperation and not be able to do anything about it.
I wanted this piece to look ethereal and my act was actually built around a back balance shape before my last drop. I just thought that pose silhouetted with light was the epitome of ethereal I could reach on silks and that’s the only shape I was married to right from the start. I knew that drop would need to hit towards the end so I worked backwards from there. The beginning, where I get pulled up in the air in the daisy chain, was an idea I had in our puppetry focus (led by Michelle Stein, who is wonderful and also my creative coach in year two!) where we were encouraged to play with our apparatus in ways that we don’t usually use them and my coach Zoe helped me figure out how to make it work. She also helped me with some sticky transitions and when I had gaps between choreography she always had suggestions. I loved the ankle hang in the beginning and I added that because everything else I had in my act were small, closed shapes and I wanted some variety. It also worked really nicely there since to get the daisy chain out of my silks it was easiest to crochet climb. Since the ankle hang is a silks-separated move I had to come up with a way to get the silks together for the next trick I wanted and I couldn’t have mapped out that weird transition if I didn’t have Zoe helping me! Having a coach to help goes a long way and Zoe always knew when to push me harder and (literally) pull me higher when I was hesitant. The height was something I fought hard to face my fears of in this act. I spent hours drilling my drops low and taking them higher and higher in an effort to feel comfortable, and I never did quite get where I wanted to be.
Once the choreography was a work in progress I began implementing Laban movement qualities. Laban is a lot to explain and you can check out a longer description in my blog post about act creation tools but in summary, Laban looks at how you do a movement and how that impacts perception of the character. I started the act being very slow and bound and throughout the act I changed to be quicker and more chaotic as the character grew more panicked. Laban movement was a tool that really worked for me as a means to convey character and it’s the tool I value the most from year one.
We also got feedback on our acts throughout our creation process, especially as we got closer to the performance date. My act started in silence with me walking slowly into the room and looking at the audience. Another idea I considered was having two of my classmates act as “guards” and physically throw me onto the stage while I verbally begged them not to and begged for them to take me back. After feedback from my classmates and other coaches I decided the quiet entrance served my piece better. The entrance was the last thing that I choreographed and that's usually how it goes for me.
After having all summer to reflect on my performance, I am not fully satisfied with how my act went on the day of the show, but I am proud of what I created. I don’t think my performance was awful, but I made some small mistakes because of my nerves that make me cringe when I watch it back. Since the end of the year was so stressful, my nervous system never calmed down enough for me to be comfortable with the tricks in my act. I performed that act so scared and I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome because of that fear, so it became a cycle that fed itself. But by putting these tricks on stage, I proved to myself that I could do it. If I got to perform this act again, I know it would go better. And I also know that any act I create from here on out will be better as well from all that I learned making this one. I’m starting year two with a quiver full of tools that I didn’t have last year and I’m already implementing them for this year’s solo performance.