tyggerjai | Entries tagged with cirque

Half a stitz!

I can do the pullup, and into the "flare" with the elbows. Now I have to do a lot of dips to get the triceps up to speed for the second half. But still!

And Anne and James were coaching me. Admittedly, their coaching consisted largely of "Just push!", but James clued me in on the double-wrap with the straps, and Anne had useful things to say about the flare.

So. A stitz in a month, is my new goal.

(for those who missed it:
http://tyggerjai.livejournal.com/219318.html -
Now it is my goal to do a stitz. That's a move almost as hard to explain as it is to do, but basically, you do a close-grip pullup (inside of the wrists towards your face) on the straps, and keep going. When your elbows get down to your chest, pull them sideways and down, flat by your sides. Flip your wrists so the inside of your wrists point down, and push up, so you come up on straight arms on the straps. That's a stitz.

Roman said "Why only one? Why not 20?". Roman is a punk, and someday I will be able to kick his arse.)
jai.
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So that's how it happens. One day you turn around and you have a 3 month bootcamp habit, a drinking buddy who knows what you're going to say before you say it and you're giving backrubs to the wardrobe girls in the garage. Home, then. But it's still not art. I want to come home and start making Big Fierce Art.

Today you get Russian Of The Day and Garage Moment in one easy package. We're adding a cue with an artist in an astronaut costume flying around the oval track. Today we had Nastyushka and Olga in the garage trying on the costume and flying around the track. So now we call them Белка and Стрелка. If I get my shit together, after the dark week coming up, they will have embroidered patches, and posters in the garage proclaiming the proud success of the Soviet Space program. Nastyushka insists on being Стрелка, though. Apparently there is status even among dogs in space.

jai.
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Walking home, on Communist China's equivalent of July the 4th, from the biggest casino in the world, past a Red Army base, with the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK" playing on my iPod. That was a little surreal.

Home is: Shurik now calls me Jaika. "ka" is the classic Russian pet name suffix.

Things not to say to the artist who happens to be your boot camp coach, when he complains that his harness is chafing:
Other Rigger: "Well, we have a couple of options - we can cross the legs, or add some padding on the straps. Or we can try some padded shorts"
Me: "Or you could just harden the fuck up"
Ji-the-boot-camp-coach:" ... pardon?"
Me: "Harden the fuck up!"
Ji-the-boot-camp-coach:" ... I'm so looking forward to Friday morning now"
Me: " ... fuck."

Do me a favour. The ones you love? The ones you take a little for granted? The friends you see often, so often you forget about them? Reach out and hug them today. They matter, even if they're not new and shiny.

jai.
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From

bunnikins - the girls in wardrobe have learned the very useful phrase "Nadem'shtani", meaning "Put your pants on". They need to learn "Put your shirt on" for Roman, the 19 year old straps artist, who will take his off at any opportunity. Not that they necessarily complain, given his physique. Personally, I'm unlikely ever to need "Nadem'shtani" without first having learned "Take your pants off". Or possibly "Nice lats, wanna fuck?". Mmm, aerialists.

My Russian of the day is more mundane - "Doz avtra", see you tomorrow.

In other poly-linguistic news, I found myself saying "Da, esta bom, merci". Which is "Yes" in russian, "That's good" in Portuguese, and "Thank you" in French. I'm assuming the person I was talking to spoke at least one of those.

Love is: making sure the littlest Russian gets the littlest umbrella for their flight out of the garage. Home is: hunting down a 6' beach umbrella and a 6" cocktail umbrella to mess with her head.

jai.
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Today I got kicked in the balls by a tall bendy Russian woman. Also, a clown laughed at me. Strangely, this counts as a good day back on show crew.

ETA: Russian word of the day: Two today - both slang/casual.
Nu shto(m)? - What's up?
Zayi bis - "Chilling". They tell me you use this to answer "Kachdela" (or, I guess, nu shtom). It's, like, "Cool man", if the hip Russian kids still say cool. Romka taught it to us, and it made Shurik laugh, anyway.

Man, I really need to learn Cyrillic if I'm learning Russian. But I'm not sure I have time for that *and* an hour a day of "La voiture est blanche. La voiture blanche est vielle"

jai.
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Oh, you know, it could be worse. Down the pub by 4, beer and free wifi and a sketchbook, and next week I'm back on the garage show track, avec mes anges et mes Russe c'est des crisses de malades[0], and if I rock the garage *and* manage to be polite to my HoD, maybe a promotion, finally. And it may not be art yet, but it has its moments.

And that's the thing, really. Every moment spent doing something is a moment spent not doing something else, in a life so full of dreams to chase.

How about you? If I weren't here, I'd choose to be either rigging at NICA, pulling straps for a whole new generation of angels, or sailing this baby. Even though I've never sailed before. That's my professional heritage, after all.And both of those things are solidly on the cards in 18 months, and all the more likely for the time I spend here.

Where would you be? Why aren't you there?

(This post brought to you by the Raymond K. Hessel School of Stuff, where the midterms are really hard)

jai.
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[0] My angels, and my crazy fucking Russians. Some of them, of course, manage to be both at once....

That's important to understanding tonight's Moment from the Garage.

Ann-Sophie, the garage stage manager, is a fly-in - a temp, basically. And in a week, maybe two, she flies back to Montreal, and then I think to Seville for Corteo, or possibly Kooza. Who knows. The heady life of a Cirque fly-in.

And tonight, she mentioned this to our clowns.

So tonight's Moment is a small circle - Onofrio the clown, Ann-Sophie, Tom the clown, and myself - arms around each other's shoulders, singing Ne Me Quitte Pas in the garage. Well. I only know the English, but I was bluffing fairly convincingly. Because Jacques Brel is one of the reasons I want to learn French, and has been for 17 years. That song in particular.

But it is, of course, a mistake to admit this to Tom. Because the moment ended with him gazing adoringly into my eyes singing "J'vous ai apporté des bonbons, Parc' que les fleurs c'est périssable".

j'ai.
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Current Location: The Garage.
Current Music: Jacques Brel - Les Bourgeois

My Russians. ( Let me tell you about my crazy fucking Russians. )
And one final moment, a little more serious, because it has nothing to do with crazy fucking Russians. Many years ago, I saw "When Night is Falling", which is a beautiful film with a circus full of beautiful freaks. And in my memory, if not in the actual film, there's a scene where the main character enters an old warehouse, full of jugglers and stilt-walkers and a whole world of passion and art and creativity, not to mention the woman she is falling in love with. And as she enters, that whole world is lit up with fire. And that's always, however unrealistically, been a mental postcard of what life in the circus should be like. One night this week, I caught Ann-Sophie's eye (and at this point it's probably important to mention that Ann-Sophie and I have spent a fair bit of time working together in the garage and now onstage, and I find her both fascinating and attractive) across the open space we use backstage for lighting and extinguishing for the fire dance, and she just started to smile as the fire dancers lit up, bathing the wings, and her face, in leaping flames and firelight. Beauty, art, and fire. We live the dream, a moment at a time.

jai.
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So we have a Big Fuckoff Sphere, about 20' diameter, that "floats" around our theatre. And it's very big, and very heavy, and can move quite fast. And it spends a bit of the show up the back right in front of the booth windows, which are floor-to-ceiling glass and run the entire width of the theatre. And it always looks closer to the booth than it is, and it swings alarmingly if you stop it quickly.

Dave, our automation guru, is driving the sphere back to the booth to put it in preset for a cue. For this to work, you need Dave's accent and geneal demenour. He's a good ol' boy from down South - very laid back, very relaxed.

Joel (production stage manager): Oh, geez, Dave, take it easy. That's pretty fast.
Dave: Naw, that's fine, I caan stop it in time.
Joel: Did I mention, Dave, I had a dream the other night that I was crushed by the sphere?
*beat*
Dave: Well, Joel, this *is* where dreams come true....

jai.
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A budget somewhere north of $150 million US.

75 artists, 100-odd technicians, over 2 years of planning and production, 9 months of install and staging.

16 DMX universes, 8,000 litres of liquid nitrogen a week, 8 follow spots, 400+ fixtures.

A 30m x 30m starcloth with 3001 individual fibre sources.

And what are the LX boys doing? Using 2 moving lights and a follow spot to play Pong on the starcloth.

Complete with sound effects from the artists.

jai.
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But this *is* what I came here for. Standing hip deep in the Venetian VIP pool last night, booked out for the Cirque after-party, with ZAiA herself, sweetest of my angels, standing on my shoulders doing tricks.

I don't often say this, but seriously. Admit it. You wish you were me :)

jai.
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A high five from one of the surly Russians who barely acknowledge most of the crew.

Knowing who needs fist bumps as they fly out of the garage, and who just wants to fly.

"Bon Voyage" instead of the terribly unlucky "Bonne chance!" for a superstitious clown.

A 4'11" female Russian flyer threatening to beat up a 6'2" 100kg rigger. And I reckon she could take him. There's a reason we call her Nastia.

The same 4'11" (buff and bulky) flyer being subbed in at the last minute for a 5'10" willowy dancer in a static image, and hamming it up for all she's worth.

1 rigger taking 3 minutes to fit a harness on the male half of our hand-to-hand duo, while 3 riggers take 10 minutes to fit the female ....

"Shit. Hold this turnbuckle til I stop laughing"

"This is a 5 minute warning to load aerial artists in the grid" "Well, we could, but they cut the aerial act - won't they get kinda bored?" " ... bloody hell. Never mind."

An Australian trampoline artist nicknamed Kangaroo.

And a host of other moments you just had to be there for.

Home is final dress rehearsal before soft opening. Home is the angels I've grown to love and the crew who keep them flying.

I'm still coming back to Melbourne in 18 months. But there are worse places than here.

jai.
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Compounding the homesickness, which was kicking in anyway, is the worst couple of days at work I've had possibly ever.
( Whiny work stuff, wherein I fuck a lot of shit up. Skip to the end for pretty pictures )

Even the fact that there are riggers on my crew for whom that would be a week like any other is no consolation.

But this is! Here. For the perverts and rope nerds, this is one reason I've been in early all week:

( Slightly tart ... wild splices )

jai.
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Well, I'm having a good day. Good week, actually. Great gig, even if we've finally automated the last straps cue, and I have nothing to do. On the bright side, that means I get to spend straps sessions playing with the angels on new tricks, or old tricks they've forgotten, or just stuff they want to play with. Man, I thought rehearsing the set moves was fun. Watching these guys explore the world 40 feet in the air is mindblowing. And being part of it is ... incredible.

And, still, again, falling in love with my wife, watching her become part of the cirque family, remembering why I fell in love with her the first time.

And it comes down to this - exploring, discovering, building, creating. Goddess, never let that stop.

jai.
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Le mot du jour est "PAMPLEMOUSSE!". All caps. The lovely Annie, our despotic stage manager, was in the garage the other day doing her impersonation of a fat hairy rigger, and someone called her "le petit chef du monde" (little boss of the world). Because, however, we all have terrible accents, she was highly offended. "I'm not a goat!" (chevre). So we pointed out that it could have been worse, we could have called her a pamplemousse (grapefruit). Turns out she quite likes being called pamplemousse. So now she is notre petite pamplemousse.

There you go.

Todays French lesson brought to you by the woman who has also taught me to ask how much coffee she has had today.

jai.
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My show now officially has a name - Zaia.

Also - my angels!

( or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZOZg8qX0Mk&watch_response , if that doesn't work)

For those interested, the first half of that act is automated - we've been working a lot over the last few weeks to automate the tricks where they're on separate straps, because it's a lot easier to synchronise the tricks.But I take control at about 3:20 in that video, for the first trick with both of them on the same pair of straps. So yes, that's me screwing up at 5:05 :) But everything else I nailed, including the perfect pickup and the perfect landing from the first trick :) I'm a little bit proud of that video, I have to say :) And oh, are they not beautiful?

jaia.
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Now I remember why I'm here.

I'm sitting in the front row of the theatre, stage right. My strap artists are finally out of the training room, and on the big winches. The best strap artist in the world has just tried his first flight in the new space, and is 40 feet over my head, 10 rows out into the house. I did that. My thumb on the dead man switch, my fingers on the joystick.

On stage left, the new girl is squeaking at the apex of every swing. My Alice, she didn't stop buzzing for ten minutes after coming down.

My toys. My winches, my artists, my responsibility.And they fly like angels.

jai.
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I have an email address ending in @cirquedusoleil.com. In all the excitement of China, and lack of theatre, I almost forgot why I came.

jai.
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Прекрасное Далеко....

Иногда, я скучаю по тебе. Иногда.

Progress!

Oh.

Moments.

Russian of the day.

Dear diary.

This is what you want....

I have brought you some sweets, because flowers do not last.

Longer moments.

Yet another moment.

Another moment.

Now I'm just boasting....

Home is ....

This is what you want ....

... and it goes a little something like this.

Le mot du jour.

In action, how like an angel....

In action how like an angel ....

Also on the bright side?

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Прекрасное Далеко

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