The television segment for “Eye Opener” filmed last week at Vertical Fitness aired this morning! I definitely wasn’t awake to watch it on television, but luckily they also posted the clip online, as well. (I’d embed it, but the code and WordPress don’t want to get along.) My little interview portion starts around 1:11. Totally worth being at the studio at 8 AM.
Tag Archives: video
Texas Aerial Festival 2015
What a weekend this was!
I attended my very first aerials competition, and came home with a medal. I did win my category—professional comedy—by default, but I am still proud of my routine, simple as it may be compared to the silks routines in the contemporary category. And I’m proud that I competed and didn’t give into stage fright.
Kyro & I got on the road a little later than I had planned Friday morning, which wouldn’t have been an issue under normal traffic circumstances. We ran into congestion almost as soon as we got on US-75. And even more congestion on I-35 once we reached downtown Austin. Had the navigation system in my vehicle not been drunk and sent us to the opposite end of town from where we needed to be, I would have been at check-in exactly on time after eating lunch and checking into our hotel. As it was, I arrived an hour later, just in time for tech rehearsal to start. Despite planning ahead, Rachel Time, as my “twin” calls it, strikes again. Hurray…
My tech was fairly quick, because Nicole, Akira, and I were all using the provided black set of silks rather than our own, so we jumped into line while they were up. I was surprised at how much I liked them; I was expecting far more fabric in the tails, based on the initial specs they gave us. Not a whole lot of stretch, though. Tech for everybody else took much longer because almost all of the others brought their own apparatus, and heights for anything other than silks had to be marked, and music/lighting cues discussed, and stage space for floor work explored, and parts of routines tested out, and so there was a lot of hurry up and waiting going on. Erendira was the last person from Vertical Fitness to get teched (after 6pm!), so I waited with her for moral support. As soon as we got back to the green room, we found out about the drama pertaining to our silks duo.
Cynthia & Laura had been working on a silks duet using two silks. When they first submitted their applications, I asked if they made sure to let the organizers know they were using two silks instead of one. At dress rehearsal, I thought about reminding them to make sure two silks would be available for them, but didn’t have the opportunity to and didn’t think about using Facebook to do so. I thought about borrowing the troupe’s red silk, but didn’t ask on Tuesday after rigging at Clown Gym. I had a nagging feeling Thursday night that I should ask about borrowing it, but it was really late and I had to be up early and I’d decided that it would just be easier for me to use the provided silk. The reason I should have brought it with me? There was some miscommunication about what they needed for their routine, and if the organizers couldn’t get another silk to rig in time, Cynthia & Laura wouldn’t be able to perform. Fortunately, they found a second black silk to rig at the last minute, and the two did a beautiful job with their duet. Lesson: pay attention to that nagging instinct before a competition. (Also, make sure event organizers are 100% clear on your apparatus needs ahead of time.)
That did delay the beginning of the show by about 15 minutes, but that gave me time to apply my makeup minus my nose before going to watch our novices compete. In addition to the pressure of competing, Michelle had the pressure of being the first performance of the night. Immediately followed by Erendira and Maria. In contrast… I performed almost last (third from the end), and the last of everyone from Vertical Fitness.
I don’t think I could ever be a competition judge. There were so many good performances, not just from our crew. And a lot of Reach For Beauty. It makes me happy that most of the VFD routines managed to escape that.
I didn’t get to watch as many of the professional routines, because I had to get ready for my turn on stage while people were competing—that was the downside of performing at the end of the night, instead of being first. I’m really glad that Kim & Christopher were performing just before me, because that helped with the remaining calm backstage and not letting the butterflies take over. Following their timing for warming up, getting into costume, reviewing my routine one time on Christopher’s phone… I felt much more calm and collected than I would have otherwise. (I’ll be honest, knowing I had no competition in my category did a lot to take the pressure off, too.)
As for my routine, while it wasn’t perfect—I think still dress rehearsal was my best run-through—it went well. I got laughs where I wanted to, and I didn’t drop the ball. Although at one point it almost fell out of my neckline at one point. (Before the awards ceremony, Christopher asked me what I did to keep the ball in place, which amused me considering how many times during rehearsals he watched me shove it down my shirt. The answer: nothing. No sticky, no tape, no rosin, just fabric tension & luck.) I did drop the parasol at the beginning of my floor work, at the end of the body roll, but it didn’t get captured on video and apparently people thought it was scripted. Yay for good recovery! My chair drop was not so smooth. When I let go of the slack, I didn’t drop immediately because the parasol handle was tangled in the silk. Of course the thing I drilled the most on Tuesday is the one thing that I messed up. Oh, well. We should get our scorecard and judges’ feedback within the week; I’m both curious and nervous to see what they thought of my piece. Pretty sure “Point your toes!” is going to be on there.
Vertical Fitness did well at the awards ceremony. In addition to Marian, Cynthia & Laura, Kim & Christopher, and me winning our categories (Novice Large Props, Novice Contemporary Duo, Professional Contemporary Duo, and Professional Comedy respectively), Nicole took home the award for Novice Best Costume, and Akira took home the awards for Best Floor Work and Best Contemporary Novice. Not bad, especially considering this was the first competition for almost all of us!
My VFD family:
- Michelle, novice contemporary lyra
- Erendira, novice contemporary lyra
- Maria, novice contemporary lyra
- Nicole, novice contemporary silks
- Akira, novice contemporary silks
- Cynthia & Laura, novice contemporary silks duet
- Marian, novice large props lyra
- Taylor, amateur contemporary lyra
- Christopher, professional contemporary lyra
- The Blondeshells, professional contemporary cube duet
Other routines I liked:
- Johanna, novice contemporary lyra (I knew this would win when I saw it)
- Toni Tobasco, novice comedy lyra
- Sarah Agate, amateur comedy silks
- Amanda Brown, professional contemporary lyra (fun, showing contemporary doesn’t have to equal Reach For Beauty)
- Angela, professional contemporary hammock
- Elise Sipos, professional contemporary halo (her stage presence, I want; also, that costume)
- Cat Carter, professional large props lyra
All of the videos from Friday night: https://vimeo.com/album/3645747
My Instagram report of the weekend:
If you give a clown a suggestion…
…she’ll try to figure out if it will work.
If it works, she’ll start plotting an aerial silks routine around it.
#awkwardtuesday
That time I posted a video clip of my hair getting in my way because it amused me, and then it gets reposted by Caitlyn Larsson (one of the guest instructors I’ve had classes from).
Routine: “One Day I’ll Fly Away”
There are things I want to revise: character moments I want to develop, poses I want to hold longer or more gracefully, transitions I want to smooth out. I should have made more use of the extra height and varied my levels more. Despite all of my critiques, however, I’m rather pleased with my debut solo routine. It’s very much me.
“Space Invaders”
The video of our “Space Invaders” routine with audio finally went up on Vimeo (YouTube muted our music due to a copyright claim on David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream”). While I’m hypercritical of my own performance—I’m on the orange silk—I think we did well as a group together. Especially considering we performed in front of 250 people, give or take!
The other performances from the day can be found in the playlist here:
Achievement Unlocked, Lyra Edition!
Tonight, after a class focusing on back balances—oh, joy—I tested out of beginner’s lyra! And managed to look fairly graceful at it, if I do say so myself. (Did not feel very graceful during some of those transitions!) Looking back at the video, there are one or two spots where I didn’t have my thumb wrapped, but if Madison noticed she didn’t yell at me for it.
Lyra Progress Video
Just a short video from the end of class. Madison has been asking when I’m going to test out of beginner’s lyra; the answer is soon, I hope. Other than back balances, I feel ready.
Aerial Endurance Improv
Jessica, who filled in for Nicole tonight, was very big on sticking to the class description: techniques and variations. Tonight’s variations? “Push Me, Pull You.” Ugh. We covered three different ways to do it. Single silk, split silk, and unsplit (more of a pull yourself into an invert than PMPY). Ugh. I do want to work the unsplit version without people around. Maybe it’ll be easier to invert in?
And then, the plinko drop. Which is pretty much the same as the fwink drop. I think? It’s very similar. If I can get the “tip forward and hook my bottom knee on the silks on the opposite side of what seems natural” part down—a lot of things to remember to do all in one smooth motion—I can manage the actual drop. Otherwise, I do what I did several times tonight and slide down the silk until I hit the mat. Not exactly how the drop is supposed to go! After you do the plinko drop, guess what you can do immediately after? If you guessed the Salto, you’re correct. Jessica also showed us how to switch to an S-wrap in order to windmill.
Final thing in class tonight was working on choreography and endurance. Jessica put on a song, and we had to stay in the air the entire time. Endurance wasn’t the hard part for me. Figuring out which moves to put together on the fly was. I should probably make lists of what moves I know with all of the options for what could follow after them. Such as putting the Salto after so many different drops. Or the pretzel after anything in a single footlock.
My improvised choreography, in all it’s baby giraffe glory:
V-Up Challenge: Day 30
It looks very similar to my first video thirty days ago, but there are a few improvements.
I’m not making a huge jump to get myself off of the ground, and my descent is much more controlled. I could still lift my butt higher towards my hands, but my legs are straighter. The two things I still need to improve: inverting with straight legs, and inverting in the air.
To be honest, I didn’t spend as much time on the silks working on my inverts as I did doing Scott Fun at home every night. Had I made more time to do that, I know I would have seen a greater improvement. Definitely as case of you get out what you put in.
As much as I don’t particularly like conditioning, I’m closer to having an at-home conditioning routine I will keep up with. So far it includes:
- V-ups
- Pike ups
- Reverse crunches
- Diamond leg lifts
- Abductor leg lifts
- Adductor leg lifts
- Heel touches or Russian twists
- Yoga routine of the day
I probably need to add in something for obliques and for arms. Planks. And something for splits. Overall, though, I’m happy with my routine.
I’ll be even happier when I’m inverting in the air with straight legs.
Aerialist-in-Training 