Life of a month-old circus performer

It's been a month exactly since I moved to Tucson to join the pyrotechnic theatre troupe Flam Chen.

Since this blog is going to be repurposed from cataloguing my experiences at Arcosanti to cataloguing my experience as a legitimate "circus performer", it's fair to answer the question most people who know me personally lately.

So, what exactly are you doing in Flam Chen?

Not coming from a strong background in the performing arts specifically, most of my time with them is spent just training. The first thing you notice about yourself as you start to practice something like silk aerial, or even stilts, is that there is a distinct muscle buildup. Especially with aerial, there is nothing you can do if you can't hold yourself on the silks for more than ten seconds, and in any number if different positions. For me, while I am overall a healthy person, but not particularly athletic or strong, this gradual changing of the body has been noticeable—and exciting—for me.

My old training in Aikido kicked in, and in many ways that's what allows me to do any of this at all. The language of the body—understanding what it takes to move a certain way, with a certain amount of force or flexibility, is what one person needs most when approaching something like aerial—though it can be incredibly helpful even in the day-to-day activities of sitting and walking. It's been a long time since I studied Aikido, and I think it shows in how well I speak the language of the body, but aerial training is reminding me of its importance—and now, how it can tie into raw strength, which is a dimension that I've not experienced before. I've probably gained a little weight around the shoulders and in the arms since I got here, even in that short of a time. Probably only noticeable to me right now—but I hope that it becomes noticeable to others who knew me before I moved here. I became a lot healthier at Arcosanti. That trend is continuing here.

Being aware of this physical transition, I've made a point of it to eat well. Aside from my one daily vice, which is coffee, I eat fresh fruits and vegetables, usually sauteed or stir-fried (yes, I cook with fruits—it makes things more interesting), with a variety of different meats and carbs, but usually pastas or rice noodles. Lunches are usually a bagel sandwich with some fruit or yogurt, and because I'm not interested in spending the extra money on soda, I am drinking multiple cups of tea almost every day.

My weak points are my flexibility—I need to be more serious about yoga, and as soon as I'm sure I have the funds to support it, I'll continue my long-paused Aikido training.

I tend to work in cafés. Being a freelancer gives me a lot of flexibility, as long as I can make the ends meet. While I do plan to get my cappuccino machine shipped from the east coast to help save on the cost of coffee, which adds up real fast (I'm not the kind of person that feels justified in walking into a cafe without buying something), I tend to hang out outside the house I rent out of whenever I can. If just for the change of pace and scenery—I've found it difficult to work at home on most days. Sometimes the extra concentration is worth the extra dollars in beverage.

But the life of a month-old circus performer also carries with it the gradual initiations. I think I'm a special case, in a special situation. Flam Chen doesn't really have an audition process, nor much of a tiered structure of who is a performer and who is not. They instead have a pool of people that, from whatever walk of life or for whatever reason, got "sucked in" to the group and their activities. For most of the core members that make up the troupe, the rest is history beyond that. For me, the pattern seems to be similar, but with the fact that I somewhat already had my foot in the door. Being from Arcosanti was the crack, and then talking with the different members and sharing my skillset with them opened that crack further. After I realized that there was an opportunity in this picture, and after realizing it was the one chance in my life to do anything like it, I decided to see if I could pry the door open enough so that I could walk through. Indeed, it opened.

I think the fact that I moved myself from the East Coast to Tucson, from an outsider's perspective seemingly on a whim, may have had something to do with it. For me, it was just the practical reality of the situation—where else could I practice silks or firespinning? But again, from an outsider's perspective, it can be a powerful signal. Is it odd that someone would just decide to move because they were so excited about the group, with no promise of pay nor any real written agreement about what would happen? Is it a sign that others may do the same in the future, if the company has a way to ingest them and find a way to plug them into a potential hierarchy?

These are unanswerable questions. But for me, the steady training and gradual involvement in shows, usually as a stagehand or safety, are the small steps into a future I honestly cannot predict. I know that I am steadily approaching a cliffside—a point where I will have to make choice, so to speak, where I will have to open these wings and see where the wide horizon takes me. All the different elements that make up my life right now—Proteus Creative, Flam Chen, Tucson and its surprisingly broad networking scope, and even other elements that are gradually emerging—all of these are like puzzle pieces, and there is a number of different ways to arrange them. None of the pictures will be wrong—but only one, I think, will be best, and I can only put them together one way, once.

For the first time in my life I feel like I have so many options that there is no clear direction. I know that this is actually just an illusion. That the pieces of this life are gradually getting sewn together by an unseen power or by strange twists of fate that even I could not have guessed, even in my remotest dreams—if anything, the direction may be clearer than ever. It's just in a color I've never recognized before.

There is so much to be done, and a lot that needs to be learned. Somehow I feel like it's just the beginning.