“Yes” to a Performing and Creating Family

Just before I left my new home in Austin to return to NYC for two weeks, I received a Facebook invite from a friend there, Stav Equality Meishar. Since I get around ten invitations a day on facebook, much of it not even remotely near where I live, or could feasibly attend, this was no big thing. In fact, I most likely wouldn’t have even noticed it if it hadn’t included a personal message that this event had made her think of me, specifically. Intrigued, I opened the event page at exactly 12:01pm on April 7th, 2013 to find that it was in fact a notice to audition for what looked like a Cirque troupe here in Austin. An audition that in fact had started just one minute before I opened the invite on that very day.

Image Credit: ashleeholmes.buzznet.com

“Too bad I missed it, looks kind of cool,” was my first thought. Then, “well, I don’t have plans today…but I also don’t have a way to get there, or anything prepared.” Again, “well it looked interesting, maybe in the future.” Then, I told a friend of a friend who was staying in our apartment about it as I fixed my coffee. And suddenly I had the offer of a ride, just like that.  Wait, what?  “No, I’m not going, it already started.  I don’t have anything prepared.”

And that’s when I realized that I was saying “no.” I didn’t need a perfected audition piece, I had dozens of sequences on my trapeze, stage presence, a love of improvising dances on my apparatus, and I could RSVP to the audition and see if they still had any spots open for me to come in. To which I received an almost immediate “yes” back. And suddenly I was committed. I was auditioning for a troupe. Which was fine, I could always try it and see if it was for me, I could always say “no” later, in other words.

Somewhere around the part where we improvised physical theater with each other, I had decided these might be my kind of people. Yes, I was that stubborn about it. It wasn’t until the day that the cast was to be announced and I was anxiously checking my email that I really owned that I wanted to be a part of this group. And it wasn’t until two weeks later, back in Austin and attending rehearsals, timidly trying to learn the awesome dance skills other people were bringing to the table that I started to understand my own resistance and why this opportunity was so special.

See, I hadn’t truly been a part of a group, a whole heart committed, 3-4+ days a week of rehearsals kind of group in five years. I’d dipped my toe into being a part of a circus group in NYC just before I left, but I’d never been able to participate much more than showing up for performances with my own act. I was overbooked, and that felt like all they needed from me anyways. That left my own theater group, which I’d disbanded exhausted, wanting more experience and more time to create my own work, five years prior. On my way to NYC, I learned that I was a core member of the troupe Crash Alchemy back in Austin TX and that we’d be putting on a show in just 5 weeks, on May 18th.

Okay, I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew I would be dancing and acting and creating and trapezing. I wanted to be a part of building this group, of creating something together. I’d fallen into a family of people who somehow magically wanted to make the kind of things that I wanted to make. And it had all almost happened by accident.  Or maybe by sheer force of the Universe reminding me to say “yes” and stop being so stubborn all the time. It was okay to commit to this. I was more creative, making more art in my life, not less. And the people in the group were there for each other, talented and into the vision of working in multiple disciplines. I think somehow I’d believed that I couldn’t find another group I’d love as much as my hand selected theater group years before. And I’d believed that committing to a group again would stunt my own work again. At the same time, I kept craving and wondering why I couldn’t find community in NYC.  Well, no wonder when I’m this gun shy about commitment, huh.  Head. Trapeze Bar.

May 18th has come and gone with spectacle and love and just more and more amazing talent, community and group love and support.   I am learning what it means to be a part of the right creative family for me, ups and downs, exhaustion and success.  And I wholeheartedly love it and am honored to be a part of it.

Image Credit: Ed Lehmann

 

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Monies for Fires

Photo by Carlos Henriquez

If you haven’t seen my video debut of the fire trapeze last weekend.  You need to check it out here.

But here’s the thing…I’m like “this” close to getting my very own freelance performing and writing career launched.  “This” close, I tell ‘ya.  ;)

But I need your help!  Here’s why:

I invented a fire trapeze.  Why?  I had a dream about it in Peru and thought, how amazing? How death defying?  If Circus exists to give us hope, to make us marvel, to think: if that’s possible, anything is possible!  Then, I’m in.

And what is more awe inspiring than a girl on her trapeze, sharing her passion and talents, invoking laughter, provoking thought with movement, a girl that dances even as the ropes of her apparatus burn?

Oh, and she survives.

That’s a nice metaphor for our current world, no?

2 years of research and design, and it works!  People want me to perform.  They want me to tour.  They may even want me on TV.  And once completed, this act demands the kind of pay that I can live on.  The problem?  It is going to cost me at minimum another $5,000 to do it safely, properly and awesomely.  And that’s the minimum.  Defying death does not come cheap, apparently.

If you can donate even $1, please do so.  If you can share the link below, even better.  Let me make great art and dazzle the world with fire!  http://www.indiegogo.com/erinina?a=122333

Love and Peace,

Erinina

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Accomplishment

Its amazing what baby steps can accomplish.  2 years.  Times of giving up, feeling pretty apathetic.  So many battles to find the right materials, rehearsal space, manufacturers, equipment.  2 years.  And I made this.

Photo Credit: http://www.rachaelshane.com/

 

It’s real fire.  Its really me, on my very own invention.  It’s a dream realized.  And the funny thing is, after accomplishing it, it all seems so easy.  Because now I know how to do it.  But it wasn’t easy (really, its still not easy), and it wouldn’t even exist without some pretty amazing people who believed in me, my idea and pushed and picked me up when I was feeling defeated.  People who’s knowledge is also going to keep this project from killing me.  ;)

Big thanks to Darrell O’pry and Miguel Caceres, Circus Warehouse and The Muse for all of your expertise and support.  And big apologies if you follow me everywhere and have seen this announcement and photo plastered on Facebook and Twitter.  I’m like a teenager in first love.  I want to shout it on top of mountains.  :)

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Making Your Own Rules

Today, the fourth day of being sick in bed is finally, I think, the last one. Its boring. Especially as you start to feel better and want to do things like work on the ideas for your new trapeze routine that you’ve had so much time in bed to think about, but not enough energy to actually rehearse. Frustration!

Of course, I could insert a happy lesson here about being grateful for my body’s ability to heal or that I have a bed to convalesce in and that all I’m healing from is a sore throat. But after four days of feeling guilty, pressured, stressed and worried about what I’m missing, and who I’m letting down, I’d rather write about taking control of my own life.

I could have made the decision to push through being sick, to pop antibiotics on day one instead of seeing if my body could heal itself first and I could have pushed myself to overcome what my body was telling me in order to train in the name of following my dreams on the trapeze and all that. But I chose not to. Consciously. And I’m lucky enough (stubborn enough) to have structured my life so that 90% of the time I can make those decisions. So what’s with the guilt? Who’s pressuring me? While there are definitely some people out there who are manipulating their notions of loyalty, authority or what have you on my life to their own ends, most of the pressure comes from myself. And any pressure that I allow from outside is just that, pressure that I allow.

Four days away from the world gave me a cleaner house bit by bit as I got more energy, let me go through some pictures from the past that have been sitting in a box for months, let me smile and laugh and cry at some of those pictures instead of rushing through them, let me organize a little of my closet, watch tv, write, sit still on my roof on a beautiful night with a great friend who I love so much more dearly than I can say and even harder but better, to sit still with myself and get a little perspective on my life in this crazy city.

So who’s running your life? Yes, we need to pay the bills, care for family and friends, have discipline to reach our goals. Yes choices about how to do that get more and more difficult in this economy everyday. But how we do those things is still a choice. Its our life and we might just only get one.  I’m overjoyed to be able to say that I’m following my dreams.  Its not always easy and I don’t like every choice that I make to get there.  Seeing more of my friends and family would be nice!  But I’m still choosing what kind of life I want to live.  I’m making each little decision about each sacrifice, risk and opportunity as it comes along.  So I might as well try to own that and do it consciously.  And while I’d appreciate it if other people wouldn’t pressure me so much, I’d probably appreciate it most if I didn’t pressure myself on behalf of anyone but myself.

So now I’m going to listen to Muse’ new song Uprising.  Again. You should too. Watch the video for the weird teddy bear monsters too, it somehow makes me laugh and feel like a bad ass at the same time.

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Thank Yous to the Unseen

Today I am thinking about not taking advantage of things.  Even little things.  For instance, my Apple iTunes comes up with a new upgrade every time I open it and I have to download it.  I find this annoying.  But, someone or some people somewhere work hard, spend hours writing and rewriting code to make sure that iTunes works as well as it can and counters any bugs that come up.  They make a good product.  And they continually improve it.  Thank you Apple.  There are little examples that are actually big examples of this everywhere.  Technology continues to improve because people commit their lives and knowledge to improving it.  Diseases find cures because people get dedicated about doing the research or raising the funds or even raising the awareness of an issue.  Children get raised because parents give up time and love to their children.  My apartment building’s staircases get swept and my garbage taken out properly based on whether or not my super does a good job.  We notice annoyances all the time, why not spend a day noticing what we never notice.  The time and energy that it takes to have things “right,” which can often just mean unnoticeable.

my.gratefulness.org

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