“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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I Don’t Want To!!!

So, here it is.  I want to say no.  I want to scream no!  I have no money in the bank, owe some friends money still from the move, owe a lot of creditors money (story of the rest of my life!), and still am literally dragging my reluctant little (okay, not so little) butt, kicking and screaming, to bars with my resume.  This very well may be what the year of saying yes is for.  To push me past my excuses, my blocks, my comfort zones.  But I just don’t want to bartend anymore!!!!!

It doesn’t help that around the corner are very, very positive performance gigs, aerial teaching opportunities, and even a chance to be a Zipline tour guide, while living my life out as a writer and artist in my quietly, less-expensive, Texas existence.  So why should I pile on the edgy makeup, don my cutest Rockabilly duds and flirt with bar managers for a job I really, really don’t want?  Because those magical jobs are around the corner.  Coming up in the next couple of weeks or months.  And my money is gone now.

So, its time to either book some more gigs, tuck my tail between my legs and fly to NYC for a week of emergency, soul-sucking club work, or get a side job asap.  Or all of the above.  So, my stubborn not-so-little butt needs to start saying “yes.”  After all, who’s to say I won’t rekindle my love for slinging drinks in a smaller, cooler town than NYC?  Maybe it will open up other doors… Or maybe my whole body resistance to the job is a sign that I should say “no?”  Oh man, I don’t know.  Well, I guess the only solution is to try saying “yes” if a job opens up and to also try like hell to get something I’d rather do sooner in order to forestall having to don my blacks and mix you a Mexican Martini.

But, this resistance isn’t limited to the bar issue.  I also notice that people have been offering me artistic opportunities in spades, and while I’ve trained my outer persona to nod, “yes” that sounds very interesting!  My inner monologue is going, “do you have time for that?” “Is that helping your career progress?” “Are these the people you want to work with?” “Do you even like that kind of thing?”  These are the questions that NYC artistic living has drilled into my brain.  And they are very useful questions, in their time and place.

However, in a year of saying “yes,” they are stumbling blocks, hiccups of hesitation and self doubt.  The whole point of a year of “yes” is to jump on opportunity and surprise myself with where it leads me.  So, I’ve auditioned with a burlesque troop, started studying fiddle, have plans to start playing clarinet and composing music again, and hopefully in a month will be trading tap lessons for trap lessons!  That’s pretty exciting and totally outside of the realm of what I could have envisioned and directed for myself.  But having to constantly push a vision and a direction for myself might be more of a thing of my NYC past.  Only time will tell.

Moral of the story?  Maybe if the whole world is different here in Austin, if saying “yes” to silks, music and burlesque troops is so great, then bartending will be too.  And if not, well, we don’t want all roses and rainbows for stories anyways, do we?  How boring.  ;)

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Learn How to Fly

This entry originally appeared on my 43Things blog back in 2009.  Since Fire Trapezing is taking up a lot of my time right now, I thought it was a good one to reblog here.  Enjoy!

“There are many ways to fly: spiritually, emotionally, physically…and all are worth doing.”

How I did it: I was supposed to grant this wish to a stranger whose rock I pulled from the wishing well at Burning Man this year.  Unfortunately, the rock kept running away from me and Genesy, I’m sorry that I never got to you.  But, perhaps you will stumble here, or I’ll find you on the eplaya site.

At any rate, no I am not god, so I cannot grow you wings, or defy the current laws of the universe.  However, as far as I know, these are some pretty acceptable alternatives to choose from based on your own personal preferences and limitations.

Physically:

Hang gliding
Para sailing
Aerial dance (silk, trapeze [static or flying], hoop, harness, etc.)
Sky diving
Climbing and Repelling
Acro-yoga
Anti gravity chambers or becoming an astronaut

Emotionally:

Growth
Love
Overcoming fear

Spiritually

Fasting
Chanting
Enlightenment
Lucid Dreaming (and flying!)

(hey, don’t knock it til you try it)

Lessons & tips: A lot of the things on my list are easily and readily available in most cities now.  Go out and try it.  Tomorrow.  Life is short.  Do the close approximation if you can’t grow wings, it will still be better than sitting and wishing.

http://www.wallpapertree.com

http://www.soyoungthekpopers.blogspot.com

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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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Me? Just Building An Artistic Empire…

WARNING:  This post has lots of cool links…

I used to think that I needed to pick something and focus on it.  To pick one skill, one love, one talent and put everything I have into it with hopes of becoming the best.  I used to think that was success.  Being the best.

Fast forward past years of torturing myself over the knowledge that one can never really be ‘the best.’  And realizing that even in the unlikely event that you are say, Lady Gaga, a gold medal Olympian or what have you…that moment of best-ness is at best fleeting.  Man, no wonder I have depression.*

Lately, I’ve taken the “make small steps daily in all of your interests” approach to designing the life of my dreams.  I call it the Get Out of the Night Club Plan.  Every week I put real effort into each of 6 major projects.  And I have papers posted in my living room to document my progress.  Each week I do small things in each category, but real, productive and consistent things.  And I’m happy to say that its paying off!  Almost all of my projects are gaining in recognition and interest, some of them are even starting to pay a little.  I’m having fun because pay or no pay, I’ve decided that this is my work.  So I’m doing things I love for work.  I have a good feeling about this.

Last night, as I surveyed my progress over dinner, I realized that my output was starting to look like an artistic empire.  Something Kim Kardashian or Britney Spears would approve of.  After all, I have the beginnings of a jewelry line, an upcycled art line, a fire trapeze invention, a performance career, multiple blogs, an internet presence, a fiction project, and a few other surprises in the works.  “Damn girl,” I said to myself.  Indeed, why should the celebrities have all the fun?

I’m reading the $100 Start-Up by Chris Guillebeau and so far its like having someone tell me, “yes, yes, you’re doing it right!”  Kind of makes me wonder where I got that whole “you can only focus on one thing” limiting idea in the first place.  I mean, I’ve always been a multitasker.  In high school, I’m not even sure I knew what extracurricular activity I was supposed to be at and when.  Same with Sarah Lawrence.  These were also some of the happiest, most productive times in my life.  Seems I get a bit bored and cranky when I try to be too focused.  I need side projects to stay motivated across all platforms.

And the good news is that means that one or more of my projects is more likely to be a success.  Because I’m putting out there what I think people might want and what I’m passionate about…but I can’t actually know what people will be passionate about, so might as well put out more than less, right? As long as I’m still putting out in each area, of course.  And as long as someone can keep me organized.  I personally have a lovely friend who works a couple of hours a week as my assistant to keep my crazy mind on track.  And it’s totally worth it.  I also pay someone else to do my laundry, which costs the same as 2 dinners out/month.  Again, it’s totally worth it.  Because then I get to do more fun stuff, like make this:

Necktie Coffee Sleeve at
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Erinina7

 

*Just kidding, I know I have depression because my brain chemistry is all fucocked.  But I write this to clean up some of the messes my brain chemistry left all over my thoughts.

Oh, and here’s some cupfuls of kitten:

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

Summer means putting up the trapeze and playing.  Sharing my love with friends and family wherever I may go.  Because summer also means travel to me, new beginnings, a wandering heart and adventure.

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Hilarious Narcissism

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