CIRCUS SCHOOL WEEK 25

At the culmination of a crazy-busy month, I was out of commission the first part of the week with a fever and cold. Our teachers were away in Spain so we had a clown teacher- Stephen Stearns. I managed to make it to half of my classes- in which we mostly work-shopped our Kama Sutra duo trap number. We got great feedback from the class and Stephen and have a lot of work to do to implement the suggestions.

Since I was sick, Monkey had a whole private lesson to work on conditioning for bases with Colleen and Bill.

Obviously it was beneficial- by the end, Monkey was basing our 6' 3" HUGE acro coach, Bill!

BURLESQUE IN BRATTLEBORO

In a daring feat of performance pioneering, Monkey, Lukki, Bradford and I staged 2 nights of our brilliantly brainless burlesque caper, Dial "P" for Pasties, in the sleepy little town where we go to school...Brattleboro, Vermont. It was a smash hit! Sold out, turning people away...one person declared "Better than Wicked"...the next night it was a standing ovation (granted only 3 people were standing, but it still counts)! And Brattleboro will never be the same....

After the show a local woman came by the dressing room to show Lukki and Monkey some of her burlesque costuming talents...

Note the orange cone barricade- part of her installation.

CIRCUS SCHOOL WEEK 24

HOLY COW- HAVE I GOTTEN STRONG OR WHAT?! I based Monkey in all kinds of crazy trapeze moves this week- the one below being the tamest of the bunch. We also worked on him dropping to hang by my ankles, straddling under one leg and then I squeezed his head between my thighs for a move we invented called..."Choke the Monkey". I feel like we made major head way this week!

VALENTINE'S WEEKEND

Valentine's night at The Box...



And Dr. Donut's "BRIDE OF DONUT" cast at Joe's Pub.

VAVAVOOM ROOM

Back in NY again for Miss Astrid's astounding show at The Zipper. Here are some back stage antics....Ukulele Louie (aka Bradford Scobie) puts his best face forward, Julie Atlas Muz and her husband, Leo, rekindle the romance with Tigger's derriere and lastly, Julie's alter ego, Mr. Pussy receives some styling tips from Monkey.

CIRCUS SCHOOL WEEK 22

Tuesday was a normal day of classes. I must admit, it's becoming difficult to take still photos of most of the tricks we're learning because they are getting more dynamic. But we have been toughening up the skin on our calves in order to rock tricks from this leg-to-leg position. Our hand callouses are really macho too.

The rest of the week, we had a guest teacher (Jesse Dryden) for physical theater classes. Jesse is awesome. This is the second time he's worked with us. He'll come back in April and May to help direct our BIG ACT that we will complete by the end of the program. Some of his exercises included re-telling a memory while the rest of the class acts it out, creating movement pieces about elements, words and emotions and writing our own eulogy and acting it out in movement. Jesse is part of this GORGEOUS circus show called Birdhouse Factory: http://birdhousefactoryshow.com

HIGH BROW IN BALTIMORE

We took our roommate (Contortion Chris) home to Baltimore with us for a show at the Ottobar with Scotty the Blue Bunny!  The show was crazygoodtimes.  We did an American Gladiators spoof, re-enacted serious plays and performed our duo trapeze Kama Sutra with some of new tricks from school thrown in! 

 

The day after the show, we had a photo shoot with Mike Lee and my dear friend and woman-who-makes-me-beautiful, Nikki.  We used an old refrigerator for the shoot- I wore my mermaid tail and Monkey was dressed up like Gordon's Fisherman.  

Contortion Chris had his way with the fridge as well.....  

CIRCUS SCHOOL WEEK 20

This Risley-foot-business is no joke.  I spent most of class time this week getting kicked from Monkey's feet while holding all my limbs in tighter than pantyhose on a hippopotamus.  At the end of the day I wind up feeling like I've been in a car accident.  In these photos I start standing on Monkey's feet and do a back layout to land my hips on his feet.  It's not exactly a trick we'll be performing soon, but we're chipping away at it....