"Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.” Ben Hecht

The view from our room!

I am officially on the road again. Or should I say in the air. I’ve started my Tour-de-Circus 2011 and I’m ecstatic. Yes, I cannot believe I’m being paid to play in the air and then sit on the beach. I’d do it for free. I’m staying at the Island Sea Resort in Freeport. It’s about 10 minutes away from the first venue we’re performing in. It’s the converted St. Georges High gymnasium.

Working on this show has been offered me a steep learning curve.

As an actor I have spent years mastering the fourth wall limbo: pretending that an audience isn’t there while also giving them my energy, that and focusing on my scene partner(s). I have re-discovered how beautiful it feels to break the fourth wall and reveling in energy with no bounds. The audiences we’ve been performing for are primarily kids. So they’re extremely excited by absolutely everything that we do. They are the perfectly receptive audience for my first production.

Rigging has been a delightful adventure.  A rigger is the person who actually hangs our silks from the ceiling. Using a combination of skill, creativity and bravery a rigger braves the heights and secures various apparatus to the ceilings. Thank goodness for Gino Farfan.  Harmony, Sego and I all are so grateful he’s here to figure out how we’re supposed to stay high in the sky and completely safe. That's Gino in the air!

Sego and I have had to make some changes to our act to accommodate our rigging situation. We’re about five feet closer that we expected.  As a result all of the fun spinning and running in circles at the start of our act had to be cut but it’s ok. We’ve been told by other performers that our act still looks fun and the kids screams are proof that they’re having a blast. This photo is from right after out first show!




I forgot my warm-ups. Clothing as well as toys to make the process easier. I made sure to pack our costumes as well as rosin to make sure that our hands don’t slip on the silks, but what I completely forgot are the things that I’ve been taking for granted at the warehouse for the past six months. Foam Rollers, Thera-bands, lacrosse balls and the like. I will never forget them again. Thank goodness for the seasoned performers who brought plenty of tools and are generous enough to share with me.  I also realize I need to warm up for a really long time. When you work out for seven hours a day you’re kind of in a constant state of semi-warm. Well when you really only work for 15 minutes a day it’s hard to get warm and stay warm.  

It’s a completely different time zone here. Not literally, but it’s like CPT on crack. If you’re told that you have to be somewhere at 7, don’t worry about arriving until 7:30 or else you’ll be hanging around waiting for people forever.  This relaxed attitude has done two things: 

1) Enraged the New Yorker in me that is obsessed with being timely and organized.

2) Re-lit a spark in me of a person who actually knows how to relax. You really can’t be stressed here, because there is no point. You get there when you get there.  That may be the most valuable lesson I will be taking from this place.

The other acts are really great. I already knew the amazing hand to hand act KENiMATTix (also life savers on this trip). I’ve met my first contortionist and am fascinated watching her warming up. She sits on her head. Literally sits on her head. I’m even more dumbstruck by the Handbalancer, Ricardo Sosa. He’s a contortionist as well, he can do some very interesting things I’m terrified every time he does his act. It hurts me just watching. I've posted a photograph of him because I am truly amazed at the way he bends his body... 

Photo Credit

By the way he keeps going and going and going…  he can keep lifting his leg until it looks like he’s standing bent over.

Random side note: there’s a woman performing on the swinging trapeze named Harmony French. She’s been a part of Cirque De La Mer in past seasons, so she’s offered me plenty of advice about what to expect and how to prepare for my adventures… as well as a place to crash on my first night in San Diego.

I am aware that I am merely at the beginning of a long and Oz-like journey. I am delighted to say that I have completed my first professional aerial shows and they felt good. Really… really good. I feel proud of myself and ready for more. Tomorrow we pack up and move away to Nassau!

“We learn to fly not by becoming fearless, but by the daily practice of courage” -Sam Keen

If you had asked me in July of this past year if I was even remotely acrobatic, I would have said, "No." I was a 24 year-old actor/dancer/performer who moonlighted as a server. Like many actors I was looking for something that would give me an edge and came by the Circus Warehouse in Long Island City to take a class. Well, I had so much fun I decided to run away and join the circus - literally

As a professional actor and dancer I was no stranger to hard work. Well, being an aerialist completely redefined, “hard work”.  There were at least 25 hours a week of training: sweat, cramps, pulls, callouses, rips and pure unadulterated exhaustion coupled with an exhilarating sense of happiness, triumph, strength and overwhelming personal accomplishment. Oh yeah, and my day job serving for 20-35 hours a week. 

Believe me, it’s just as fun as it looks and not nearly as easy. Aerialists spend their days accomplishing the seemingly impossible. We prove that limitations such as gravity mean little. The power in that is irreplaceable.

The circus is a daily practice of patience. We practice the same trick for months until we can land it, drop it or catch it flawlessly. Even when we don’t it’s the work, the process and the eventual performance, whatever shape it takes, that counts. I have learned that in the circus as in life, you are always caught in the act and never quite done.

For every trick completed correctly there are countless more we can work on—countless movements that have yet to be discovered. True artistry comes form learning all of the rules and then having a blast breaking them.

It’s about pride, humility and courage; the courage to let go, and to take a brake if you’re injured. It’s about the humility it takes to ask for a spot when you need it to look like a fool discovering something new.  It’s about giving yourself permission to stand be proud and take your bow.

So I’ve decided to practice a little pride, humility and courage of my own. I’m going to start my aerial career performing in the Bahamas and then I’m moving across the country to perform as an aerialist at the Cirque de La Mer Show at SeaWorld in San Diego. 

Join me on my adventure as I practice a little courage every day and discover my world in the circus.