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circus is...
Mar. 5th, 2008 08:31 pmTwo days a week I go up to Brattleboro Vt. to New England Center for Circus Arts. It was started by twins Elsie and Serenity Smith, alums from Cirque du Soleil, because they wanted to come home to the Connecticut River valley and do what they love. So there is this amazing, world class resource, 40 minutes away from us.
On Saturday we do family circus with another family (5 of them, 4 of us) and we do things like partner acrobatics, and partner trapeze, and some fabric climbing and tricks, and hand stands and head stands. There is a lot of noise, and it is a lot of fun. Mostly Al and I are in it for stretching and family time. The girls are way more flexible than us, and have better strength to weight ratios, so they can do some really pretty things on the various apparatus. All the aerial stuff happens on relatively static things - they hang from a single point in the ceiling, some swivel and some don't - the point is to climb, and hang, and twist and be graceful and effortless.
I was having such a good time in family circus that I signed up for private classes on Tuesday when Aerin is there for her other class. I work with Bronwyn on whatever I want to work on. At the moment I am trying to put together a (small, foolish but do-able) routine to perform at the spring recital. Fabric is what the userpic looks like (that is my best trick at the moment) also called silks or soie; you've seen it in Cirque videos, and now there is a woman doing silks and contortion in a hotel commercial (!). I am much lumpier than she is, and not so strong, so my tricks are, well, lumpier, really. But I love doing it, even though it hurts and makes me stiff and complainy all the next day. And I am getting better. Very very slowly.
On Saturday we do family circus with another family (5 of them, 4 of us) and we do things like partner acrobatics, and partner trapeze, and some fabric climbing and tricks, and hand stands and head stands. There is a lot of noise, and it is a lot of fun. Mostly Al and I are in it for stretching and family time. The girls are way more flexible than us, and have better strength to weight ratios, so they can do some really pretty things on the various apparatus. All the aerial stuff happens on relatively static things - they hang from a single point in the ceiling, some swivel and some don't - the point is to climb, and hang, and twist and be graceful and effortless.
I was having such a good time in family circus that I signed up for private classes on Tuesday when Aerin is there for her other class. I work with Bronwyn on whatever I want to work on. At the moment I am trying to put together a (small, foolish but do-able) routine to perform at the spring recital. Fabric is what the userpic looks like (that is my best trick at the moment) also called silks or soie; you've seen it in Cirque videos, and now there is a woman doing silks and contortion in a hotel commercial (!). I am much lumpier than she is, and not so strong, so my tricks are, well, lumpier, really. But I love doing it, even though it hurts and makes me stiff and complainy all the next day. And I am getting better. Very very slowly.