Cirque

Early experiment of gif notation for ~30s of a duo act. By contrast, a verbal description of the 6 panels above would be: mirrored frog squat and catchers, transition to back balance, roll to duo right meathook, R pikes over the bar and M left leg hooks and climbs, duo split to left-knee catch, dévelopée out for duo bell beat prep. ...

Just got back from a 5-week stint in Asia to see family and friends and hitting the ground running to condition and develop my multicordes act for Kinetic Arts’ summer festival. I like this festival because it’s a well-equipped venue where you exhibit mainly to other aerialists, who are better-equipped to appreciate artistry than a naïve audience.

This move is deceptively hard due to the requirement of side-bending (and I have a lot of mass on my lats so there isn’t a ton of room to manuever) and the very intense feeling of skin shearing that happens when you extend the front leg. It’s not a move I can get very frequently but here’s my closest attempt done a few weeks after training. I think I have the flexibility to do this with both legs straight but currently just need to build up the pain tolerance for it. ...

slit scan capture #slitscan using #hydra.js on a half-time video of my best split-grip #pdayesha. would love to realtime-project this onto the dancer going out one side of the pole like this. right now speed of the trail is dictated by the amplitude of one of the fft bins for a bit of a dynamic effect — subtle in this more ambient track. ...

https://vimeo.com/1062659763?share=copy **spent 30 min tonight doing a rapid proof-of-concept for this multi-aerialist x multi-visualist hybrid performance i’ve been thinking about for awhile ty @myles_higher for being my test subject 🤍 oh and also giving me lots of real feedback on this idea in general for tonight, i set up very simple gestural control for reactivity using public #hydra.js sketches, but i want to add more cohesion soon with a mix of different sensors or controllers ...

myles and i performed our duo act at spire the church thanks to a show production via twisted windows; the most fleshed-out narrative we’ve ever had for this show (flesh husband attempts to resurrect ghost husband in a séance, set to seven devils). it was my first time performing with twisted windows and i thought it was run very well; we were the last act and the audience was really hyped for our performance. i wish i could have networked a bit more but i was so exhausted after being there for 6 hours (i basically showed up and tech rehearsal and stayed in the cold and cramped greenroom all night). ...

trying out some written documentation for this act with sable from ground, tension lock climb start with russian entry to tension (left foot crosses to right, positions as if russianing, right foot pokes through and replaces, should end in a tension wrap) (my mnemonic: cordes lie across the top of the foot, mirroring line of toes, with the pole in the direction of the big toe) one-arm handstand figure out which wrap to do? currently doing the “boxy” “diy trapeze” one descend to croc ...

i wanted to explore slitscan as it affected multicordes videos. i find the jitter on the visual lines of the cordes to be ideal for showing the action of the slitscan. i developed a “short multicordes” apparatus specifically for this video (gymnastics ring with hitched nautical sash cordes (properly whipped ends this time)) as i had extra material lying around from original development. extremely simple python code in a local notebook below ...

i think slitscan looks most compelling when drawing from regular or easily-traced temporal movement paths. this is just a simple straps spin with no special tricks, but the legs demarcate a clear double-helix (and for a beginning student, could potentially deliver information comparing one leg’s motions vs the other in a flare). ...

This move I (as a base) always think of as “grab the butt”. It’s a bit sensitive to the fabric worn by the flyer (too slippery = worse, and we first got this move by wearing leather shorts which were quite easy to hold).