☔️🌷 April: Pandemonium Progress Report 👹 (Patreon)

Hello patrons! After a lovely rainy morning visit with my old pal Maui here, I’ve cooked up this overdue update post for us. Here we go!

Thank you guys so much for your kind words last week about Tournelle du Soleil– it brightened my day each time a new one popped into existence and makes me feel motivated about taking that whirlwind first draft into a polished direction later this year.

I'm in the homestretch of my stunt contract on Frankenstein. I'm in rehearsals every day, and prepping my body and mind to be ravaged by a couple weeks of dirty night shoots. I have so much to write about from this contract once it's done. It's going to require digestion, reflection, and a slow approach.

• Today, I'm filling you in on what's been happening on my end while you've been reading Tournelle du Soleil, what's coming up in the immediate future, and what I'm looking at for later in the year.

• Tomorrow, you'll be getting another post from me about some conscious changes I'm going to try out with this Patreon to help me shoot for my goals this year.

• Later next week, I'm going to be reaching out with (1) some polls! and (2) a comment box link to request some testimonials from anyone happy to offer little blurbs or sound bytes that I can share on my website, socials, and future-backs-covers-of-future-books.

• A SLOW CIRCUS: BARBETTE printing/publication progress report is coming your way too (exciting!), along with some polls so I can get your feedback on what happens here.

Without further ado, here's the nitty-gritty of my state of my chaos, a Pandemonium Progress Report!

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE

✵ In a couple weeks I'll be starting to rehearse and re-familiarize myself with VACUUM for a one-off performance here in Toronto on May 10th, a cabaret hosted by friends of mine who are Halloween enthusiasts that want a creepiness contingent injected into the decidely un-gothic sunshine and tulips of early summer. I'm excited to get back in the Danger Balloon!

✵ Getting the second (rather delayed) volume of THE INTERVIEWS zine out into the world (and running another social media push for new patrons, like I did last time! existing patrons who've been here for the past 3 months are gonna get their free copies too, just like last time). Moving forward / for Year 2 and onward, I'm going to shift to a single-issue publication with everyone's interviews in one volume. It's better that way.

✵ Creeping back onto social media (I took 3 months off by accident... whoops. It's been good for me, though! More on that tomorrow ).

✵ Writing and firing off a couple of grants to help me try to navigate the middle-future [see below]

THE MIDDLE FUTURE

✵ I'm heading back to Montréal mid-May for another big push towards my technical and professional goals in circus. Lots of training in aerial straps, ballet, and contortion. There'll also be lots of revisiting and re-vamping BARBETTE with the clarity that time-away from a project brings.

✵ July: it's looking like I'm going to get to present BARBETTE at a cabaret in Montréal! The Complètement Cirque festival is running during this time period and the city is going to be alive with shows and visiting artists. I'll offer more details on this as we get closer to it.

✵ Mid-July: I'm heading back to Ireland to teach at the https://irishaerialdancefest.com/ for the first time & share BARBETTE there, too. Aisling ni Cheallaigh, Jenny Tufts, Rachel Strickland, and Alec Stoddard are going to be there too – a most powerful panoply of prodigious, prestigious Patreon creators gathering in one place, indeed! ;)

THE (NOT-SO) DISTANT FUTURE (fall / winter)

✵ Jenny Tufts recently mentioned that November is National Novel Writing Month, and let me tell you, my interest IS PIQUED. That's all I'll say about that for now.

✵ I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but one of my longer-term goals is to begin trialling long-form, durational performances of VACUUM. Specifically, I want to try to get these into art museums and galleries. I've got pretty minimal connections in that corner of the art world, but it's on my mental vision board (should I make a real-life vision board? do any of you do that? do you like it?)

✵ I want to start dabbling with film photography – to play with an old, casual medium for creative cross-pollination, as well as to start exploring creating images that I can combine with some of my writing projects here. I've got my hands an a 50-year-old Polaroid SX-70 and a more modern little fujifilm instax for instant-gratification, as well as a classic manual film camera in the form of a very old Yashica.

Do I have any idea what I'm doing? No. Can I remember the aperture/iso calculations that I learned in my Grade 10 photography class half a lifetime ago? Nope. Do I know how to use a light reader? Also nope. Am I going to waste a bunch of rolls of film? Probably. That's okay. (advice welcome!)

Okay folks, let me leave it there for now. You'll hear from me again soon (tomorrow!). Have a strange and wonderful rest of your day (or night). XO - s.