PREMIERE – China International Circus Festival (Patreon)

Ohhh, I was wrong about the press and the non-existent masses.
The once pleasantly empty resort is now packed full to bursting with people.
They have been arriving all day, and they must have been arriving all of last night, too, in order to suddenly be here in such numbers. It’s suddenly faster to take the stairs than the elevator. The massive entrance hall is like walking through the Eaton’s Centre on December 24th. Breakfast and lunch is full of screaming children and swarms of humans; every table is full, and you have to act fast if you see an open placemat to secure chopsticks and utensils for your meal. 

 It’s . . . busy. 

And – there’s nothing else different happening at this resort, as far as we can all tell, besides the obvious: the festival. Grade 3 logic concludes that, yes, these folks are all here to enjoy the circus shows. 

Troy and I look at each other.
“It’s gonna be a full house tonight, looks like,” he says. 

That it does. 

Despite telling my body that it had the luxury of sleeping in today, it petulantly decided that 5:45am was a great time to be suddenly wide awake. I toss and turn, punching my pillow, trying to turn a movie on quietly in the background, sip some water, kick the covers off, pull the covers back on . . . nothing doing, today. I’d spent some hours last night watching the footage from our terrible dress rehearsal over and over again, making notes about the lighting schemes and what adjustments I need to make to my own direction and movement in order to make the best of the lighting that we have.  It probably wasn’t the right thing to do immediately before bed; my brain chewed on it all night. 

I groan and throw in the towel around 6:50am, roll out of bed, and zombie-walk down three flights of stairs to the banquet hall. 

One good thing about being up this early is that the huge crowds of people that were around yesterday aren’t lining up to be at the breakfast buffet right when it opens at 7:00am. 

Whether it’s lack of sleep or first-show-of-the-competition jitters, my stomach is telling me that it doesn’t want much food. Breakfast food here is mainly congee (no fewer than six different kinds every morning), some deep-fried Westerner food options, and then a short table of fresh whole food, sliced baguettes and tiny croissants, and some mild cheeses. I shuffle straight to the latter to grab a banana and a couple pieces of bread dotted with seeds and bits of dried fruit with a pat of butter. I drop this off at a table in a far, quiet corner, next to the window overlooking the main promenade of the resort and the towering ‘New Circus’ across the river, and strike the next most important thing off my list: coffee. 

I pull out the notebook I was jotting my lighting notes in the night before and open up the video of our rehearsal. I watch it again. I watch it again. I watch it again. I live the choreography out in my brain and tell myself Today is going to be a good day. Today is going to be a good day.

I chew my way through my simple breakfast slowly before going back for a second cup of coffee that I don’t finish. Stomach’s too acidic already. Unfair, I wail internally. If you’re going to be exhausted and sleep-deprived, your stomach should automatically be able to handle whatever caffeinated substances you wish to throw in it, in my opinion (of course, it is the opposite of this wish that is generally the reality of things).  

I should probably check my WhatsApp in case Leonor has been messaging us, I think. The VPN has been extra patchy lately. Even though WhatsApp is supposed to work without it, the app has been ridiculously slow to the point of uselessness and I’ve subsequently started to ignore and avoid it. 

~ Leonor ~

Hey guys so there’s gonna be a lighting from 9:30 – to 10:00 on stage 

~ Troy ~
Alrighty. We can walk that through, mm?

No no no what the f*** is this, no more lighting rehearsals-

~Ess~
Why / what for?

~Troy~

They wanted to practise their new manual beginning with the music. We didn’t get to last time. 

~Ess~
What …? That doesn’t make any sense … they said there is no mixing manual with pre-programmes at our last lighting rehearsal. I don’t understand. 

~Troy~

Not manual, I think the beginning they are manually pressing the button (the same one that you pushed) to switch to the next lighting cue before sitting back later in the piece and letting other timed programmed lighting changes happen automatically. I was confused at that too, but then we had to leave. He kept saying he wanted to do the lighting for the beginning because he would be pressing the button to move when he sees me move. If I got that right, Leonor?

ArrrrGHHHH he's not LISTENING to me –

~Ess~
FFS I thought they were saying that was impossible . . . I’ve been studying my lighting cues from the last run all last night and this morning; I don’t want to change it again . . . 

~Troy~
I don’t think we are changing them. I think they just want to put them together with the music. We didn’t have access to the music last time.

We didn’t…?

~Troy~
I’d rather keep what we know as well.

~Ess~
Why does that involve us then? The spotlights at the beginning are programmed from when they had me hit the buttons before our last dres rehearsal; you’re saying you want to keep things as they are but ALSO let them do the beginning solo lights with them manually pressing the change button …? I am so confused

~Troy~
To me, manual solo beginning lights aren’t “different”. It’s correct vs incorrect. If they want to ensure correctness by pressing the button at the right time instead of relying on their time code, you’ve got it. Leonor kept saying they wanted to do the beginning musically, which is 1) what we wanted at first, and 2) much better than what they wanted before – which was to do it based on our movement. 

~Troy~
Maybe they know our act a little better now? I asked if manual begging lights would affect the later time pieces and they said no, but I would like to see that with the music myself. 

I don’t understand, I don’t understand. The last I-don’t-know-how-many lighting rehearsals we’ve had where I’ve asked in four different way to make sure I understood them correctly that we can’t have SOME manual cues and OTHER programmed cues … is Troy getting a different story because he asked in a way that I didn’t? Or is Troy getting a different story because he gave them a really, really long explanation and they just say ‘yes’ because the heart of the question got lost in translation …

I am highly suspicious it is the latter. 

At the end of my Very Bad Day two days ago, as I zoned out and watched the flying trapeze team practice, the sole interjection I attempted with Troy as he communicated with the lighting board technician again was to try to explain that the more conversational ‘niceties’ he throws into his sentences (“I was just thinking that maybe …” “It would be nice if perhaps instead of this effect we could try for something different…”…) the less clear the translation seems to go. To try to use as direct a wording he can. 

He turned back to the lighting board team and continued to elaborate in long, sprawling sentences; I had shrugged internally and returned to watching the flying trapeze.  More in the vein of you can only disagree with your partner so much … line of thinking. 

Now, here we were again, facing down … another lighting rehearsal. The morning of the first show of the competition. I felt the familiar, sickening roil of stress twisting around in my stomach as I glared down at my coffee, alone at my breakfast table. I wanted to privately message Troy and yell. I wanted to find Troy in person and yell. How could we be so out of sync with each other…?! 

Calm down. Don’t bring this energy into the space. You have a show together tonight. You can’t be combative; Troy will just pick up on it and things will be even weirder … Clearly he’s set on f***ing with the lighting again so, just … go … be a united … front … or something. Just let it go. You have no control over this situation. 

I take a deep breath. 

Which does nothing. 

I take another deep breath. 

It does a little something. 

I send the facepalm-emoji, and a curt “see you at 9.30” message and shut off my phone.
I’ve got another hour.  

Just … relax. 

*******************************

I end up walking over to Old Circus early.
One of the lovely girls from the Netherlands who is part of the illusionist act has passed by me on her way out of the dining room telling me that they have their own morning rehearsal to tackle. I figure, why not go watch them. 

They’re having their own trouble with getting the stagehands to bring the correct pieces of equipment out at the right time, to the right place, at the right points in the music.  I sigh internally for them. Moreso maybe than any other act, maybe, theirs must rest almost entirely on precise timing in order for their illusions to sell. I hope they get what they need. 

Troy walk in from the far corner of the circus as a message from Leonor pops up on my phone screen:

~Leonor~

Hiiii morning if you don’t see me I’m on my way theeeere and I ask Hugo to help translate if I am not present. We can do this! Add oil!

Oh boy. Better and better, I think. At least with continuity of translator there seems to be less misunderstandings; I’m sure everyone has their own style of translating. I hope Hugo helps us make things clearer and not muddier. 

“Hey,” I say to Troy as he sits down next to me. We wave hello and smile to the Dutch team as they notice us sitting in the second row and wave. 

“Did you sleep okay?” Troy asks. 

“I wish.”
 

“Ahhh … that’s … not good,” he says.
 

“No,” I sigh. “Gonna have to try for a nap later,” I say, knowing full well that nothing of the sort will happen.
 

We sit quietly together in the dark of the tent for a moment, watching the illusionist, Christian Farla, direct the female assistants around the ring. The air is thick between me and Troy. 

Troy starts speaking nervously in the silence between us, repeating the details he is hoping that we can achieve with this 11th hour lighting rehearsal.  When he thinks I’m angry with him, he starts to talk a lot. I’m not angry though. I’m pensive. 

I listen quietly, nodding along as he describes this and that. I’ve already tried explaining that some of these things aren’t possible (or, at least, were described to us as impossible several times already, I think …), so I don’t feel the urge to try to say these things again. In this current climate between us, I know instinctively that Troy will only hear it as an argument with him and dig his heels in further. In my head I’m thinking instead that this tension is not going to work. It was here in the air between us at the last dress rehearsal, and you saw how well that went. I take a slow breath and remind myself to drop my shoulders down away from my ears. 

“Troy,” I interrupt quietly. “Can I say two things?”

“Oh, Yes, of course,” he says. I hear the former Human Resources Manager in him in these kinds of moments. 

“The first thing is,” I say, pulling my gaze away from the illusionist act in the ring. “I think we are on different pages about what we can expect from this environment. I feel like on Day 2 of this festival I came to the conclusion that there was only so precise we were going to be able to get with our requests and then we were gonna hit a point where we’re just not going to make any more headway with our specific requests for lighting and stuff; and I think you’re still very much fixed on the idea that if we keep pushing we’re going to get somewhere different. And I don't want to shit on you really wanting things to be perfect. But we’re not in France. We’re not in the US. We’re in China. They’re doing things differently here and we have to adapt. I feel like the approach you are taking with this aspect of the festival is not tuning in super well with the reality of it.”

“Oooookay,” he says slowly, drawing out the first syllable as he processes what I say. “So … you’re saying … to basically cut our losses?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Whoah. Okay,” he says, laughing a little and gesturing in the air with his hands a bit. “I Just – whoah – ha –“ (more hand flutters) “okay I’m just, like, re-ordering my world view of you right now.”

He continues with my questioning look: “Because, you know, you never settle for anything with this stuff. It always has to be perfect. This is weird to me. Like, you never give up on stuff. And you're just ... throwing your hands up.”

I bite down on my irritation. “No –“ I say softly. “I’m not giving up; I’m not saying ‘screw it’; I’m saying these things because I think this way of thinking is going to give us the best chance of success in this environment. Like I said, it’s different here. We can’t take the same approach we use in other places and expect it to work the exact same way. So I’m saying that I think it is more effective to leave the lighting alone and just work out what we can do between ourselves as the solution.”

“Ohhh … okay … “

I forge on: “But the second thing I want to say is more important than that.”

Troy nods, showing me that he’s listening still. 

“The second thing is that focusing this much on the lighting like this is making it really hard for me to just settle into the work of performing and think about our choreography. Like, there’s no mental space to just relax and try to be in character. We’re talking about endless tiny piddly lighting changes when at this point in the festival you and I should be communicating with each other about fine tuning little visual things, or space adjustments for the size of the ring … things like that.”

“Ah …”

“It’s made it really hard to far to be in sync with you. What I’m trying to say, is that continuing to pick at this scab is making me feel so off-beat from you that I think this is part of why things have been so hard. I just want to move on and focus on you and me doing what we do best out there.”

Troy nods. “Right,” he says.
And then Hugo pops up to our right. 

Time to go.
My mind feels more at rest now, at least. Talking about things like this seems to have cut some of that tension away between me and Troy. Regardless of how the next few moments go, this has accomplished something. 

We walk up to the lighting board, have a quick discussion per what Troy described wanting earlier this morning, and walk down to the ring of the circus to mark our choreography with Troy’s requested manual spotlights for the beginning. 

First comes my solo … so far so good … then Troy’s solo … that works too …

I wait for the next few bars of music that tell me it’s time to pick myself up and begin the sequence that brings me back to the centre of the ring, for my first ‘meeting’ with Troy.
The light doesn’t come on. 

It’s still not on. 

The music is well on it’s way now. 

What?

I start to try walking my way through the choreography anyways, but by now the music has swelled and reached one of the crescendos where Troy and I jump back from each other and there is supposed to be a stark lighting shift.

Both Troy and I stand up, crossing our arms in an ‘X’ shape in front of our faces to indicate to them to stop the music and lighting run. We jog back up to the lighting board. 

“This is incorrect,” I say.
“It’s, um, no –“ Troy starts. “It’s just supposed to be – it’s only the first two spotlights that need to be manual. Then you’re supposed to switch back over to the programmed lighting. The cues were late.”

Hugo nods, and translates this to the lighting technician, who at this point in the festival I’m sure is quite sick of us. The technician replies back emphatically – though at least he looks less grumpy than he as on other days, I note – and Hugo goes, “Ah,” and turns back to us. “The whole thing is manual. This is why.”

“WHAT” I exclaim as Troy’s eyes simultaneously go round and “NO!” squeaks out. 

I knew this would happen jesus f***ing Chr–
There are few things that irritate me more than someone doubling up on work or making things harder/more confusing because they don’t believe that information I have acquired or ascertained previously could possibly be accurate. 

There are few flattering explanations: ‘not paying attention’ is one of them; ‘mansplaining’ is another (the latter of which I have been actively trying to suppress as a consideration in my mind these past few days, as it is unconstructive in the extreme to successful partner work once it has lodged in one’s brain…). I suppose ‘misunderstanding’ is a third, less unpleasant explanation, thought in the case of this festival experience – and the amount of time Troy and I have spent together at the lighting board with various translators – it is hard to see this as the likelier option. 

I rub my temples hard. “Please, PLEASE tell me that you have our programmed lights in that system somewhere still,” I beg Hugo. 

The lighting technician nods emphatically. “Yes, yes, absolutely yes,” Hugo echoes. 

“Oh thank god,” Troy and I breathe. 

“I thought that they could just do the beginning manual and then switch over to the rest of the lighting cues we programmed...!” Troy exclaims, turning to me. 

I can’t look at him directly. “Yeah,” I reply. “That’s what they were saying to us at the beginning of this mess …”

“Ah, I didn’t …”

“Please apologize for the misunderstanding on our behalf, Hugo,” I say, pushing on. Please just get me out of this tent so I can go back to my room and take care of my neck and shoulder and turn this day around. “We will be using the programmed lighting. There will be no manual cues. Just – back to what we were doing before. He can hit the button to start the whole thing, and that’s it.”

“Yes,” Troy underscores. “Just … just the programmed lighting.” He turns back to me: “That’s too bad,” he says. 

“Yes,” I respond simply. “Back to studying the existing lighting plan, it is.”

“Yup. Can we have it play one more time, just the music and the programmed lighting, please?” Troy asks Hugo. “Let’s just walk it through with the choreo adjustments we were thinking about last night,” he says to me. 

We walk back down the stairs to the ring. 

“I’m not gonna say it …” I laugh to Troy. “I’m not gonna say it …”
“I know, I know –” he says, sheepishly.
“–Nope, nevermind, I’m not mature enough: I f***ing called ittttt,” I sing. 

“YES, YES YOU CALLED IT, I’m sorry!”

We’re laughing about it at this point, and that’s what needs to happen. We take our marks on stage. The sound trickles in; the lights come up; when we make eye contact on stage and call out small directions to each other, for the first time in days it feels like we are a unit and not mismatched puzzle pieces slamming into each other. 

We wave goodbye and shout ‘thank you’ up to the lighting board and walk out of Old Circus.

“That went well, I think,” Troy says.
“Yes! Me too. Tonight’s gonna be good,” I say

And I think we both believe it. 

I spend the rest of the day rotating between lying on my physio ball in as many positions as I can think of, laying down and closing my eyes for a nap that never comes, sipping peppermint tea, reviewing the dress rehearsal video. I focus on the lighting changes, the spotlight position, and not all the tricks I’m physically missing. I picture it in my head, over and over. 

I imagine it going perfectly. 

I imagine it going perfectly, again.

And again. 

And again. 

*******************************

We walk into the backstage of Old Circus at 6:00pm, and up the stairs to our dressing room for the first time. 

Leonor told us about it at the beginning of the week, but we felt we had little use for it until now. The lighting in the bathrooms at the hotel is soft and flattering, which is wonderful until you need to do your makeup in a precise manner. Troy and I were determined to make the best of what looked to be like bright, fluorescent lighting shining through the windows of the dressing rooms above us, looking out onto the warm-up floor below. 

We are the first door on the left in a long hallway of dressing rooms. There are two laminated burgundy signs on the door: one of them is “Troy and Ess – SYMBIOSIS – Spider Contortion” (again with the not-quite-right but then again not-quite-wrong translation); the second is one that reads “Ambassador Handstand Act”. 

My brain offers nothing immediately to me upon reading the sign, and so I simply conclude that it must be an artist in Show A who we don’t have the chance to run into so often, being in Show B. I can see that whoever this artist is, he has a few belongings left up here in the dressing room; a bit of makeup, a couple bananas, some sneakers. 

Imagine my surprise when I realize that it is Andrey Katkov who is the ‘Ambassador Handstand Act’ (ambassador as in, ambassador from the Monte Carlo festival, with an act that has been featured over and over again throughout the opening week of the festival for the amazing feat of human physicality that it is). 

I’ve followed Andrey Katkov on Instagram for at least two years, and for me, he falls into the category of "Humans Who Do Things I Can Only Dream of Doing and Serve as a Reminder of Performing the Impossible". I had stumbled across him when trying to search YouTube for a spinning handstand act by an artist named Nicolas; I came across Andrey’s act instead, and followed it down the digital rabbit hole to see that he has been doing this feat of balance for what seems like many years longer than Nicolas. He has various props that he uses, but the one at this festival is like a platform of six fake ‘silk’ pillows (really hard wooden platforms that he can balance on). One of them conceals a rotating plate. He proceeds to stand and spin faster and faster on this plate, stops, performs a series of increasingly demanding hand balancing tricks, and proceeds to repeat the same face-blurringly fast spinning sequence while in a handstand to conclude the act. 

I met him briefly on the first day of the festival, backstage at New Circus when we rehearsed the Opening Ceremony. I walked past, politely replying to his greeting with a ‘hello’, and continued walking with Troy and Leonor.
“Who’s that?” I had asked Leonor at the time.
“That is Andrey Katkov. You know, he does the spinning handstands …”
“WHAT?!” I had exclaimed. 

I pivoted on the post and sprinted back up the concrete hallway to him, whereupon I pumped his hand enthusiastically and gushed about how much I loved his work. He was about to go on stage but seemed pleasantly surprised that I knew him and said that he hoped we could speak more later in the festival. 

Andrey walks into our shared dressing room as I finish applying the base layer of my makeup. 

KEEP IT TOGETHER, MAN, I scream internally.

“Hello!” I smile sweetly, while rolling my eyes at myself internally. We make a little small talk as he packs up his things; he’s exhausted from the three shows a day he’s been doing as an ambassador at the festival and seems unhappy with his rehearsal this afternoon.
“I would like to stay and see your act,” he says in his heavily accented English. “I see a little of it before, in first rehearsals. You are … very interesting. So different. This is nice. But … I am …”

“Tired?” I say, laughing. “You should go rest. There will be lots of other chances to see us perform later in the week.” I share one of my protein bars with him and wish him a good rest before his shows tomorrow. 

Andrey finishes collecting his costume and makeup and exits. 

Oh my godddddddd. 

*******************************

The flying trapeze is being de-rigged at the speed of light.
We hear the hosts bantering out front to the audience, keeping them entertained while the quick rigging change takes place. Troy and I jog in place backstage, alternating between stretches to keep our shoulders loose and backs warm, respectively. 

“We’ve got this,” I whisper loudly to Troy.
“Yes!”
“It’s gonna be a good show!”
“Right!”

“We’re gonna kill it!”
“Yes!”

Good enough. 

Finally, we see the stage darken and the stagehand ushers us out onto the stage.
I take my mark., looking for the small seams in the stage that I’ve been using as landmarks all week. There are many seams, however, and in the gloom they could be the wrong ones …

I hope this is the right freaking spot, good god …

Trickling. Water drops. Cracks. Pops. 

My spotlight comes up. 

Dead centre. YES. 

I lift my head from the ground, opening my eyes slowly. A creature waking up. I stretch my arms and legs away in all directions, fingers and toes curling, searching, feeling the air like antennae. Five … Six … Seven … Eight … I roll languidly to one side as the piano beats come in. Almost time for Troy –

BOOM!

He crashes to the ground. Dead centre in his spotlight too. 

YESSSS.

Our track powers onward; the first reappearance of my spotlight only throws me slightly; it lingers in one place for a long time, rather than letting me walk slowly towards the centre as I would prefer to do. My oozing rolls from bridge to a collapsed cheststand and back up are truncated slightly. I don’t let it throw me. Troy should be creeping in … creeping in … almost there …. NOW!
The lights snap to red, and we snap to attention facing each other. 

PERFECT. 

Our skittering ballet plays out in the overlapping centre spotlights. The adjustments we talked about are working exactly as we need them to. We move smoothly through each sequence. Tick, tick, tick. Our calculations for the second half are correct, too: we have ended up squarely centre for the three last big sequences of our act. We hit all our timing. The tricks execute smoothly. 

We rush up to the front, and I take my final handstand position on Troy, snarling as the lights fade out to black. 

Relief and pride washes over me as we stand up and wave to the crowd’s applause. 

We did it. This is gonna be okay.