"VACUUM" (Patreon)

Greetings from the frontiers of circus weirdness! I am very, very excited to finally be sharing the process of my newest contortion creation –

I am choreographing an act with the movement quality and sequencing style of a traditional Mongolian contortion act ... within the confines of an apparatus that slowly has the air within it evacuated and reintroduced over and over, like the lung of a giant creature slowly expanding and collapsing, over and over.

Or, even more simply: I'm choreographing a traditional Mongolian contortion act inside a modified vacuum tower.

I've been interested in, and exploring, the concept of spectacle in my work; and I'm curious about ways in which the slow, traditional style of classical Mongolian contortion acts are finding new avenues of expression in contemporary performance (more on those two things below)....

Let's start with a disclaimer, shall we?

I am researching this creation with the constant presence of a technician with whom I have established as many failsafes as possible (and who operates the vacuum). I have sought the advice and wisdom of professionals whose knowledge-base deals with the physics, and the biophysics, of attempting to enter a space that is devoid of oxygen.

Okay great. On to the fun stuff!

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"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT":

A vacuum tower is not something you come across everyday – especially not as a kind of circus apparatus:

The basic construction of a vacuum bed, cube, or tower is a latex envelope stretched over a frame, and a vacuum removes most of the air from the envelope. If you put a person inside this latex envelope, they are effectively immobilized so long as the air remains evacuated from the volume. Breathing is usually accommodated through a neck gasket in which the occupant's head exits, or a short breathing tube.

My use of this device  differs in that I WANT my tower to expand and contract over relatively short cycles of time; someone who was using their vacuum device for bondage or sensation play reasons (AKA, it's actual purpose) would want the air to evacuate and then maintain an unchanging degree of confinement for a longer period of time.

Vacuum devices (I'll just say 'tower' from here on, as that's essentially what my apparatus is) are not for the faint of heart or claustrophobically-inclined. While lots of us already know that deep pressure stimulation therapy is calming and soothing (for example, that weighted blanket you can't sleep without now), the vacuum tower is a whole different level of total-body pressure. Even if you're not squicky about tight spaces, the intense pressure and loudness being inside the apparatus does an awfully good job of tricking an unprepared mind into thinking that it's about to die.

These devices come with no small degree of risk, and the extra-concerning aspects become elevated when you think about trying to choreograph a circus act inside one:

Vacuum beds and towers must be used with the aid of a second person, as the person inside the latex can neither operate the vacuum themselves, nor free themselves from it should they need to. Verbal communication isn't always possible (depending on your breathing method). And that's just for using it in the way it's intended to be used – let alone performing inside one.

Furthermore, deaths can happen and do happen during improper use and operation of these devices (either through asphyxiation or ischymia).

They are not to be taken lightly.

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"OKAY SO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, THEN, YOU NUT"

For months, I've been musing and scheming on what "SPECTACLE" means in relation to the two realms that I've been making my living in for the past 4 or 5 years, both as a stunt performer in film and TV, and as a circus artist noodling my way through the world.

I started thinking about ways that I could explore intersections between stunts and circus (and yes, I know that one could argue they are perhaps one in the same, in some cases – but I'll get to that later). 

Let's take the example of a high-wire act where the acrobat has no safety line as she traverses the length of the wire: some of us love this kind of performance. Others of us can't bear to watch someone perform an act in which the slightest misstep could lead to their death or serious injury.

The acrobat 'manages' the inherent risk in their performance through high level technique and countless hours of practice to achieve flawless execution ... but the risk is always there.   

The 'spectacle' in stunts is obvious, since it's what makes us want to go catch every new action flick that hits theatres. Audience members often are unaware of what goes into making a stunt as safe as possible for a performer to execute; with the increasing use of digi-doubles and other (very expensive) CG tricks to achieve awesome effects, audience members might  not even think it's a human being on screen in front of them jumping across an impossible distance with explosions going off all around them.  

In short, spectacle is at the heart of what we do in both circus, and in stunts.

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Taking the above into consideration, this project is an exploration of the following two questions:

How much danger or risk has to be involved for us to consider something a stunt? or a circus act (rather than dance, or theatre, or some other performance art)?  

And, does our awareness of the risk involved elevate, or interfere with, our enjoyment of observing it?

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In the midst of my wanderings last year, I also started thinking on conversations I had in Ulaanbaatar with practitioners of traditional Mongolian contortion. It's an art form that is thousands of years old, but the goals of many artists/studios currently is to try to update this art form in a way that holds the (short) attention spans of modern audiences. Some of the ways this happens is by incorporating contortion into various aerial acts; combining it with hand balancing; re-vamping choreography to highlight fast and unpredictable movement rather than slow, graceful ones (think of the group contortion act in Cirque du Soleil's Kurios).

From my North American perspective, there are further considerations: contortion is most often exoticized, fetishized, or viewed as grotesque here, as opposed to being understood as a classical and beautiful art form as it is in Mongolia.

I wondered what the effect might be if I combined Mongolian contortion aesthetics with an object that I've directly plucked from communities that deal with fetish, kink, and generally ALL the subjects that most contemporary professional contortionists I know want NOTHING TO DO WITH (if you're interested in further reading on this, contortionist Amy Goh has written an interesting blog on the subject which you can check out here: https://5d0266c983c54.site123.me/blog/my-flexibility-is-not-your-fetish-reclaiming-the-contortionist-s-body).

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VACUUM is a project that carries an inherent amount of danger to it; the apparatus – and working within it – has required a good deal of research and risk mitigation; I'm employing a highly technical skill within the apparatus that has taken me years to train; and I'm juxtaposing two very contrasting aesthetics (tradition [Mongolia] vs. North American contemporary interpretations/stereotypes).

Is it spectacle? Is it not? I'm curious to see how my own thoughts – and yours! – unfold around it as I continue researching and creating.

I'll be continuing to write my experience throughout this next 10 day creation intensive I'm embarking on as I make sense of what I'm discovering, log what works and doesn't work, and elaborate on the topics that inspired me to explore this bizarre little concept in the first place.

The next couple topics I'll be tackling will likely be what it's like to be inside this thing as well as the aesthetic and choreographing decisions I'm making for this piece. 

Hope you're ready to join me on a particularly bizarre journey for the next 10 days --

Until next time ...

xx.

s