Stupid Stinky Balloon (Patreon)

Today was stupid.
The latex tower was stupid.
All my ideas were stupid and nothing worked.
I want to thump my feet on the ground like a toddler-Rumpelstiltskin mashup and just go to bed for three days.

It is no longer Danger Balloon (good/badass days) or the Tower of Suck (just Bad Days, idea courtesy of Maria Hagar).

It is now the Stinky Balloon.

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*cough*

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Okay, I've gotten that out of my system, now.
Thanks for listening.

Sometimes it's important to indulge in the completely childish feelings of frustration and disappointment in the artistic process. They come often. Better to feel your feelings fully, and then move the f*** on, IMO.

Look – all in all, Saturday's show was very well received, and I didn't mess anything up.  
I've been thinking hard, journalling, video reviewing and video editing, in the days since. Looking for bread crumbs of inspiration, for tiny cracks that might widen into crevasses if I don't patch them up, for things that gel and things that snag.
It's what you should do after a performance, so that you can be better next time.

I realize that I probably should have felt better or more accomplished about Saturday's show afterwards.
But honestly, everyone ... I really didn't.   
I was thinking about what worked and didn't work, the moment I got off-stage. It's not the kindest thing you can do for yourself, as an artist, as an athlete, as a human.

Let's just skip the part where I do the internal emotional work of digging deep and analyze how perfectionist tendencies can rob you of the joy of your work for now –  I'm too tired today.

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In my case, I'm trying to make things even one iota better for this Saturday, which is when I'll be going into studio to film a nice, professional-looking video of this act.  This is something that deserves more elaboration than I'll give it in this post, but, in short – there's been interest expressed in this act from an agent who has booked me before, from Russia. There's also been interest expressed from a contact I have in Switzerland. All of the things that might (BIG. FAT. "MIGHT") emerge from those contacts would be happening in fall of 2020. It takes time to plan these things. Producers and agents and festivals have to plan far in advance. It's easy to miss the ball. And there's some kind of momentum I feel happening with this piece.

Even though I could work and work and work and work on this (and, honestly, I will – our work should constantly keep improving and evolving), I need to pin something down that I can show people now. Something that I'm proud of. Something that reflects the mountain of thought that's gone into this already, and the goodly amount of physical work I've been able to give it in the fortnight since receiving the tower.

It might not be the smartest way to go about creating a demo of your act.
But it's what I'm doing.

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I have really, really wanted to achieve some kind of "floating" looking cheststand within the tower. That's a dream shape for me, in this apparatus.

There are a lot of things that get in the way of that, though.
Even if I position myself centrally in the tower, if I lift an arm I threaten to tip the entire structure over.
Then there's the reality of the timing of it all: I have to wait until the latex has vacuumed around me enough that I can begin resisting gravity, but I can't wait so long that my arm gets stuck, frozen in amber, until Tiffany releases the suction again. It's such precise timing.
And there's only a limited amount of physical space for my arm to go to – the latex seems to close in around my ribs (the back of the shape) quickly, which means I can't sneak my arm out and up to be next to me in a vertical orientation. There's just no room.

Thus, the best I've been able to do so far is this: 

Maybe I'm just getting tunnel vision here, everyone, but this doesn't seem ... impressive to me.
At least not as impressive as other shapes?
You can't really tell that my arm is out of the way. It doesn't really give the feeling of floating. It looks like I've somehow snuck a platform inside there and I'm doing an elbowstand higher up in the volume.
For the effort and risk required, it's not paying off.
(Yet).

Doesn't mean I need to give up on it ( and I won't ), but I went into rehearsal today with what I thought was a very strong game plan and left with what felt like nothing.

Sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles.

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I mean, I can already call myself on my own bullshit.
I say that I left with 'nothing' from rehearsal today, but that's not really true.
I explored some shapes that I had deemed "too scary" for carotid-artery-related reasons in the previous two weeks that I think are strong contenders to replace the shapes that I think made the whole act lag a bit, on the show this past Saturday – like this:

I met up with Tig and discussed a shot list and lighting for this Saturday's studio shoot.
I started to form a narrative in my head of what, exactly, is happening to the creature inside the vacuum tower (cough, me) over the course of this act.

Beginning to pin down a story really helps.
Progress has been made.
Progress will continue to be made.
I will still stomp my feet and call it a Stinky Balloon if I feel like it.

Until next time – 

xx. 

s.