[8] Tournelle du Soleil: Sergey, continued (Patreon)

• 15 May 2023 • Day 1 at Cirque IHQ: Sergey, continued •

Sergey walks over to the physio overseeing the gym – a younger French-Canadian guy – and asks if there’s anyone else that he’s supposed to be working with. The physio shakes his head, gestures at me. They discuss things a little longer and then Sergey comes back over.

“Bronze evaluation only,” he says.

Bronze evaluation? Well I guess that means that there’s a silver and gold level evaluation.

“What does that mean?”

Sergey scoffs, “It’s nothing.” He flips over to a chart on the clipboard. Corrects himself: “Almost nothing.”

“Okay…” I say slowly. I’m still nervous.

“You will do goblet squat. Some inverted rows. Some plank holds. An ab hold.”

“And?”

“No ‘and’.”

“Oh, that’s it.”

“Yes."

"Oh."

"Because your contract is only 1 day. So test is less intense than if you were going to go on tour for 2 years. We have to make sure that you’re fit enough to do the job. This job is short. So – fitness level not so difficult. And different for contortionist. Contortionist only have to do …” He consults his clipboard again. “Four rows.”

I do eight.

Oh god. I’ve deconditioned while getting Barbette finished.

Eight?

Sergey is probably wondering what you’ve been doing.

I wish I could’ve done 10. 10 would’ve been okay. I feel like I could’ve done 10 normal pull-ups.

I don’t think there’s any movements I do that replicate this range of motion. Damn it –

“How much you weigh?” Sergey says, clipped words interrupting my spiral to start a fresh one.

Oh god. “165 lbs. 75 kg.”

My brain provides that this is a reasonable weight for a male aerialist my height (5’9”). Unimaginably overweight for a female contortionist, the Cynic hisses.

I push back at it. Not helpful right now.

Sergey traces his pen across the chart in front of him, finding where a certain column and row intersect.

“Okay, go get 65 lb dumbbell. 10 goblet squats.”

No problem.

I focus on engaging the muscles on the outsides of my traitorously wobbly knees.

“So you will do contortion?” Sergey asks.   '

“Yes!” I say, sinking down into my next rep and driving upward again.

“In box?”

“Yes and no,” I say, sinking down again.

“You know the act I made inside my latex box?”

“Yes, I saw this on internet.”

“Well, originally Cirque contracted me for this. And it was looking all good and fine. But then things changed and it was decided the aesthetic of it was too intense for the event. So they’ve made a new box … it’s the same size as mine, but it’s made of plexiglas. I have to research and create a new number in it this week.”

I want to add, and I’m a little nervous about it. I don't. Fake it ‘til you make it, buddy, I remind myself.

We move on to a painfully difficult 45-degree-angle seated ab hold (sixty seconds).

“How many days you have?” Sergey asks.

“Five,” I say.

“Five!”

“Five,” I repeat, carefully neutral.

He just looks at me.

I look back.

“Well, okay,” he says finally.

Classic Sergey.

We move on to three long, static holds on the low back extension machine. The first one has me hooking my ankles under the padding and holding my torso out parallel to the ground, facing down. Easy. We do it to either side, for sixty seconds apiece. No problem with those ones, either.

“Some people can’t even do 20 seconds with this one," Sergey says.

I’m taking that as approval.

As we move through the tests, I ask him what he’s working on right now for the company, what the rest of his summer looks like. It feels nice to chat. Some part of my mind stays separate from the experience – floating above with a sense of surrealness that this friendly catch-up is happening while he’s doing my strength and conditioning evaluation for a contract with Cirque du Soleil. Can you believe this is happening? I ask myself.

There’s the edge of a foreign feeling here. Something I don't feel often.

Something chest-expanding: is it pride?

Something warm and soothing, like reassurance.

Something lifting and fizzy: confidence?

It’s a feeling attached to an idea – that much I can parse, for now.

A possible future, a version of, a vision of, myself as an artist I haven’t let myself see myself as before.

A person who worked hard and ended up breathing this rare air in front of a coach who demanded the best from you, and gets to witness it happening.

An artist who’s good enough to work for a company that’s notoriously difficult to get a job with.

It’s stupid if you determine your self-worth and value as an artist based on whether a giant corporate entertainment company randomly happens to deem you worthy of stepping foot inside their facility, being associated with their brand, says the Cynic.

Sure, but this is something you get to do in front of Sergey, the Idealist offers back.

Or, how about you just let yourself enjoy the damn feeling, the Pragmatist proposes drily. It doesn’t hurt anybody.

Shut up and focus on your form, I tell all of them.

While I can't quite figure out what it is, it's a good feeling – a feeling I want to try on for size. Like when you see a beautiful garment that you hope will fit you, but you only let yourself feel the fabric of it – just in case it isn't destined for you.

“Okay, done,” Sergey says.

“Did I pass?”

“What? Oh, yeah,” he says. He hands a piece of paper off to the gym supervisor. He walks over with me to the water fountain. I place my bottle under the faucet and clean, cold water begins to run automatically. “What do you do now?”

“I think I have my first costume fitting, and then after lunch I get to go inside the new box for the first time and explore a bit.”

“Okay. I’ll come find you later, in the Studio.”

“Great.”

He looks like he’s about to leave, but then asks: “Did you finish your straps act, by the way? The one you were working on with William?”

I smile proudly. “Yes!”  Words rush out of me before I think about what they mean: “It’s done. Well – a version of it is done. I’ll keep working this summer with William to try to increase some of the technical skills in it, and then record it again the fall and see if maybe a festival will take it. But I filmed the version I have for now back at the start of May. I can send you the video if you like.”

“Yes, I would like to see it,” he says, face as impassive as ever. “Send it to me.”

My water bottle is about to run over with water as a few traitorous, delayed neurons fire: you just offered to send your act to Sergey and you take your shirt off in it.

Oh god I have to tell him–

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Stay tuned for your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil.   It'll be landing in your inboxes tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST. Until then, stay strange & wonderful - XO Ess