[29] Tournelle du Soleil • CIRQUE HEADQUARTERS • May 18 (Patreon)

The next day, everything gets rolled into an even tighter ball: the day starts with a reapplication of the makeup. Vanessa, the makeup artist, douses me once more in a snowstorm of setting powder and sends me off to get into wardrobe.

In the costume department, I'm squeezed into the spiked, silver starburst finale dress. An elaborate white-blonde wig that looks like the lovechild of Princess Elsa and a RuPaul contestant, complete with dazzling silver tiara, is fitted to my head. Anton and Genevieve help me step into the 8" clear heels. A Cirque Cinderella.  We wobble down the hall together, a slow, sparkling catwalk from one end of the Cirque IHQ to the other to reach the studio to do a harness test with this whole get-up. I'm flown thirty feet up into the air, spinning around high above a small army of the costume team, makeup artists, artistic directors, coordinators, and technicians. Everyone's delighted.     

Back on solid ground, I wobble back to the costume department, strip out of the disco ball outfit, and hustle back into my sweats. It's not going to be possible to run the act in the contortion costume (maillot) today or tomorrow. It's going to have to wait until dress rehearsals in NYC. Don't love that.   

I warm up. The left side of my back is aching more than yesterday. My left hamstring tendon has joined it. Fucking great. I knew this would happen. Pushing my body into positions inside the rigidity of the Tower. I had tried to be so careful. Well, gonna have to keep trying to be careful, I think drily.    

I run the act. We add in fans, lights, and a smoke machine today. Looks incredible, but gives me a near-instant headache. We decide to. blast it at the start and end of the act, but not during. That'll work.     

I start to worry less and less about the act itself, honing in tighter and tighter on all the different details that Matthew, the director, is pulling together and highlighting. We go deeper into the movement qualities of each phase of my character. Pick out musical moments and punctuations to dig into. I modify some of my shapes as we go through sequence after sequence, protecting the tender spot in my left back, my moaning left hamstring.  

"Can you do that with one hand?" Matthew asks as I hit my handstand position.  

"Maybe," I call out loudly, muffled by the Tower.  It's not graceful. But I can.  

Just barely.  

"YES I want that," Matthew says right as I realize that getting out of that one-arm handstand position is even harder than holding it.

I come dangerously close to fully collapsing in the Tower. Closer than I've been all week. Forearms and biceps shaking with the sustained effort, about to fail–before squeaking a leg down the resistant Plexiglas to the base of the Tower. Just in time. Oh god.  

"That's great," he says. A smile. "Let's find some clean pathways in and out of that shape. I'll leave you with that and we'll go over it again tomorrow during our last session."  

If I can just avoid super deep backbends for the rest of today and tomorrow, I should be able to rest it between now and heading to NYC for the show. Give it a chance to recover. Then rest properly after the contract is done. And I can muscle my way through that balance. Don't think about the fact that you don't do one-arm handstands. Or that you nearly got stuck. Or that you only have one final three-hour session to figure that out. Don't think about any of that.  

And I actually manage not to, for the most part.  

I walk out of the IHQ tall and clear-eyed.  

Tomorrow is the last day.  

I've got this.  

Do you?

...I've got this.

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil arrives Wednesday at 7am EST / 1pm CEST!

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess