[30] Tournelle du Soleil • CIRQUE HEADQUARTERS • May 19 (Patreon)

I leave home early, arrive early. It's the final day of rehearsals. 

There's two other acrobats in the gym already.  I give my back some attention with a lacrosse ball, carefully warm up my cranky hamstring with miniband exercises. Run the Tower choreography through my head. Visualize the transitions. Imagine the sensations of my body compressing, holding itself, expanding, contracting.   

8:50am. The rest of the acrobats are trickling in. At the end of this week at International Headquarters, I've caught the pattern: you go around and say good morning to whoever is in the space. You introduce yourself to new people.  As has been the case all week, there’s very few women: three total, all week. Is that just because certain acts are being worked on at the moment? Or are the shows themselves are really male-acrobat heavy…?

Soon theres ten or twelve of them, just like there was on Monday. Sergey's always the coach working with them. Over the run of the week I've watched these guys in the opposite corner of the massive Studio AB. They work on multiple disciplines. Russian swing, banquinne, colonne, variations on Russian bar. Heavy, tiring disciplines. What show could they be prepping for?

Headphones on, I pack up my things and head to the Tower early. I want to workshop the one0arm handstand that Matthew wants in the mix.   It's even louder than it was mid-week. Studio AB is a beehive of technicians and riggers. Equipment is being torn down, de-rigged, dismantled, packed into big black crates emblazoned with the Cirque du Soleil sun. They'll be loaded onto trucks that will leave for New York City later this afternoon.

I step into the box. The power drills, shouts, clangs become a little more muffled. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.   I wonder if there's any way they might let me continue developing work inside this thing after the contract is done...  No, they'll hire someone whoe's better at contortion and handstands to go inside this thing. Don't be ridiculous.  But it was made for your dimensions... There are other artists who can fit inside this thing. Or they could put handstand canes inside pretty easily.

But they liked your energy. They liked your style.   Who knows what's going to happen. Maybe you should just focus on what's happening right now, eh?

Deep breath in. Slowly. Deep breath out. Calmly. Twist my back from side to side. The muscles on the one side grind a bit as I do. I wince. Nothing major. But nothing I can ignore, either.   Matthew arrives and we run the act a few times. He gives me some more notes about the one-arm handstand and wanders off to give me twenty more minutes to integrate them. Gotta strike the balance between not fatiguing my stabilizer muscles for the longer handstand sequence at the very end of the act, and actually doing the damn movements.   

Am I gonna get too tired? Will I get injured?    It's hot inside the Tower. Makes it hard to tell what's being pushed too far. It's a guessing game.

Matthew returns. We run it again. And again. And again. He compliments my eye for detail: "I gave you a lot of small notes yesterday and I can see them all in here."  

I think about all the fine tuning and attention I got through my artistic counsellors on the final month of work I did on Le Numéro Barbette in the spring. It built reherasal muscles. Holding multiple notes in my head. Hanging onto them. Finding ways to play with them. Incorporate them.

Odessia, the acrobatic coordinator on the project, comes in to watch the final run of the day with Matthew. It goes well. I hit all my beats. The transitions are smooth. I'm able to concentrate on character and emotion.

Odessia offers me wonderful notes: this moment of movement quality looks more finished if I lift and drag the bottom of my foot across the front of the tower; that handstand entry has more finesse if I shift my starting position backwards in the Tower by just a couple inches. I soak it all up, eyes bright, fixated.   

“I should have started by saying it was wonderful,” Odessia adds. “Your presence is really strong.”

"That was great!" Matthew says. He looks genuinely happy now. Says he likes the one-arm sequence now.

“Thank you,” I say, looking to each of them. Meaning it. “That’s great to hear. I’m feeling good about where this is at.”

"It's the eyes," Odessia says. "Some performers, they look at you but there's nothing behind it."

I make a short affirmative sound. Don't know what else to say to this tiny gem of a comment. I've been staying positive, repeating to myself that I have what it takes to do this. Hearing it from the higher-ups is something else, though.  Makes me feel like maybe I’m worth my salt on this one.   

Odessia gives me a hug and leaves. Matthew and I start to walk to the studio exit. Behind us, a trio of technicians descend on the tower. Time to pack it up and get it in a crate.  

"Well, that's it," I say. "End of my time here at IHQ."  

"Was this your first time working here?" Matthew asks.   

"Yeah."

"What did you think?"

"It's been incredible. Thank you so much for the opportunity – I never thought I'd work inside this building in my life. It's just– it's been– I don't really have the words for it. I'll probably go have a cry in my car about it in a minute," I chuckle.  

"I love that for you."

We hug goodbye. "See you in New York," he says.  

"See you in New York."  

I feel like I'm walking through a cloud of warm pale gold. If buttercups could be a mist. My mind is quiet. My body is tired. There's a gentle smile on my lips.

I'm about to leave, but I want to find Sergey to say goodbye first. I find him on the upper level of the cafeteria, hunched over a low table in his Adidas tracksuit, charts and papers spread out around him.

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

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess