[40] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 29, MORNING (Patreon)

I sneak upstairs with the tramp wall team and Fiona before the day’s rehearsals start. The technicians haven’t arrived yet. Soon the upstairs space will be packed full of shipping crates, metal truss, scissor lifts. We want to take a peek while the space is somewhat empty still.

Our little group scurries up a spiralling staircase and pops out through a square marble archway. All of us stand there silently. Awestruck. If the basement area is impressive, upstairs can only be described as opulent.

Massive vaulted ceilings spring in connecting arcs between double cupolas. Wide swaths of cold pale marble sweep between the two. I stare up at the ceiling. The underside of one dome has been rendered in a rich red; the other a starburst mix of golds and blues. The red cupola’s centre has stars strewn across it like a summer night sky. It’s achingly beautiful, but it’s time to go back down to the dim, cool basement. We’ll have our moments under these painted canopies soon enough.

We warm-up again. Run the group choreography of each section again.

The show opens with the Femme Fatale dancers. Gyro will join, breakdancing as the women peel back to either side of the stage. Fiona will roll out her cyr wheel and start her number. That’s mine and Sam’s cue to get ready backstage.

I’ll be in my first costume: a white PVC dress covered all over in tubes and mesh, with a glossy white helmet that fully covers the top half of my head. The headpiece makes it look as though I can see nothing; but in reality, there’s some clever mesh over my eyes that lets me make out at least rough shapes on stage. Sam will crouch on the steps that drop away at the back edge of the stage with a giant leafblower.

When our cue arrives in the music, I’ll unfurl a billowing sail of red and white dip-dyed silk, pinned with one hand to the back of my head as the other hand reaches out in space, feeling my way forward. The gust of the leaf blower will catch it, send it rocketing up into the air as I mount the steps and emerge into the audience's eyeline for a few beats before releasing the fabric. It’s unbelievably light: the blower will launch it high into the air.

The dancers and other artists will march onto stage as it begins to fall. Fiona will snatch it as it returns down to earth, and that sends us into the next section–where the trampwall team lifts me up into the air over their heads and carries me to the Tower, waiting stage left.

I’ve never been lifted in my life. Would I be nervous about this under regular circumstances? Yes. Am I incredibly nervous about it with what’s going on with my knee? Absolutely.

Nevermind that for now–

I’ll be lifted to the Tower and locked inside. The rest of the cast comes over and there’s a group dance choreo before the music shifts dramatically and a huge black sheet is thrown over the Tower, hiding me from view. Luke will subtly unlock the door of the Tower (the sliding bolt that holds the door shut is only accessible from the outside; I can’t close it or open it from the inside) and I’ll slide out the back, unseen, and scurry off the back of the stage.

Ron’s aerial pole act will be starting as I dash into the adjoining room backstage. I’ll strip out of my white dress down to the maillot, wipe the dirt off my feet with some baby wipes, do a couple backbends to re-warm my spine, and scurry back out into the Tower for Luke to lock me back in again.

Suren and Karyna will start their straps act as Luke will hit a small button on the outside of the Tower to fill it with FX smoke. I’ll crouch down low in the fog, trying not to choke. As Ron's act ends, the black cloth over my Tower is whipped away and the Tower and I will be wheeled centre stage for my contortion number.

After that, I’ll be wheeled away again. As Suren and Karyna start their straps act, the Tower and I will be covered once more with the black cloth. One more slither out the back door, one more dash backstage for the toughest costume change of the show: down to a g-string and into a seat-harness from the waiting rigger to cinch me into and visually approve as ‘safe’. The three costumers will descend on me: silver shorts over the black seat harness; then the starburst dress; step into the clear 8” heels; crouch down so the blonde wig and huge crown can be pulled snugly down over my head; and teeter back out to the upstage staircase to wait for my final cue.

The last sequence of the show will have me rising serenely from the staircase upstage; doing a slow, royal catwalk downstage with the rest of the cast forming a corridor to either side of me; and gesturing across the room to direct the audience to look at the trampwall team beginning the finale number.

As the audience’s backs are turned 180 degrees away from the main stage to watch the trampwall act, the rigger will sneak up in his stage blacks to clip me in to a descending point from the ceiling. A carabiner on either side. Trampwall will finish. They’ll gesture back to the mainstage with me and the waiting cast in a careful tableau.

The music will crescendo. Electronics on all our costumes will burst into life. And the winch operator will pull me high, high up towards the painted sky of the cupola as I spin above the crowd. The end.

It’s one thing to run it in the basement, I think. Another thing to run it on the actual stage.

How much time will the costume changes actually take with the physical set-up of the stage versus the backstage rooms? How long will it take me to run backstage and then get back to my spot?

Sam and I need to practice with the fabric and the leafblower. We got to do it once in Montréal at IHQ. It’s trickier than it looks.

I remember the dance lift. Gulp. Need to practice that too.

The stage is still being built though. As is my Tower–if I’m lucky, my first chance to get back inside it to review my choreography (and test out my knee) will be tomorrow evening.

I try not to think about it.

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

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess