[43] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 30, EVENING (Patreon)

Technical validations for the day are wrapped by 5pm for most of the artists.

The tramp wall team is waiting around to see if they’ll be able to jump before the end of the night; it keeps getting pushed. As for me, the Tower is finally built: I’m going upstairs to warm up and run the act a couple times.

Ideal timing? No.  Happy to get into the Tower before dress rehearsal tomorrow? Absolutely.

I march slowly back up the spiral stairs to the main space. The techs and riggers –a blend of folks from Montréal as well as local hires– have been hard at work all day building a big 2m high stage against one side of the event space (where most of the cast choreography happens) and the tramp wall on the opposite side of the room, facing the stage. Large stretches of truss hang low over parts of the space still, being set up with lighting and endless lengths of cables and wire. A massive LED screen is being erected, panel by panel, as the backdrop for the main stage. Most of the panels are black at the moment. A few are flashing cyan, yellow, magenta. Testing, testing.

The Tower is currently lurking in a corner: back behind the tramp wall area, away from the main stage. The door is accessible. The other three walls are facing directly into marble walls or pillars. But it’s built: the base is put together; the fan in the base is installed; the plexiglas panels are upright and solid and as fingerprint-streaky as when I left them back in Montréal.

There’s post and drape set up to give me a bit of privacy from the small army working hard on assembling the space. I bring my yoga mat, my mini-bands, my physio balls, my big over-the-ear headphones behind the curtain and start my warm-up.

The techs keep poking their heads around to see what I’m doing. I smile and wave hello the first few times. I ignore them for the next half-dozen. Eventually they stop.

Just as I’ve stopped paying attention to the visual movement of a rustling curtain (assuming it’s another curious staff member) Marie pulls one panel aside. Matthew is right behind her. She glances over the small explosion of physio tools scattered over my mat; my right leg propped up against a six-foot-high marble plinth to get my hamstring loosened up and ready to go. “I can come back in twenty minutes,” she says.

I don’t feel ready. “No, no–I’m ready.” You’re physically ready, though. So…

“It’s not going to be a great view for you, unfortunately,” I say. “It’s not going to work great if I just turn around inside the tower, back-to-front, because the back panel door isn’t going to stay fixed in place for some of the counterweight movements the way the front panel does…”

“Don’t worry about it. Just face the front and we’ll watch from the sides as best we can.”

I close the door. Matthew slides the bolt shut behind me. Marie wedges herself into the small space between the Tower and the right hand marble pillar. She’s less than two feet away from me.

Front row seat, I think. What if she doesn’t like it? What if she vetoes it? Could she kick me out of the show this late? Worse, what if she’s disappointed but knows she can’t kick me out of the show.? Oh god…

But in contrast to my anxious inner monologue, Marie seems super interested. I’m focusing my gaze in all the directions, at all the moments that Matthew and I rehearsed. I drop down into the zone: it’s just me inside this box. I let the energy build up under my skin until it feels like a gentle buzz. I don’t think of the Tower as a home. Its walls are the barrier keeping from getting at the outside world, like a wasp buzzing around the inside of a glass. In my peripheral vision I can see Marie’s face light up as I shift from the opening to the first sequence, and then for the rest of the number I’m fully immersed in my little plexiglas world.

When I step out, she offers a couple more notes to keep amplifying the energy I was sending out. Matthew gives me more. I try to hold them all in my mind.

We run it a second time. Smiles all around. And a final round of feedback as I begin cooling down my spine. In the background, my brain wrestles with how to show attention in the correct way; to the correct hierarchy of creative authority here: Matthew is my director, but Marie is essentially Matthew’s boss here. Runs the entire branch of special events, I’ve been told. She matters a lot if I ever want to work for the company again. Don’t think about that now.

They leave. I slowly pack up my things. My hip twinges in warning. I was so focused on Matthew and Marie that it didn’t even register. I sit for a moment longer on the floor next to the Tower, investigating my knee with careful fingers. I didn’t think about my knee or hip for either of the runs. No major pain flares. No increase in inflammation. I stand up and carefully put weight on the right leg. A dull ache, but it doesn’t buckle. I’m cautiously optimistic.

I go to bed feeling good.

More confident than yesterday.

And just in time: dress rehearsal is tomorrow.

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

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess