home and back again to planet circus

So … yes i know quite a while now. the thing is i went home for a week or so and that kind of took up my concentration a good deal. So too seeing Janet again after eight months. so when faced with a choice of hanging with her and sitting tikking at the keyboard… no brainer. and then the flight home … full of fascinating incident which I will tell you all about… some other time. cos now I have Janet with me in Vegas. she has moved into the house and the house, though well prepared for her, shows the signs of feminine presence. its cleaner for one and much more welcoming to guests. in short it is quite something to have a life again.  we are back in the routine of performance having just completed 300 shows and are starting to think about the four or five months we still have here. two of them will be with Janet before she goes back home. Daniel and I both will return mid year 2009. for the moment… Janet and I are enjoying eachother’s company and trying to see as many shows as we can while she is here as well as going to local resorts for skiing and in feb to take a train trip to newark to visit Luke and Casha. we still work hard but now I have a life in between shows. Janet is in a completely different environment and able to renew her ability to heal and relax. good time. I am possibly working with Eugene on an idea for a theatre work in his theatre later in april May…

endorphins and beer and days to go before the dark on planet circus

Four days to go. Then departure for home for couple of weeks. This last weekend slightly different. Tuesday morning and Daniel and his friend David who is spending a couple of weeks with us have gone for the weekend to LA. Not something I am willing to say is a state I do not desire. Bliss of silent solitude. I wake up. Breakfast? No wait, sleep again until eight thirty to call Janet. Then a cell text tells me she’s only home at nine after gym. I thankfully turn over and change the cell phone alarm again. And go back to sleep. Many dreams these days especially in the early morning after the first wake up sleep. Lots of water leak dreams; burst pipes and over-flow. Someone once said that this was about money. Too much or too little? Wake up. Still too early for phone call. Sleep again and dream a lucid dream about being in a very brightly lit wildly coloured garden; mostly purple, around which I fly for a while.

So the alarm rings at nine and I am up in a flash Then a good chat with Janet and her father over supper and a glass of wine and because it’s my day off I have a bottle of beer waiting for me in the fridge .. til about nine thirty. We say goodbye see you soon. I love you. Wash up. brush teeth etc.

So it’s now about 11.00 and I think “Come on lets go for a ride”. And so I go down Buffalo, send off Eli’s mail and then on to Lake Mead and end up next o the bookshop. Wow and there on the shelf is the George Carlin book I have been shying way from the last few weeks. And after getting a Jack Kerouac classic I go for my Carlin addiction. Blissfully without a television. What a pleasure. To find books. And writers and several books and a sequel or two. Cool breezy ride home.

And then clean up the kitchen and cook all the remaining brocolli and mushrooms ad chillis and ginger and red pepper and garlic and honey and lets see what that tastes like tomorrow when I actually partake. A call from Nate re a bike ride later. Perfect I say and settle down with the Carlin. Wracked by hold my tummy laughs.

I get a call. Keisha is in her way to fetch me so I walk to the gate and as I get there, there she is with her brother Ryan. The weather is paradisical (if such a word, and buggar it if there isn’t) the weather is perfect. Clouds. A cloud-filled sky. No blue. Very rare in Vegas. The light changes the whole city.

We ride and Nate leads from one bike-path to the next displaying biking skills I don’t even understand. We get around the suburbs of lv and discover a bike path that goes along the highway the 215 around the city.. a very pleasant ride followed by a stop at the pup for a beer and tequila. Then another short ride home including a graceful sideways slo-motion topple/descent into the bushes next to a stop-street as my coordination of bike, foot and ground misfires leaving Nate buckled over with mirth.

Then a long well spent evening at Nate and Keisha’s with her brother Ryan through a braai. Some very excellent salmon on the grill, veggie kebabs and some guacamole from elysium. We are later visited by Emmet (sp?), Keisha’s boss from the Tapis Rouge and then Marikawa, the Brazilian acrobat, Evelyne the great and Sylvia the Brazilian veteran actress. Very lekker time. Too much to drink . I am given a lift home by Evelyne and I pass out across my bed at around eleven, thinking; “busy day tomorrow; doctor at 10.30….zzzz”.

Then wake up at 8.00, quick call to Janet to say I can’t Skype because I am riding Eli’s bicycle to the doctor well the orthopaedic surgeon to examine my elbow and consider progress and future treatment. Well it’s raining, rather heavily for Vegas, but I relish the adventure and put on my waterproof rain suit and climb on with telephone and wallet and brace and appointment card and keys and two hours to cover what on the map looks like a fair distance. Not sure how much exactly. (it turned out to be twenty miles. Did I really think about this…? No. Not too much because Daniel and David had the car in LA, so how else to get to the doctor?) And the ride seemed a fun challenge. So anyway off I go rain stinging my face and hood up but it soon is clear that it restricts the side peripheral vision and the road is full of traffic and the signs politely ask people to share the road but you have to be very awake and the pavements aren’t always the best option. But off I go following a route which includes Vegas Drive and then Washington over to way over the east side of town… much much poorer than the west or the north or the south. Then turn right and head south on Eastern Ave. Again though poor and industrial areas and narrow roads and more rain and heavy traffic. After riding for an hour and a half it becomes clear that I am still a few miles away and the time for my appointment is fast approaching. And the twenty miles of ups and downs and stops and starts and pavements and bike lanes have had an impact on my legs. But my phobia of being late forces me on. I call in and tell them I am minutes away.

By now I am talking to myself and all I can say is “Shut up, stop talking to yourself, stop counting the numbers and the lights and trying to work out how far you have come, how far it is to go and how long that will take, and what’s the time now and all the rest; just shut up. Don’t talk, don’t think, just push the pedals. Don’t do anything except pump the pedals… “

Good thing to have the appointment pressing because otherwise I would have given up miles ago and ridden home. But no. Knowing I have to finish it and can’t just give up it is somehow embarrassingly thrilling to know that I am going to do this feat and only when I am finished can I stop pumping the pedals and rest. And I get there late but well in time because of the back log and the doctor tells me what I knew and does some simple tests and affirms the current treatment regime and gives me some more exercises and encourages me to wear my brace constantly. See me in six weeks. After Christmas. I contemplate the return home on the saddle and a nano-second later call Nate and ask him to come fetch me since he had offered and by now my arse has fallen off.

So I sit in the pub next to the doctor’s room and have whiskey to warm up since the waterproof clothing I have has no ventilation system so my clothes are soaked (as wet as rained on) with sweat. I order a beer. Just sommer. Then some chips. Fries. Nate arrives I buy him an Irish coffee and we set off with the bike in the boot and a long forgotten combination of endorphin and beer in my bloodstream which is very relaxing and can tend to lean one towards becoming philosophical and quietly contemplative. We pick up Keisha’s brother and go to REI (recreational gear shop). Oooohh nice toys for a person there. I buy a laptop back pack. And drool over so much else.

Then home and its midday or maybe two so I have deep and hot bath and warm up. Another beer and some of the broccoli and mushroom and chilli and ginger and onion and red pepper smush I prepared yesterday. And then under the duvet with food and beer and George Carlin. Soon (laughing) I fall asleep. And wake up and look at the clock and its 6.30. My god what an amazing sleep; all through the afternoon and through the night. Must reset the alarm for 8.30 to call Janet. Then can’t get back to sleep. Its raining still and the clouds really make it dark for this time in the morning. Never mind try and sleep again. Up at 8.00. My god the clouds are heavy; its even darker than before. Still can’t sleep so oh what the hell I’ll get some breakfast and so do and sit in bed and eat cereal and contemplate the end of the weekend and this the first work day of the last week. Then nine oclock comes along and I skype home and as Janet answers I realize that its 7.00 in the morning there and 9.00 in the evening here. I slept so soundly and then woke up at 6.30 in the evening and thought it was the morning. So now I have another free evening before the weekend is over. I celebrate with a glass of wine and some more food. And back to bed. Home in a few days.

heads down, ridicule and december dark on planet circus

have been keeping our heads down and heading for the up coming dark when I am going home for a week so I have been pretty much focussed on that. also kind of sick of the sound of my own voice rabbitting on about this place. hence the silence. also under contract i am restricted from bringing Cirque into disrepute or ridicule so can’t really say much about the Company either… am reading The Shock Doctine and watching The Corporation oh dear oh dear. otherwise we are both well strong. twenty two shows to go before the dark, then a few days with matthew and Bridget and Isabel and Stella and janet in Cape Town then Janet and I drive to Grahamstown for a week and then mid December Janet and I fly back here. JB here until late March so a whole new phase of the adventure will be launched… loving cycling and our friends Nate and Keish. hanging in.

silence, elections, evaluations and cycling on planet circus

Ok. So. Been silent for a while. The elections here are cause for much celebration. The company has been in the throes of artistic evaluations and renewal negotiations which are always cause for a tense time. And about which I will tell you some other time. The routine continues. My injuries to elbows are slowly healing and I am going home for a week in December and I am counting the days. More on our weekend. Winter is coming to Vegas and the weather is actually quite cold sometimes. I have fallen in love with cycling. Well there are few hills here so who wouldn’t. More later.

200 shows more training and music on planet circus

So we, the new cast members who joined in May, just performed what I am pretty sure was our two hundredth show with no ceremony. The rhythm of weekly performances has much more evenly settled in and we are a whole lot fitter. Weekends still form the focus toward which we drive. Saturday is known as ‘hump day’. No, not for the reasons you’re thinking. But by the second show Saturday we are over the hump of the week and heading downhill toward Monday, which is our Friday. Training is continuing apace with some added dimensions to the stilt section of the track. I am much more at home on them and just beginning to get to the stage when I can actually create a performance and character during the number. Plenty of coaches and trainers spoke of plateaus one reaches in training with no shift and then sudden spurts of confidence and resultant success and freedom in the execution of the tricks. Just more relaxed I guess. Trusting one’s body. Very soon after the stilt act was included. Well no perhaps a couple of weeks, I went to Coach Dan, the acrobatics coach who has supervised my stilt work, and asked for more stilt training, feeling that the twice a night performance was not enough to develop the act and skills or even to grow a feeling of doing the act convincingly or to the required standard of technique so as to make the technical elements disappear.

Dan agreed to include me whenever Haku, the other acrobat also training stilts, was called. Thanks to his attention, we have a developed a more adventurous and interesting piece of action. In fact when I asked him for more training, he thought I was responding to the information that Dominic, having seen the video recordings of the show, had commented that he wanted my character to do more on the stilts. But I knew that before Dominic saw it. We have a staging and validation of this new action next week. As the ring master I am much more in a position of striding about giving orders across the space and directing acts rather than staggering about and just staying upright while gesturing stiffly. The new performance elements give me useful targets for the twice a night three minute adventure during Mr Kite. I am now able to execute a full 360 degree turn and actually removing my eyes from the floor as the lift comes to its final position and because I am lip-synching the text of the song I have to keep my focus up where the audience can see it. This and controlling the four huge helium balloons painted with the Beatles mop-head hairstyle and tied to my coat tails and lifting them up behind me. Any sharp turns and I am confronted with their floating forms obscuring my eye line on the floor and points of balance reference. But repetition has reduced this anxiety and I can now get in good long strides that have a quite aggressive attitude and are closer to the ring master’s physical presence and emotional rhythm than I have managed to muster up to now. Balance is better. I am starting to find some flexibility in the torso and upper body around the centre of gravity. So progress speeded up by extending specific performance targets. Before I have mastered the one target, I am confronted with the next. Starting to learn more about the nature of training as well. By focusing on the new target the artist immediately takes the pressure off and starts to experience almost by surprise the effectiveness he actually has in the old technique targets. Before I was so focused on them and trying too hard. Suddenly these things which were seemingly so difficult are simpler because I have new difficult things to focus on. This creates the illusion of the plateau. Spending a lot of time trying to master bending the knees and squatting for as long as possible. Breaking from the nervous stiff legged knee locked stagger and rock and roll of the insecure stilt walker. And the funny thing is that one is not aware of it at the time. It’s only in retrospect that one is able to say ‘oh yes that’s what I was going through. At the time I was so emotionally involved in the moment of it that I couldn’t see how it was working. But now I see. I was blind but now see. Amazing Hindsight, how sweet the view.’

Korean Ropes during Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band reprise have gone onto the back burner temporarily. This is because coaching staff have been more focused on dealing with the consequences of several acrobats being out with injury. No rush.

Daniel and I planned a weekend in Zion National Park in Utah this week. This depending on whether I could get travel arrangements completed by then. Flights home, return visa interview bookings in Cape Town, flights home for Janet in March. If not then we were going to spend some time in the wind tunnel or do something out of the ordinary. In fact what I did was spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone of Monday night with the technicians who control my internet access. Only to discover that the router is defective. So Tuesday a bit of a washout forced me to bed with a book the second half of the Cormac McCarthy and sleep and drowsiness and visits to the kitchen and the toilet and the bathroom and more reading and sleep

Reading the earlier episodes of the blog it is striking that so much was happening then to report on; each day some new adventure or something new to report. Now all I have is the routine. I was thinking about the music the other day, speaking of routine. Whenever we traverse the swamp of the casino to get to the LOVE theatre as we approach the entrance the Beatles music becomes apparent playing constantly, no make that CONSTANTLY around the box office and little boutique selling expensive Beatles memorabilia to stupid patrons. And for a while the music was interesting in that it evoked memories of my own life. This quickly faded with repetition. But then hearing the different songs would evoke different acts in the show. But then came a painful but thankfully short time when the music provoked nausea at the repetition. Now it kind of just flows through us… well me anyway. It has become an emotionally neutral element of the work routine. If we hear it on the radio the station gets changed mind you.

kayaking, autumn and apocalypse on planet circus

We had a three day weekend and I drove to San Luis Obispo to see some friends whom we haven’t seen for some twenty odd years. Great drive through the desert and down to the Californian coastline. Beautiful area and great to see Pete and Estelle. She’s a pharmacist at the local men’s colony… (penitentiary), and he runs an art gallery and coffee shop that also operates as one of the best performance venues in the town. The city reminded me a lot of Grahamstown but bigger and way better equipped with restaurants and pubs. Huge student population from Cal Poly. Pete takes me ocean kayaking the next day. A slow rhythmic paddle though sea otter infested kelp, cormorant covered rocks and the odd regal pelican gliding by. Apart from the highway next to the coast the silence just a little out to sea is meditative, as is the gentle rock of a kindly swell. It’s invigorating. A treat to get out of Vegas and into the ocean and catch up with old friends.

I am reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Suttree’ and his descriptive prose is awe inspiring. His vocabulary positively intimidating and rhythms so sweet. It’s slow going cos every sentence sounds good enough to say again a few times out loud and so pretty much every page I don’t remember where we are, who is what and why they are doing what they do, because of the sheer beauty of the sound of the language. I’d better get over this and find out what the damn book is about. Also reading George Carlin bless him and writing some songs. Daniel maybe can use them. He has hooked up with some musicians here and they have had one jam session together to see of anything gels.

Been thinking about the obsession that revivalist Christianity has with the apocalypse and more and more the sense that it is impending. Still have to see Bill Maher’s Religilous movie, but there is a sense that many of the right wing Christians welcome the apocalypse since they of course will be undergoing rapture and first class accommodation to heaven on white horses. Now I have had a sense of this catastrophic change the world is due for some time and most of my creative work over the past decade or so has been set in a post apocalyptic landscape. The news that we humans were changing the planet’s structures is not new. But now this enthusiasm with which religious people are embracing the doctrine and zeitgeist of Armageddon makes me uneasy. There seems no willingness to admit that the changes coming are due to human action and that it is all part of God’s glorious plan. The war in the middle east against the infidels, the time of climactic catastrophe and earthquakes; everything seems to fall exactly into place and verifies the doomsday predictions of the religious texts. So there is no impulse to change behaviour in order to perhaps have less of an impact so fewer humans die miserable violent deaths and the possiblility of life on the planet existing beyond 2012 might become a reality. Ah well things to think about as the weather in Vegas gets colder. Actually wore a jersey for the first time in Vegas yesterday.

harassment and gas on planet circus

Every year as a service to its employees, Cirque provides a mandatory session with an expert on the subject of sexual harassment in the workplace.

So a few days ago we were subjected to a compulsory ‘workshop’ on the subject. This would not have been a subjection if the item on the timetable was genuinely a workshop. What we were provided with was a lecture by a poor motivational speaker with very weak audience interaction skills and a juvenile, yet patronising attitude in delivery. This was the purest expression of mediocrity I have experienced in the USA. No surprise at her success as a television personality.

The session ended with “Does anyone have any questions or comments?” and this is what I wanted to say but typically only found the words a few hours later. ‘Yes, I have a question; I want to know where do you get the balls year after year to deliver the same deeply flawed presentation of limited ideas about sexual harassment in the workplace to these Cirque employees. Flawed because I found your attitude to us condescending to the point of racism. Your use of language suggested your presumption that because you were addressing a group comprised of a significant number of foreign non-English speakers, we were also a group of pre-pubescent idiots. The repeated use of childlike, patronising exaggeration and pointed stress for linguistic clarity to the point of hyperbole, accompanied by overt gestures and facial mugging indicated an attitude to the audience which conflicted fundamentally with the subject matter of mutual respect. This is apart from the actual content of the speech, such as it was.’

I have had students who have shown better communication skills. The speaker displayed strident over-projection, poor delivery, weak rhythmic control of well worn punch-lines, and an inability to respond creatively and spontaneously to audience response and input. The primary source of examples to illustrate points came from personal incidents and events concerning herself and her career, the details of which we were continually subjected to. The central mechanism of interaction comprised a long series of banal and obvious rhetorical questions, to which we were expected to obediently chant the responses like a nursery school class. “Would that be a good thing to do? To touch Billy on his behind just because I felt like it…?” And a few of the company would murmur embarrassedly ‘No, it would not!’

The session was labeled a workshop yet the two hours was taken up by the speaker striding up and down an aisle in the auditorium, and with poor judgment of the venue and the sound amplification system, bellowing into our ears her ideas about sexual harassment and her experience, as well as anecdotes about her self, her family and her youth. Not one of us, not one person in the audience, I believe, truly engaged with the issue of sexual harassment as it manifested itself in this particular Cirque workplace. The highlight of the afternoon came in the form of a question by, I think it was one of the Brazilian skaters, who asked with exquisite innocence, “What do you do about someone who is just very loud?”

I understand that when a company employs many artists and technicians from other countries and other cultures, it is important, if not vital to give them clear information about the laws concerning this issue, and what is considered acceptable in this culture and what is not. But apart from the sub-standard quality and poor professional technical skill in delivery, the concept of this encounter between management and employees was fundamentally flawed. This concept was distilled by the speaker to a chillingly simplistic catch phrase; KYMS. ‘Keep Your Mouth Shut’. “Think what you like, but Keep Your Mouth Shut”?!! This is the central message we are brought together to have delivered to us as a ‘workshop’ on the subject of sexual harassment in the workplace?!! What ever happened to ‘Listen.’ Surely the company could have benefited more from a true workshop which would provide structured encounters aimed at least as much at empowering the possible victims, as well as providing safe spaces for the participants to discuss sexual harassment as it featured in the present working environment. ‘These are some of the features of sexual harassment. Perhaps you have encountered or witnessed it. What has been your experience? How does that compare with other people in the group? These are your options if you do encounter or witness it. This is the support system we offer to help you.’

I would like to suggest that the speaker researches the methods of Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed, and that Cirque widens its search for people to deliver this workshop. There are companies in South Africa who specialize in dealing authentically with these issues for participants from widely dispersed social, cultural and economic groupings in such a way as to genuinely and meaningfully engage with the problems so that all participants have the chance to gain some insights which might help them in developing a new way of being with others. All the speaker did was lay down the rules, and state repeatedly; “This is the law in the US, and this is what you may not do.”

It raises the question as to why in fact Cirque includes this item on the Human Resources calendar. Is Cirque truly interested in engaging with the issue of sexual harassment and its context within the company, or is it merely interested in ‘ticking the box’ of preventative strategy with the least possible disruption of productivity. I contend that a company as progressive and open as Cirque could do a whole lot better but I am not sure that the corporate mindset wishes to. A real workshop on the issue might raise genuine concerns and disrupt the wonderfully profitable efficacy of the companies of dedicated artists and technicians.

Otherwise life here at LOVE continues apace. Company dynamic is great, the show is looking better than ever, training escalates and we are much more fully into the long-term rhythm of performance, rehearsal and training. We are also making extraordinary friendships. The day to day work is as demanding and fulfilling as one makes it and the experience is, bar my homesickness and missing my family, an absolute gas. My apologies for being so repeatedly and doggedly pompous.

bicycles and beachtrips on planet circus

Next day. Skype home and then back to bed for a while to catch up some sleep and take it easy. We make contact with Nate and meet him for a ride through Red Rock scenic route on bicycles. He is the cycling guru and teaches us as well as providing life saving advice as to which bike and what it needs. The ride through the landscape I have described before is grueling for the first five miles. Mostly up hill. I end up walking and pushing the bike a fair amount. Daniel and Nate (on gearless bikes nogal) just seem to cruise up. Lance Armstrong would have looked at me with disdain. I’m kind of glad Janet wasn’t there to see it. After a while on each hill, which seemed endless, there came a time when my legs were hurting so much I thought ‘I am not enjoying this any more, so buggar it I’m gonna walk.’ Nate politely and generously goes slowly which must have been agony but there he was. Then having got to the highest point we flew down the second half free wheeling at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. Daniel with is hands off the bars and acting like he was in the wind tunnel, me clutching the handlebars for all I’m worth but flying anyway. Really exhilarating speed. What a thing the bicycle is as an invention. Thirteen miles of well tarred road and scenic beauty took up the afternoon. All hail to Nate the cycling guru and thanks to him for leading the expedition. We head and then leave home determined to get in another flight and so collecting Nikia, of the wardrobe department with whom Daniel has struck up a friendship, we head on off and find the place closed because of inactivity. ‘Closed on account of inactivity’. What the…?! we are here to provide some activity so don’t close. But anyway Nikia directs us to an excellent Thai restaurant and we have a very good meal there. Fried noodles and tofu with chilli garlic and basil and couple of Thai beers and off home.

Then today after Skype home, wake Dan and we get ready and leave twelvish so we can fly then get to work for a warm up and training before the week’s performance regime starts. The flights are great. Me a slightly tense for some reason. Second flight relaxed and each time we get better. Ability to hover in stillness then turn and lift and drop and forward flips improving. We are becoming hooked again. Daniel is flying really well. Great body position relaxed and finding excellent control. Then we have a meal and get to work for the start of the week. Thursdays seem okay not too difficult. perhaps we still have the energy of the weekend. I find Friday’s the second day of the week harder. But two pretty good shows.

Had second session of Korean rope training. Two ropes hang from the grid above the stage. The technique requires one to wrap the rope around ones legs ankles and feet in such a way that one leg takes the weight while the other reaches up for the next step. The arms merely control. The ropes are controlled by a partner who holds the ends and alternately provides tension and release on each rope by pulling on them so that by engaging the tension on each leg, one is able to climb swiftly up the rope as though it were a ladder. The advanced form of descent involves swinging upside down and then controlling one’s upside down descent with one’s legs… diving earthwards hands free. With the angle of the feet one applies or releases tension on the ropes and footwear to make the descent as nose-friendly as possible.

Second time started to get the rhythm and timing and action and physical alignment and coordination of which hand and which leg. Real fun.

So then; next weekend. Cirque has organized a weekend away to Laguna beach California for the company. Kind of bonding experience. Cheap rates at a very nice hotel Surf and Sands on Laguna beach. My first visit to California besides the brief interlude during our drive to Death Valley. First time in the Pacific Ocean. We leave on the bus at 12.30 on the Monday night after the show. Already the bottle of Chivas Regal has been dented by Eugene and particularly by Valerie the Ukrainian and Uzbeki members of the dressing room. However there is still enough to serve these two South Africans. The bus is pretty raucous but Daniel lends me his mp3 player which has Rage Against The Machine’s first album which I haven’t heard for a long time. I plug in and am transported. Head banging my way through the Nevada desert through California and all the way to the coast. Apparently the bus becomes all the more raucous but I miss it all and wake up at the hotel.

I find a bed and collapse and sleep for an hour or so in the early morning and then wake up to find the beach waiting. I go and spend the day there with growing numbers of the company; swimming, drinking, playing some decidedly average volley ball, getting sun burnt, doing a couple of assisted flick flacks in the sand and lounging about. The day in other words is well spent. Also some few hours floating and swimming in the Pacific Ocean,. Is it much more saline than the Indian or Atlantic? Because my body is a lot more bouyant here. Either way a really swell time is had. In the evening there is a cocktail party, but by this time I have had too much sun, too little food and too much drink and so soon after eating from the average menu I flee to bed and collapse, while the rest of the company moves on to the reggae bar and parties til the early hours.

I am thus advantaged in the slightly later early hours of the morning and take a walk on the beach. Laguna reminds me of Knysna with it’s wealth and larney houses built on the surrounding hills. The beachfront is totally built up but the beach itself pretty nice. The morning is misted over with fog which burns off only around midday and then the sun is pleasantly culinary. We spend the second day also on the beach and next to the hotel pool and then at 4.00 pm get on the bus for the ride home. This is filled with party games some of them drinking, but I am plugged into my own mp3 and the ride passes very pleasantly. We arrive back in Vegas come 9.30 or so that night and then have the evening and morning to recover before tonight’s shows.

Have a great conversation with Sylvia the Brazilian actress and theatre maker who plays Eleanor Rigby. I discover she has been running a theatre group in Rio for thirty years. A group working an area adjacent to one worked by Augusto Boal. I tell her of Janet and Ubom and today she gives me a book in Portuguese about the group. Hombu. Inspiring.

love, weekends, rigour and compliance on planet circus

I am starting to encounter some of the effects of the physical rigour and routine physiological demands on the popular theatre performer performing many times a day, many days a week. Slowly healing tendonitis of the elbow from over-use in training. And tenderness in the shoulders which have always been subject to inflammation of the tendon sheaths. Slightly aching patellas. That might be the stilt work, Elizabeth the acrobat and my landlady warned me before she left. Requires a good deal of time and attention to maintain a sustainable physical regime for consistent frequent performance. But I am every day working to look after everything for the long term.

Thinking of the company and its workings leaves me feeling conflicted. Whenever I am drawn to feel critical of decisions seemingly based on wrong motives because of what I perceive as a corporatisation of the company; ‘Too big too quick. Losing its heart.’ I turn the other ear and hear myself saying that the focus of Cirque seems to be absolutely toward the artists. To provide more and more opportunity for more and more popular theatre performers to have the dignity of well paid employment and benefits etc. The work is apolitical and concerned with the popular theatre energy of spectacle and entertainment and distraction and amazement. This fits the entertainment industry in the US in spades. So by dancing to this piper and indulging the moneyed classes and keeping the content issue free, the machine creates an unprecedented number of employment opportunities as well as providing stimulating environments for artists to develop themselves and their talents. Without major funding this is impossible. So Cirque milks the big cash cow in Vegas and invests in more opportunities elsewhere. The East is also another big cash cow. To the point that investment corporations are betting on Cirque for good returns. No company has ever done so much for performers in the popular theatre genre. No one brand has supplied so may jobs, created so many opportunities for so many artists, and shrewdly made itself available to a world-wide audience which has embraced it with an enthusiasm which speaks to the authenticity and integrity of the work. As well as brilliant marketing and branding. It’s difficult not to see the brand as a major driving force. Here in Vegas. All this activity provides relative measures of demanding and rewarding creative opportunities to artists for them to create work and develop their skills for which they receive a relatively worthwhile monetary reward which is appropriate to the time of creation or level of skill. Unequaled. Isn’t it?

So what a weekend. With some planning and a determination to make sure that it didn’t just slip by in sleep and sloth. So lying in bed its 9.30 and the alarm goes off; time to skype home and see Janet. This is a good regular time when she is pretty sure to be home of an evening. Then by ten thirty or so she has to go to bed and, often, so do I; just because I can. But this Tuesday… no way. We are going to fill this weekend with activity and stretch it out. Wake Daniel;

‘Come on my boy we are getting out of town.’

‘Where dad?’

‘O don’t know, what about Lake Mead? See the watery sights around this desert town. A lake, you know, whatever, watersports and all.’

‘Okay.’

So we get in the car and drive out of town; south. It takes forever to get out of Vegas to the South through Henderson. But eventually we get to the edge of the valley and find ourselves near the lake. Well it’s actually a dam. This seems a point of contention here as the body of water is called a lake. Even if man-made, and the wall itself is the dam. The Hoover Dam. We drive down to the water’s edge. Somehow I always expect next to water for there to be some kind of vegetation. But not here baby. Just dusty desert and rock right down to the water line and the water line is at about 46%. And not a plant in sight. Weird. Dry and sandy and hot and then suddenly wet. We carry on looking for a suitable place to stop and maybe have a meal but its just endless dry shores of sand and rock then water. And then we are at the dam wall. Where we were on the trip to Death Valley… no, on the trip to Grand Canyon. With Luke and Casha. Good memories. We stop in fact at the same spot and gaze at the blue green water far below us for a while. Dan pretty hung over and me just a little. And what do you know? It starts to rain. Well it starts to what we used to call ‘spit’. The clouds are threatening and there is the odd flash of lightening and rumble of thunder and then some random drops along with the precious smell of rain on hot tar and dust. We stand in the car park and soak as much in as will fall on us. Eyes closed, we turn our faces skyward and occasionally blink at the tiny cold wet impact.

As we do this, a short discussion ensues about Daniel’s compliance. Any suggestion one makes and he says ‘Yes okay, lets do that.’

‘Oh no, I’ve changed my mind.’ I say ‘What about this?’

‘Good idea’ says Daniel.

‘No no the first idea was better.’ I say.

‘Yes you’re right.’ says Daniel.

‘C’mon boy. Object. Have an opinion.’

‘I’m hung over dad, give me a break. I came to the lake didn’t I? I got out of bed didn’t I? Now just shut up and make the decisions.’ (actually he doesn’t say the bit after ‘give me a break’)

‘Well I can’t do that your whole life my boy.’

‘No dad. Just today okay? And stop speaking so loudly, okay?’

‘Okay’, I say compliantly.

We hit the road again and head back for town. We get some sushi at our favourite sushi place near our old hotel at Paradise and Flamingo. You’ll notice how casually and nonchalantly I use the geographical markers; the points of reference known to two people who are getting to know Las Vegas, and can pretty much find most places in town if you give them a grid reference. Anyway, we both know the way to the indoor skydiving wind tunnel. Daniel’s navigation, though sometimes inconsistent, is generally supported by a very good instinct. But even this sometimes lets us down and it’s up to me to say… ‘no we’ve done more than 0.1 miles and the road you say we should see is nowhere in sight.’ and then I follow my equally inconsistent instinct. But we find our way to the indoor skydiving wind tunnel. We both sign up as frequent flyers for cheaper flights and have a couple of sessions. It is great. No I mean it is really great. We are starting to learn a measure of control. The instructors have turned the wind speed up to full so we are jumping onto 110-120 km per hour wind and learning to control our bodies in flight. It’s much more turbulent than skydiving but the physics are the same and its amazing how quickly one’s body learns to adjust without one telling it to. So we both experiment with forward flips and altitude control. We have a ball. Daniel gets an idea of why I became so hooked on skydiving while I could afford it at home. The closest I have come to the sensation of dream flight. Really great fun. We then head home only to head straight out again to watch the new Koen brothers movie. It’s okay. Not as good as Fargo and Lubowski. Mcdormand working too hard. Clooney very good. Pitt also too much. Tilda Swinton excellent. And brilliantly judged cameos. Altogether worth seeing but not as wildly exciting as I had hoped. Beautiful titles and credits.

Then home to bed.

ritual and red rock throwers on planet circus

Every day now I carry out a kind of psychological strategy for the afternoon and evening. Ritual of warm up, training, make up, wardrobe and technical preparation, focus and perform. Then eat, rest, technical prep and perform again.. The first show for nothing. Just as a gift to the universe. Without demands without baggage. This one I owe you. This one I do for love. The next I earn and expect my money. The captivating rhythm of ritual. It is the repeated performance of a ritual with witnesses. Every night full out. Twice a night. Full out. But with different motivating engines providing the identical performance. Stupid actor’s psychological games.

So there we are at Red Rock, Luke, Casha, Daniel and me and we are pretty tired but with a day to spend in the only redeeming feature of Las Vegas which is getting out of Vegas and we take the drive and pay the five dollars entry into th conservation area around these amazing geological features. Jutting out of the grey green and brown landscape are several mountains made from the reddest rock you could think of. Bright in the desert sun and with a whole range of shades and nuances, the rocks, eroded into fantastical shapes make for an unearthly environment. We walk in the least populated spot which is hard to find because we have come on a weekend or at least a holiday. Was it labour day or something? And the place is crowded. And we walk through this other worldly dry and red and fractally carved and erosion sculpted place. Wind erosion makes deep scoops out of the cliff face. We settle for a while then Luke gets impatient and climbs / scrambles up the slopes of this hill on the other side of this dried up river bed we are sitting close to. And seeing him far up the other side and watching him go I gain confidence and then energy and follow. The slope is at 45 degrees ish and so not hard to scramble. And Daniel and Casha get smaller and smaller sitting on the banks next to the weird erosion shapes in the red rock. Then Luke and I descend after some very deft mime communication with Daniel about the best route. As we arrive there is a group of three or four people who have decided to throw rocks at the rock face across the river bed. Now these river beds are bendy twisty and there is quite a lot of vegetation around which severely limits one’s view of one’s surrounds and how many people might be walking through that very river bad as you are throwing rocks into. The place is over run by sight see-ers and these include a number of small children. So they could be anywhere at any time. But no these four arseholes crammed into one big state of arseholity keep throwing big rocks; competing to see if one of them can hit a erosion indent on the opposing cliff some fifteen, twenty feet away. We express our opposition and outrage. Luke seems the closest to actually going over there and asking them to think more clearly or at least about other people. But before we can do this they desist and retire. I was aware of feeling all superior; at least my children can see the stupidity of rock throwing in a public place. If I didn’t have children then the world would have already been taken over by the rock throwers.