Dogs in the house!
And the dogs are out! Someone let them out – who let the dogs out? (yuuuk…yuk-yuk!) I have been watching the Flipside troupe practice skills – jumping, leaping, rolling, springing, cartwheeling – but these aren’t adequate descriptions of what these performers do…
They climb up each other – 2, 3 people high, they backward leap out of headstands, they run – side-ways – and rotate in a complete circle, mid-air, before landing in a crouch, head up, ears pricked, eyes laser-beaming to the birds… on the floor… the prey, right there…
And the birds – they are up a tissu all the time – Sam, one bird, had little do on Thursday last week after warm-up, skills and training – and so – in her regular day clothes, she simply started working on a Chinese pole. This is the pole that has abrasive strips allowing it to be climbed by circus performers with courage, strength and ok sneakers!… I watched this young performer practice her bird skills on pole – and her jeans develop long smears of black along her inside thighs – I’m so sorry, Sam’s mum!
There is going to be so much more washing with this show.
Right now, my job is to remind these young performers of their dog-ness. We play hunt stuff – and I yell – crouch! Slink! Creep! Hackle! (or I will on Tuesday…)
There were individual dogs in the troupe last year during the development at the Judy and my job is to re-find those dogs now. There’s a friendly dog who slung a leg over an audience member and licked a face… There’s a yappy dog, who tried to herd the audience… There’s a happy dog who bounded along the front row, licking any hand they could reach… A bossy dog – who called them all to school… A big dog named Sumo who scares people…
Rob (Dogs director) set me a challenge for the beginning of the circus rehearsal – the story in 10 pages… a scene a page.
It didn’t quite work out that way – some of my scenes had 3 pages attached…
But this is the process with circus. And these circus people, right here, are now adapting to a strong narrative – and, perhaps, more linear than they have worked before.
So, this isn’t the regular ‘blogs check-in’ with developments, really.
I think they are going great. I just hope they think they’re going great, as well…