Semaforo

Now that I am back to posting, it is time to play a bit of catch up.

 
Some of my readers may be wondering how I make things work financially here on the other side of the world. Considering I am still learning Italian, it may seem rather impossible for me to get a job to support myself, and my coffee shop and circus wages were not enough to save up for a year abroad while supporting myself back home. So how do I manage to pay rent? One word: semaforo.
 
Semaforo is the Italian word for traffic light, and it is my workplace here in Turin town. Every weekend, I (and many other circus performers around town) go to major intersections and perform a 30-second to one minute routine during red lights, then pass the hat and hope for spare change.

When I decided to become a circus performer, I never expected that performing at red lights would be how I would make a living. It isn’t exactly glitz and glamour. The only glitter is that which bedazzles my eyelashes, and there is no follow spot – just headlights. It is dirty, temperamental, competitive, quasi illegal, occasionally dangerous, and the air quality is less than optimal. But at the same time, it can be fun practice time (both with tricks and with the Italian language), a practice in intent focus – considering I’d really prefer to not get hit by a car, a way to hang out in the sunshine while making a little soldi, and a good reminder of how kind strangers can be. Plus it makes for a good story. I’ll add it to my list of odd jobs along with alpaca tender and human puppet.

The generosity of strangers is something that never ceases to inspire my gratitude. Many people are willing to drop a coin or two – some pennies and 10 cents, 50 cents here, a euro or two there – all of which adds up. Many people thank me for entertaining them while they wait at lights, and occasionally luck will be on my side and the rare banknote will come my way. I’ve been paid in oranges, compliments, and chocolate bunnies. Friends have been paid in muffins, high fives, and marijuana. It seems like every day there is something that is a little surprising at the samafori. It is impossible to know at the start of the work day whether I will make 15 euros or 115 in the hour or two I can normally stand to breathe at the lights, but either way I am so extremely grateful to be able to earn some money in my spare time, to choose my own hours, to be able to half way listen to music while I work, and to use circus to make a living. And I know that if I work hard enough at this point in the adventure, someday the crosswalk will be replaced by stages, headlights replaced by follow spots, and the crosswalk grime on my hands replaced by bedazzled costumes.  

Rubato

Hello again, readers! Please excuse my long pause from writing, but you will soon understand part of the break. 

At first, I could blame my show and rehearsal schedule from Carillon, followed by another show called Cirque Deco and the coinciding tiredness/laziness/distraction that resulted from the show prep and performance. Cirque Deco was a touring show that travelled to lovely old theaters in nearby towns here in the Piedmonte region, and one weekend we even had the pleasure of heading 6 hours south into Tuscany to perform in a city called Civitavecchia, about an hour outside of Rome. It is a gorgeously picturesque little city, right on the Mediterranean. Our theater was a 5 minute walk from the beach, and our hotel was only 10 minutes. For our weekend away, I decided it would be a good idea to leave my computer behind, tucked safely into my bed. It would be a few days to disconnect, explore a different city, focus on getting to know my peers, etc. All of which are a bit easier without the distraction of technology. It was a wonderful 4 days of presence, beach time, performance, and of course some Saturday morning cartoons in Italian with my suitemates at the hotel.

Upon arriving home from this little performance adventure, I noticed that our foyer was a bit messier than usual. With 5 people in a two bedroom apartment, it isn’t difficult for things to get out of hand, so I just figured the others had returned home from their winter vacations and didn’t bother putting things away. Then I entered the bedroom I share.  Every cupboard, drawer, box, and suitcase was open, the contents strewn about. All of the money that I had saved up to that point was missing. I checked my bed for my computer, it too was gone – though someone had been kind enough to first disconnect my adaptors from my computer charger. And then it sunk in - we had been derubato (robbed).  

The unusual thing about the robbery was that only my things had gone missing, despite no qualms with anyone here in Turin. The 300 euros I had saved, my computer, a broken pearl necklace – gone. My roommate´s camera, the amplifier of a classmate, and a few other valuables had been left. The other unusual thing was that we live on the topmost floor of our apartment building. The ladro (thief) who did it must have had a lot of motivation and a fair amount of athleticism arrive at our fifth-floor veranda to break the window they used to enter our house.

Being robbed shook my sense of security here to say the least. It was a shocking violation of privacy, property, and security. It didn’t help that it was most likely someone that the household knows, who had an idea about what our schedules were like that day. It was frustrating to lose the money I earned, and frustrating to lose my computer, and losing the contents on the computer was heartbreaking. Photos, videos, music, documents – all gone, and very few backed up. Now I know what external hard drives are for. Lesson learned.

In terms of silver lining, this has been a good exercise in letting go of material items and observing the temporary nature of things. Computers and necklaces can be replaced, money can be earned again (or in this case, partially gifted by generous accquaintances - thank you, new friends!), I still have memories of the contents of my computer (and the camera that disappeared my first few days in little old Italy - the thieves here are pro). It was a chance to reevaluate and see what it more important – things or presence; connection to the real world or connection to the digital. And it was a moment to realize that nothing lasts. Photos disappear, memories fade as new experiences take place, ideas enter our consciousness and soon dissolve. I suppose in retrospect the robbery was good food for thought. A thief can steal your material goods and wealth. But in the end, you are still the same without the things that have been taken. Perhaps la fiducia is shaken and windows are broken, but the truly important things remain.

The robbery was also a good reminder to listen to myself. That weekend, before I left, I briefly thought I should bring my computer and just leave it turned off. Life keeps giving me opportunities to learn to listen to that little whisper, and I have been noticing with more frequency that the more I resist and try to think my way out of listening to it, the more often things seem to go wrong. Perhaps that's where inner peace comes from, a keen ability to listen to the internal voice.  

Il Carillon e La Gru

 (il carri-yon ee la grew)

To start this week’s post, I will tell you a little known fact about me: I love music boxes. I have always loved music boxes. As a young girl, I had a small collection of them that I procured from my sisters. I didn’t personally have one until I was older, but I especially loved music boxes with spinning ballerinas. There was something really magical about opening the box and having a beautiful dancer emerge and dance to what I imagined was her favorite song.

Last week I was offered a performance role in my school’s Christmas show, to be performed in the center of Turin, as well as other cities throughout Italy. I was given the role of the ballerina in Cirko Vertigo’s Carillon (music box). For this show, we build a music box and when the lid opens, performers are pulled up with it for aerial routines. There are clowns, lovers, fairies, and me – the spinning ballerina. For the first portion of my performance, I do aerial dance, meaning in this case that I get suspended in the air by a hip harness and do some simple ballet positions, contortion, and flips. The second routine I do is on a contraption that we call simply i cerchi (the circles). The apparatus is a giant hoop with two others suspended from the sides, then one more suspended within the large hoop. I perform on the center hoop.

The first time I practiced on this contraption was pretty nerve wracking. While I have done aerial hoop performances in the past, i cerchi feels much different to work on than anything I’ve tried before. We were practicing in the Creation Studio at school, and the hoop I have been assigned to was rigged approximately 3.5 meters high and unstable due to the movement of the other performers. All of the hoops spin independently of one another; so watching the other performers from my hoop is quite an experiment in coping with vertigo. All of these trials are simple to manage. The greatest challenge with performing in this show is coping with le gru.

La gru is Italian for “the crane”. Our carillon is made out of a strong aluminum frame, the top portion of which is then hoisted up by a crane to an altitude of 20 meters for the first portion of the show. The finale is performed at 30 meters. The first time we tested the show with le gru, every single performer that went up was momentarily stunned by the height. Although we wear safety harnesses, the view of the ground from that elevation and knowing that only a few steel cables and some air separate you from your demise was enough to make any of us think twice about being in the music box. Being hoisted up 90 feet above the ground, on a wobbly apparatus, in the wind, on a cold winter night was almost enough to paralyze me… but only almost. Thinking about the magic we can inspire for the audience, and especially the little girls in the crowd who are watching a music box come to life, is enough to make all of us find the courage to conquer our fear of la gru.


To catch a little glimpse of our carillon, click here.

Equilibrio

(eh-kwe-lee-bri-oh)

I didn’t take enough time to write this week to touch on all the things I have to write about, but don’t worry dear reader, I have plenty of ideas to tell you about in due time! 

I was feeling under the weather earlier in the week, and the last few days I’ve been really tired and opting to study Italian instead of write. Long term, studying is probably a good decision, though I do love the feeling of putting pen to paper. Or fingers to keys… either way. This week it has been difficult to find the balance between school, studying (and attempting to study), writing, and everyday household things like cooking and cleaning, which brings me to today’s word: equilibrio. Cheers for cognates!

This week we started equilibrismo classes at school, meaning the disciplines we’ve been working on  are balance related. We were introduced to apparatuses such as tight wire, slack line, Chinese pole, Roue Cyr, ladder, and straps.

It may be surprising, but my sense of physical balance is not great. And I don’t just mean when I’m upside down. In everyday life, I am quite clumsy. This is improving with practice, but I have a long way to go. As someone with balance that is less than fantastic, I was not expecting to be particularly decent at any of the new disciplines we were working on this week, but I would actually consider working more seriously on Roue Cyr, tight wire, and Chinese pole. I especially love Roue Cyr. There is something very primal about the spinning of the wheel and the way the artist maintains balance within the ring. It gives the impression of chaos and order existing simultaneously. To see what I mean, check out this Roue Cyr performance.

As I’m sure you know, one of the most difficult things about finding and maintaining balance is coping with instability. If you try too hard to fight the wobble and overcompensate, you will fail. If you are too still you will not progress, and therefore fail (unless of course the goal is to be a human statue, in which case – kudos!). But in order to create something that doesn’t become stagnant (Sorry, statues) there must be some room to evolve. In order to improve at anything, you must learn to make adjustments instead of abandoning the challenge at hand. Maintaining equilibrio is all a matter of embracing the wobble, working with it, and making minor adjustments to cope with the instability of the situation. Yet another example of how circus translates to everyday life.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you find your own equilibrio!

Cinque, Cinque, Cinque

(chEEn-kway, chEEn-kway, chEEn-kway)

In an earlier post, I promised to discuss the physical aspect of my new life as a full-time student of circus arts. Today I’ll scratch the surface on that topic.

At Cirko Vertigo, we cover a range of circus disciplines. Our classes currently include contemporary dance, theater, rigging & safety, acrobatics (tumbling as well as stunting), aerial conditioning, physical preparation (another conditioning class), and handstands.

At this point, handstand class is definitely the most difficult. All of our classes are physically challenging, but none of them hurt quite like verticali class with Fatos. This is due in large part to the title of today’s post, “Cinque, Cinque, Cinque”. It’s quite a simple translation: five, five, five. What cinque, cinque, cinque entails is far more challenging than the translation.

Half of class with Fatos is focused on handstands – in my case, contortion handstands – and the other half is focused on improving flexibility. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like having a 140+ pound man stand and bounce on you while you stretch in order to make you go further. All the while, he shouts things like, “Cosi, maimun! Cosi!” – which means “Like this, monkey! Like this!” in a combination of Italian and Albanian. It’s the kind of moment where you don’t know if you should laugh at how ridiculous the situation seems, or cry because it feels like your body is breaking into pieces.

            After a warm up, we start stretching our spacatta (splits). We do a one-minute warm up split on each side, some high kicks, and then start cinque, cinque, cinque – five minutes of holding the splits on the right side, left side, and center, followed by more high kicks. For many in the class, cinque, cinque, cinque means fifteen minutes of Fatos prodding, pushing, and bouncing their splits towards the ground as they cry for mercy. And yes, people do cry. Circus hurts.

Four of us receive a different kind of treatment. Because our splits are flat on the ground, we get sent over to the spalierna ­– a series of wooden bars going up the wall at equal distances. At the spalierna we work on negative stretching. Front leg held 30 centimeters above the ground by a wooden bar, backs arched in preparation for contortion, we wait. For a grand total of fifteen minutes, gravity pulls (and Fatos pushes) us ever closer to the floor. We hold, praying for time to pass quickly, counting the colored light panels on the ceiling, and trying to breathe through the pain of our fascia stretching. Our ankles bruise, our hips cramp, our knees ache from the strain. But as uncomfortable as these fifteen minutes are, we all stay with the pain instead of surrendering. We know that with any great undertaking, the feeling of success upon reaching a goal outweighs the pain of the journey, and fifteen minutes of pain a few times a week is worth the perfect spaccata. 

Sick Kid Soup

Today I am starting to feel a bit malata, most likely due to a lack of sleep and poor dietary choices over the last few days. So when I got home, I decided to head to my tiny, oddly equipped kitchen and make one thing that always helps me feel better: delicious homemade soup – chock full of vegetables. It’s a great way to get a lot of vitamin-packed veggies into your system without feeling like a rabbit, with the added benefit of being a comfort food. And this in particular is a great type of soup to make because you don’t have to buy anything special - just use whatever you have on hand. It’s so easy! The most challenging aspects of creating this delicious and nutritious meal were chopping vegetables with a butter knife, and not burning the garlic in our unpredictable pans.

To see what my Sick Kid Soup consisted of this evening, check out my Culinary Concoctions page!

Fiducia

(fi-doo-chya)

Today this word seems especially poignant. It came up a lot during contemporary dance class this morning, during an exercise in relinquishing control. It was an experiment in becoming somebody else’s puppet. Partner A closes their eyes, and is guided by Partner 2 making subtle movements on A’s back. The two move together through the room at varied speeds, dependent on the amount of pressure provided by Partner 2. It’s really quite a neat experiment (grab a friend and try it!), with the assumption being that they don’t crash each other into things or other people. Hence fiducia: trust.

As usual, it was oddly liberating to let somebody else be concerned about how I was moving through space. In Portland, much of my professional circus career consisted of playing the puppet in a human marionette duo called Dreame Scape Theater, in which my partner and I trade control over my movement, giving the audience the impression that I am a living doll and he is my puppet master. This morning’s dance class exercise was similar in some ways, but different because for once there were no strings attached and I was handing over even more of my control. Instead of putting on a performance, I was focused on trusting the feeling of somebody with my best interest in mind guiding me through a particular moment of my life. It had a surprising spiritual aspect, and was a good reminder to relax and trust this process. And my, what a process!

The last two weeks have been some of the most emotionally and physically challenging days of my life. I expected the physical challenges, for the most part (more on that later). But when I initially thought of the emotional effects of moving across the world to follow my folly, I had no idea the first week would leave me wanting to do nothing more than to run away to something familiar instead of enjoying this new adventure. I was homesick, skeptical, linguistically shocked, and scared. I wanted a jar of the right kind of peanut butter and my island paradise. Instead, I found refuge a few blocks from the Paradiso stop on the metro line in the two-bedroom apartment I share with 3 boys. It may not have black sand beaches, tropical forests, an ocean, or the right kind of peanut butter… but it does have a view of the Alps from my balcony and family dinners, so I can’t complain too much. As I get into more of a rhythm in this new life, I have had a chance to breathe and see that my process really is worth trusting. I'm still very homesick, skeptical, linguistically challenged, and kind of scared, but now I see that it will all be all right. It’s normal to feel homesick and scared, and skepticism can be healthy. I don’t think things would be working out quite this well in so many aspects if choosing Italy had been the wrong choice.

I feel like fiducia is also important today of all days, because it is the day the US chooses who will be Commander in Chief and the face of our nation for the next few years. Who do we as a collective trust enough to give that role and the associated power? Who do we see as having our best interest in mind? More importantly, will we trust ourselves enough to stand up and evoke social change when leaders fail us? Or will we remain as sheep, lost in a pasture of false advertising, commercial gain, and popular culture? Time will tell. We can trust that.