Wanderlust Circus hits San Francisco - The Backstory

Three weeks ago Kazum returned from the Moisture Festival and realized that we had to choreograph a whole new routine for the San Francisco trip. That's really where last weekend began.

An unlikely duo stepped up to the plate due to Uli's school activity coupled with both of our fliers' superbusy dating life. It's tough being a dazzling, costumed acrobat girl. So many parties to attend. ;) No, really, they both work a lot and Uli's school schedule has been crushing her.

Dutch and I agreed to spearhead the new routine, which James eventually christened the "Death Blossom" in honor of a way cool weapon name from the Last Starfighter. If you don't know that show, please remove yourself from my FaceBook friends-list. We basically took one of our toughest routines "Planet Claire" with me & Dutch & the girls, and hacked it down a bit. Then we added a 5th person and our other hardest number - "Birthday". But we really needed to Doctor it up a bit so we threw in some Adagio and other Doc-friendly tricks, culminating in a big 6-person Candelabra.

Dutch and I paid lip-service to how freaking difficult and exhausting this routine would be. But we've both got enough machismo to gloat on the inside. We paid for that arrogance in sweat - both our own and others'. Doc looked like he had been white-water rafting at the end of the set on Saturday night, and James & the girls weren't so fresh-looking, either. But Dutch and Scott, the Meatloaves of Kazum, really bore the brunt of the exhaustion, I think.

It was sad to choreo Ari outta the routine, but he can't make the performance dates. :(

As we worked on it, Doc and James surreptitiously injected their special magic into the routine. They both kinda went with, "Sit out for the first half of it? I think not." And what they added is spectacular - yet they were careful not to eclipse or steal thunder. Excellent choreography shout-outs to both of the Kazum Ninjas.

Doc & Dutch have been putting in mad extra hours, too. Both of their stunting & spotting have increased remarkably in the last 2 months. Big kudos to them for extra efforts! That's the way to hone your stunt game - work it outside of regularly scheduled practice time.

Forward to last week - we've still not gone through the whole 5.5-minute stuntfest yet. Even blocking it is still rough. Some tricks were still tagged "in progress but hey we'll get it won't we?" Typical Kazum errata; nothing new there. But still pretty scary.

As we so adroitly do, we pulled it together. I had a hard time staying focused due to anguish over Joey and what I did. (Quick summary: I broke up with her by cheating on her.) I was also stressing about covering rent, finding a place to live, working as many extra hours as I could manifest, and not sleeping nearly enough.

But we did it! Death Blossom is a great routine with lots of amazing stuff in it. It rockets into action with an early Basket Toss, and finishes up with dazzling Adagio and a huge angular Candelabra. It's not to musical cues other than the first 8 measures or so, so it can be fit to any music. We're well pleased.

Seattle Moisture Festival & Chautauqua Benefit

The weekend before last, we all piled into a rented minivan and drove up to Seattle.

Alex postponed moving until after the Seattle trip. Naia accompanied us as our makeup artist as well as Alex's main squeeze, and Daniel also accompanied us as our Kazum understudy. Miranda drove up separately because she was meeting her roommates in Canada after the performances.

After a grueling practice just before the weekend, one of the vertebrae in my lower back had slipped out of alignment. It was painful now & then, but mostly it simply made it so that I couldn't bear any kind of weight. We had to cancel our Clowns without Borders show on Friday night. :( I visited a chiropractor friend of Kazum's and he realigned it, but it slipped out again as I drove home. Alex put it back in that night, and again the next morning. As we drove it slid out again, and Alex put it back in once more. I was pretty worried 'cause if it wasn't okay, I couldn't perform at all and the whole trip would be pointless.

One of our contacts from the Seattle Zoo festival is named Jake. He was dating our other contact (Leslie) but she's since moved to the east coast. That's good; I had a major crush on her and it was nice not to have to deal with that. Jake's a great guy and he opened his house to us. Well, his landlord's house, but still.

We had an evening practice and my back felt pretty okay. It didn't act up the whole rest of the weekend, which was awesome.

On Saturday night we assembled at Hale's Palladium for the show. It's a converted warehouse attached to a brewery, which is a pretty darn cool venue. There were lots of people there, including the delightfully skilled duo Ricochet, who we had seen at OCF. Cohdi sat and chatted with us for a while. He's an aerialist, meaning that he's in exquisite shape. Laura, his partner, didn't hang out with us but I think she's just not particularly outgoing. She wasn't stand-offish or anything. They do some of the best theatrical performing I've seen, with wonderful facial expressions, gestures and body language. Their show was spectacular.

It was fun to hang around with the performers, though I felt a bit like an outsider 'cause I knew so few of them. But the routine went very well, nobody got hurt, and we had a delightful show.

Gaelen was having a really tough time at home, though... she was really lonely and sad 'cause Alex had moved out and was gonna head straight to southern Oregon upon his return. I was tied up with performance stuff so I couldn't really talk to her much. But she got through it.

After the show Jake and his landlord (Bart) took us out on the town. We filled up the first bar that we tried, but fit more comfortably in the 2nd. Both Miranda & Uli agreed to some simple stunting at the bar, which was much fun. When the place closed down at 2 am, Jake and Bart invited us to their warehouse that they'd converted into a modern-day forge. I jogged to the forge and hung out atop some train cars out front, which I've always wanted to do. Everybody reconvened and the party continued.

The workshop was filled with fascinating things, including a 20-ton punch press that Bart used to flatten and shape hot metal. I used to run a 40-ton punch press at ProForm in Logan, and it was nostalgic to see the huge prehistoric green bulk.

Miranda found cool headgear, and we all decked ourselves out a fair bit with the stuff that was lying around the shop. Russ had a vicious-looking Samurai headpiece that he mocked with goofy faces the way he's fated to do. We all grabbed various props and posed as Naia took many pictures of us posing all around the forge area. I have a CD of pics; I need to get them uploaded.

Since Bart had seen us perform and I assured him I was familiar with the equipment, he let me and Alex climb up on the punch press for pictures. It was way fun. We did some stunting pics, too. There were some unposed pictures that were adorable as well. I held Miranda in a stand for way too long, leaving my arms numb & weak so that when I shrugged her down she hit too hard... it was lame. But she was okay quickly, which I'm very happy about.

Jake and Bart were pretty excited to have fancy-makeup'd acrobats pulling an impromptu photo shoot in their forge. I could tell that Jake was into Miranda & Uli and I was pulling for him (with Miranda, who's available) but I didn't want to flub things up by trying to be a wingman. So I (mostly) didn't say or do anything to "help" him.

We all went back to the house and piled into various beds. Daniel & I got up early in the morning and got breakfast makings. We tried to produce scrambled eggs, toast & veggies, but it wasn't as well executed as we'd hoped. Alex got up and mostly saved us, and everyone was very appreciative, but me & Daniel aren't the best choices for producing yummy food that everyone likes.

Then we relocated back to the venue for the Chautauqua benefit show. Again, the show went very well and it was delightful to hang around with the other performers. Russ & Daniel hooked up with some pals to go to a dance event, and we dropped Miranda off at the house where Jake had (quite eagerly) volunteered to let her crash another night before heading north. I hope that she hooked up with Jake, but when I've asked her about she's been (predictably) quite close-mouthed. *snort* I'll find out. Oh, yes.

Then those of us who remained (Naia, Uli, Alex and I) drove back to Portland. Well, first Alex had the ego-crunching experience of accidentally letting the van drift into a parking sign as we pulled out of the venue's parking spot. The driver's-side front quarter-panel crumpled like tin foil. But our insurance covered it. I felt bad for Alex, though.

It was a great way to spend Alex's last weekend in Portland. It was sad to bid him farewell but we've had weeks to prepare for his absence and we'll be okay. I sure miss him, though. Especially at Gaelen's place. The lack of his presence is keenly felt, there.

As I write about the trip I feel lots of nostalgia. It was our last event with Alex as part of Kazum, and my last few hours spent with my best friend. But I can't help but feel more happy than sad. :)