My Post-Circus School To Do List
As much as I love being in circus school, I am so ready to move on. After two years of constant physical exhaustion and soreness, no free time, and no money… I’m looking forward to the career part of this journey. This program has been great, I’ve gotten a lot out of it and I do feel ready to be performing; however, I also know exactly where my weak spots are that I need to invest in further. The training program has been so structured (and that’s exactly what I wanted) but that meant it didn’t leave time to practice the disciplines I was not taking as a major or minor. There’s a few things I feel I need to focus on in order to feel better going into auditions and filling out applications, and there’s some skills that I just really enjoy and am excited to get to dig deeper into! I also just love making lists and we’re deep in the stress of show creation so this is me escaping the sweaty amoeba (find out what that means this weekend!) and romanticizing my life next month.
First priority: I need a re-worked or new solo lyra act. Since I’ve focused on silks for the past two years, I feel very confident in my silks abilities and I have 3 acts ready to go right now. Before the program, lyra was my main squeeze but she’s been neglected. The only reason I’ve done any lyra the past year has been because I teach a beginner/advanced beginner class, so my calluses are maintained but my intermediate/advanced skills have not been. I also never had access to high ceilings with a pulley system to play with lyra at a tall height so I need to get used to using a lyra with pulls, at height. I am a little torn because part of me wants to make a low ceiling lyra act that could fit at the Untitled Supper Club’s stage so I can get back in their Unbridled rotation, but I think getting used to high heights and making an act that utilizes the pulley is something I’m looking forward to and is also something I need to get closer to my actual performance contract goals. My plan is to make myself a lyra-intensive this summer where I schedule a private lesson once a week for a month and focus on lyra in my training. My strength and body control has jumped by leaps and bounds since joining the program so I need to revisit some advanced skills that were out of reach in 2024. My goals include elbow circles, heel or toe hang, illusion beats, and regaining some of my twisty go-to sequences I haven’t done in a couple years!
Second: I need to continue dance classes. I do not feel confident on the ground. I have learned that I like Jazz-style dance and I feel that ballet will be good for body awareness. I don’t feel confident walking into auditions because I struggle with picking up choreography and I feel a lot of difficulty coordinating my feet and my hips and my shoulders while on the ground. Don’t ask me how I manage it in the air because I don’t know! As a sidequest, I’m looking forward to getting back into low flow pole dancing. I do think that any form of movement will help towards this goal so this is productive in that manner but I really do just missing clacking my Pleasers and am excited to get back into it after a few years off.
Third: Partner acrobatics! I love pacro! We got to do it once a week as a class in the program but I also got to work with my classmates during our open training a lot this past quarter! I really love flying and most of my cohort was also flyers so I’m really looking forward to working with folks who love basing. My pacro interests are pretty wide; I’d really like to consistently work on hand-to-hand and learn more two-person skills, but I also want to work towards group skills like swinging and banquine. I’ve enjoyed basing as well and plan to continue working towards basing harder skills like foot-to-hand and midding three highs (maybe I’ll consider flying the three high some day). I’m very excited to get to take more classes and keep working toward these more advanced skills.
Fourth: A juggling act. So many applications want an aerial act and a ground act. My juggling minor mostly focused on club passing and partner tricks so I’m ready to be cast in a group juggling piece! But I need something I can offer as a soloist on the ground too. I’m leaning towards making a ball juggling piece since I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve for balls than clubs. I told myself once I could do Mill’s mess I’d be “good enough” to make an act and now that I’ve got that in my bag I still don’t feel ready! Now I feel like I need to wait until I can do my 5-ball cascade but I need something to put on applications and get my foot in the door so I’m ignoring that feeling and am going to work towards making one anyway. So, I’ll still be working towards 4- and 5-ball juggling but I’m also going to work on body catches and adding movement into my practice. For clubs I’m working toward back crosses, flat throws, and chops. In the nearly two years I’ve lived in Chicago, I haven’t been able to make it to any of the juggling club meet ups or jams so I’m looking forward to having the energy to go to those as well! I think learning the fire-safety basics would be good for me and I can decide from there if I want to try any fire props.
Fifth: Weight lifting and conditioning. This is fifth on the list but it will be something I implement back into my routine immediately. I used to work with a personal trainer in Cincinnati before the program and I loved it. I loved getting to control the resistance by increasing the weights and getting to use my pushing muscles as opposed to always pulling. My legs and butt were never stronger than when I was working with Domi (@musclehubbydomi)! With the level of training in the program I had no time or energy to add it into my schedule. Weightlifting to me is a means of preventing injury as well as conditioning so it’s important for me to add it to my schedule. In that same vein, I would like to add flexibility training to the mix. We had flex class once a week for most of the program but, because of the volume of training and stress of life, my muscles have felt so tight this entire time, so I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of flexibility I have once my body relaxes for the first time in two years.
Sixth: Apply, apply, apply. Again, this is sixth on the list, but I’ve actually been applying to every casting call I see since December. Last June,I was seeing casting calls and I just didn’t feel ready but I was so excited that I would be filling them out this time the next year and that held true! I am so excited every time I see a casting call that I’m fit for and I’m filling out every single one. I have a rejection punchcard that I want filled out by the end of the school year and I’m three punches away! If you’re not familiar with the rejection punchcard concept, I first heard it from Rachel Strickland and essentially it just encourages you to apply to shows and go to auditions because every rejection you get means you were reaching towards your goals. To me it also makes getting a rejection something to look forward to, not something that makes me sad. So I’ve gotten 7 rejections since November and I’ve got 13 unanswered applications out in the ether! Once I get 10 rejections, I get to reward myself with a prize! I’m undecided what it should be yet, feel free to leave me suggestions!
Seventh: Administrative tasks. So I am quite looking forward to this actually so don’t let it being so far down fool you. I’ve already got my CV and resume looking good and I’ve got two different versions of my demo reel depending on the application I’m filling out. The only thing I’m missing is a website. I’ve started making a website countless times and just abandoned it in the Wix or Squarespace creator space. There’s some argument that a website is unnecessary but I’ll feel more established if I have one. Sending my IG account as my website makes me feel like I can only post perfectly polished videos on there and that’s not really very fun for me. I would like to be able to post without thinking so hard about it and if I can put my polished materials in a portfolio on a website, I’d feel more confident posting works in progress again. And in a similar vein I’d like to get back into a social media groove. I used to post on IG a lot more frequently and I thought I’d be able to post even more being in this program, but so much of what I trained in the program was works-in-progress or act-specific. I never wanted to post things from the act while I was working on it and I didn’t often drill sequences in my open training. Also, creating social media content is time consuming! I enjoy making videos with a voiceover or transitions, or that showcase a whole day or process, and that just takes time and energy and phone storage that I just didn’t have! I do see social media as part of being a performing artist and, I do enjoy it, so I’m looking forward to getting to flex those creative muscles again.
Eighth: Stilt walking. Maybe it’s a bit silly that I’ve been filling out every application I see posted around the US or Europe, but I haven’t applied or reached out to the local production companies. The reason I’ve been putting it off is because I want to be able to offer stilt-walking before I reach out. We had a week of stilt-walking in year 1 and I was able to walk on my own with a spotter next to me, but I was not confident in it and I haven’t tried it since! In theory I should only need a few practice sessions to lock it in but I’ve procrastinated because it’s a little scary;_; There are so many stilt walking gigs around Chicago and it’s always asked about in amusement park and music festival applications, so while it’s a skill I’m not passionate about, it can pay my bills.
I could really make this list infinite with all of my interests that I want to pursue but these are the things that are on my radar right now. My plan is to get back into gigging while I pursue contracts. I will continue working my part time remote job and coaching at Aloft and potentially applying to more part time work. I will be staying in Chicago for at least the next year to continue training. I am so excited to be done with school and get back to performing!
Shout out to my sister @vampire.rachel for editing my blog posts for me follow her insta for cute kitties and neat stickers!
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