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🌨☕️🏆 November: Pandemonium Progress Report

Dear strange, wonderful reader:

When I left you last, it was with a ear-splitting digital shriek of delight and triumph that could split pixels with its gusto: after years of work, BARBETTE –my aerial straps solo– will be on stage in Paris this January as part of the selection for the 44th edition of the prestigio...
2024-12-01 04:59:18 +0000 UTC View Post

"BARBETTE" SELECTED FOR 44th CIRQUE DE DEMAIN

THAT'S IT

THAT'S THE NEWS

WE'RE GOING TO PARIS, BABY!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

deep inhale

-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE DID IT WE FUCKIN' DID IT LET'S FUCKIN' GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS OF BUILDING THIS DREAM WITH ...
2024-11-14 18:37:02 +0000 UTC View Post

🎃 🍁 🤡 October: Pandemonium Progress Report

Dear reader,
When I left you last, September was cosplaying as August and I was in the belly of the beast with preparations for an updated performance of BARBETTE at a public showcase called SANS FILET at La TOHU. I’d decided I was going to shoot one last time for Cirque de Demain and I needed to re-film my ac...
2024-10-29 03:22:21 +0000 UTC View Post

☀️🍁🍏September: Pandemonium Progress Report

"September tries its best to have us forget summer." ~ Bernard Williams
Greetings, strange and wonderful reader. It's been a headlong sprint out of summer and into the first flush of autumn for me. I find myself , improbably, still in Montréal – for just a few more days.
First things first: if ...
2024-09-22 23:05:32 +0000 UTC View Post

MONASTÈRE PHOTO DUMP: Professional Photographers

hello there, you strange wonderful thing
I hope you enjoyed the audience-view peek at the latest update of BARBETTE. Thanks for the comments and feedback you left on the post or messaged me privately with; it's a beautiful feeling to share the continuing evolution of this work with you. Your excitement at som...
2024-08-25 22:43:13 +0000 UTC View Post

BARBETTTE DOES "LE MONASTÈRE"

My dear, strange, wonderful reader – it's been a hot second.
Quite literally: the humidity in Montréal has been unrelenting. You feel like a wrung-out, sweaty gym towel just walking a couple blocks, downhill, in the shade. It's been too hot to sleep.
I can see thunderstorm clouds gathering on the horizon, th...
2024-08-07 20:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post

🎬 "VACUUM" performance • May 2024

Hello, my strange and wonderful reader! Well – strange and wonderful viewer, today.

As promised, here is the recording of my performance of VACUUM from May in Toronto. Just got the footage from the event videographer a little while ago.

I had to get a whole new external hard drive for it – 8 2024-06-17 01:07:17 +0000 UTC View Post

RE-STOCK (& discount code) – "Slow Circus: Barbette"

Happy Saturday, you strange, wonderful reader! SLOW CIRCUS: BARBETTE is officially re-stocked in Ye Olde Strange Wonderful Booksho...
2024-06-01 20:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

☔️🌷May: Pandemonium Progress Report👹

Hello, strange and wonderful reader – this evening's long offering starts a brief reflection on recent days, and then offers you some re-caps on what's been going on in film/TV world, book-world, circus-world, world-world ... you get the picture. (Speaking of which – there's pictures! wheeee)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...
2024-06-01 03:49:05 +0000 UTC View Post

📗 SNEAK PEEK 👀

As promised! A cheeky first sneak-peek at the inside pages of this labour of love - Slow Circus: Barbette.
I’m hard at work chugging away through making all the shipping labels for you pre-orderers — and finishing up night-shoot-world on my stunt contract. It’s slow-going because I’m real tired and don’t want to make er...
2024-04-19 16:09:00 +0000 UTC View Post

PREQUEL TO A PEEK 👀📗

Good morning everyone! It’s 4:55am where I am, and I just wrapped on another long chilly night shoot BUT — I wanted to share this little teaser with you because THINGS ARE HAPPENING on the book front!
I picked up my special, extra-fast early shipment of 200 of the limited edition hardcover Slow Circus: Barbette books a couple days ago...
2024-04-17 08:54:27 +0000 UTC View Post

🔮 Changes: Towards a Well-Written Future

[1900 words, or roughly a 8–10 minute read]
Hey patrons,
What's working well in your life? What's not serving you so well anymore? What needs to change? What needs to stay the same? What needs more time before you can see that clearly, or take a step in a decisive direction?
All things I've been asking myself, too.
A fe...
2024-04-05 01:53:05 +0000 UTC View Post

☔️🌷 April: Pandemonium Progress Report 👹

Hello patrons! After a lovely rainy morning visit with my old pal Maui here, I’ve cooked up this overdue update post for us. Here we go!
Thank you guys so much for your kind words last week about Tournelle du Soleil– it brightened my day each time a new one popped into existence and makes me feel motivated about taking th...
2024-04-03 17:33:06 +0000 UTC View Post

📸 Album du Soleil

Good morning, lovely patrons! My sleepy thumb swooped down and posted this before pasting a short morsel of text back into the body of this post for you —!!!
The last instalment of Tournelle du Soleil hit your inboxes mid-last week and I wanted to offer a visual collection to add on to whatever the cinema in your mind played as you...
2024-03-25 11:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[53] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • AFTERGLOW

The space is packed full of bodies singing, dancing, screaming, grooving, slurring, flirting, falling, tipping, beaming, swearing, meeting, being. Local drag queens periodically take a battered microphone from the DJ, snaking through the crowd as their chosen tracks blast out a decibel louder than the music that preceded. Betwee...
2024-03-19 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[52] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • POST-SHOW

“You were magnificent!” the businessman exclaims, arms spread wide as he cuts in amidst the other artists to stand next to me. He slides his arm around my waist, flashing watch and one well-manicured hand resting on the seam of the dress where the lower spikes meet the upper ones. It’s appropriate–but there’s a familia...
2024-03-18 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[51] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [v]

The quick change– We didn’t tease the D-rings of the fly harness through–!

They should've been fed through the layer of the shorts and out the keyholes carefully cut and waiting in the starburst dress. Now there’s only moments left in the trampwall act. Shit shit shit shit-

I feel...
2024-03-15 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[50] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [iv]

The bottom edge of the LED screen, aligned with the lowest step on the staircase up to the stage, drops down to around 4’10” high. The 8” heels have made me 6’3” tall. And the crown atop this wig adds another 6", easily.

The dress is architectural – stiff enough that I can’t actually bend at the waist or hip...
2024-03-14 11:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[49] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [iii]

No one can hear me, the music is at its loudest and I’m right next to a speaker.

My mind shudder-snaps through a rapid series of bad options. Staccatos over and over on SOMEONE IS COMING TO OPEN THE DOOR to the first edge of doubt, of WHAT IF NO ONE UNLOCKS THE DOOR– What if you literally cannot get out....
2024-03-13 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[48] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [ii]

Sam and I are crouched halfway up the stairs, hunkered down out of sight, whisper-counting furiously. We can’t peek above the stairline to see where Fiona is at in her act. There’s no clear audio mark to go by. We have to count out 32 bars. Each bar is punctuated with a jabbing finger raising or lowering. I can just make out...
2024-03-12 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[47] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE • SHOWTIME [i]

The day passes in parched gulps: I’m in the makeup chair again; and then photos are needed for wardrobe; and then makeup needs to do touches, and then, and then, and then–
It’s time.
Our pack of artists and creatives and technicians has been condensed to just the front...
2024-03-11 11:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[46] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • HOTEL • JUNE 1, MORNING OF SHOW

I wake up to a new message from Matthew:
“Just wanted to say a BIG congratulations on last night's run. I don’t know how you felt, but you looked seriously strong. The act was gorgeous. Congrats friend. Very impressed by your work ethic and your aura when you perform. It was really something incredible to see. See you ...
2024-03-08 12:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[45] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • MAY 31, AFTERNOON

All my muscles are clenched. I try to slow my heart rate with breathing exercises. Gotta relax, buddy. This ain’t gonna help.
I try to manage the rush of adrenaline that wants to dump out into my veins. Pace yourself.
Like so many other times I’ve found myself in a moment that f...
2024-03-07 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[44] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • MAY 31, MORNING

I wake before my alarm.
Pain.
My left knee has resumed functioning like a normal knee. Right hip is seized up completely.
Even a lunge is challenging. How am I going to get through the day?
I leave the hotel early, waving at the others enjoying their morning coffees in the lobby from a d...
2024-03-06 12:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

[43] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 30, EVENING

Technical validations for the day are wrapped by 5pm for most of the artists.
The tramp wall team is waiting around to see if they’ll be able to jump before the end of the night; it keeps getting pushed. As for me, the Tower is finally built: I’m going upstairs to warm up and run the act a couple times.
Ideal...
2024-03-05 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[42] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 30, MORNING

Whether it was the standing on concrete floors for 8 hours yesterday, or the dancers’ jumping-based warmups, or something else entirely, it feels like someone is randomly slamming a letter opener up under my left patella at random moments during the morning’s final basement rehearsals.
LEFT patella. As in, not the knee...
2024-03-04 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[41] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 29, AFTERNOON

It’s time to run the choreo with the 8” heels on. I’m nervous.
Will my knee hold? Will it feel fine at first and swell up after? Argh…
I take a few tentative steps, hyper-aware that all the other artists, all the other directors, coordinators, creatives, can (and might be) watching me. Seems okay...
2024-03-01 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[40] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • VENUE, BROOKLYN • May 29, MORNING

I sneak upstairs with the tramp wall team and Fiona before the day’s rehearsals start. The technicians haven’t arrived yet. Soon the upstairs space will be packed full of shipping crates, metal truss, scissor lifts. We want to take a peek while the space is somewhat empty still.
Our little group scurries up a spirallin...
2024-02-29 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

[39] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • HOTEL, BROOKLYN • May 29, ARRIVAL

My anxiety and me walk out the front door of the hotel and turn left. It’s an absolutely gorgeous morning. The sidewalks are quiet. They’re also cleaner than I thought they’d be.

I shuffle through my Spotify songs, trying to find the right song to help calm me down as I cross the street and make my way under the Wil...
2024-02-28 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

[38] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • BROOKLYN, HOTEL • May 29, BREAKFAST

My alarm is set for 7am. My body wakes me up at 6am. Groan. Perfect.
I slip into the clothes I laid out the night before. Carefully strap the knee brace on. Slide a pair of looser pants over top. Head for the door. I’ll enjoy a slow coffee before the day gets going.

The brass doo...
2024-02-27 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post