That Time I Joined the Circus

As part of our MFA program, my cohort members and I had the exciting opportunity to spend 6 weeks at the FLIC Scuola di Circo in Torino, Italy, getting a broad, intense, exhausting, fun, challenging, exhausting, awesome, and exhausting introduction into the world of circus arts. 

At the end of our time there we put together a performance for which we choreographed our apparatus routines, generated transitions and supplementary material, and put it all together (in just a few days). 

Here are some shots from our final show:

We did balancey things:

Nicole on the Rolla-Bolla

 And flippy things:

Mickey on the sphere

And arialy things:

Chloe on the Tissue

and objecty things:

Sophie and a ball. Object Manipulation!

And ensembley things:

yeah...weird stuff

and partnery things:

Jared and Mickey on the Chinese Pole

and sometimes (actually often) scary things:

Me on the tissue

Awesome scary fall!

and CRAZY things!

It was an excellent (and exhausting) few weeks. And yes, PLEASE try this stuff at home!

Photos by Emily Rossi

Fun Things! Fun People! In Turkey!

Aside from the trip to the lake, we were pretty much confined to a college campus during our stay in Turkey. And since they kept us quite busy, it wasn't until the end of the week when I brought my camera out to prove that we were there!

The view from a hill on campus. Please note the snow-covered mountain in the background.

Daily coffee and ice cream in the courtyard. Who would have guessed I'd drink an entire Turkish Coffee by myself??

Obligatory (and surprisingly successful!) group photo in front of the festival posters:

Berkay, our awesome guide/handler throughout the week took that photo, and then proceeded to direct an artsy photo shoot with us, resulting in several crazy and cool photos, like this one!

This is Berkay! He's the greatest!

I insisted on recreating the poster image with him:

Then traditional Turkish dancing commenced on the lawn. For the second time that week!

Aaaaaaand so did impromptu acrobatics. And since we'd created minotaurs out of 1, 2, and 3 people for our show, we decided to find a 4 person minotaur! 

Success! Also, we made lots of friends from all over the world! Here we are with folks from Turkey, Iran, and the Czech Republic!

Apparently this festival is a big enough deal that the governor of the town came to the award ceremony. He's the balding guy in the dark suit on the left. The car was about the most exciting part of that arrival...

Award ceremony time! Look at all the trophies and cool stuff wrapped in shiny stuff!

Claudia was recognized for teaching an awesome workshop:

And we got the Jury's Special Award! Holla!

And I leave you with...

This:

...Because we're weird like that :-P