Category: Arron’s Blog

Arron’s everyday stuff.

Pole Dance Dictionary

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Anyone interested in the documenting of ‘circus’ tricks or wanting to learn chinese pole should have a look at Pole Dance Dictionary for inspiration.

A very slick looking site, it’s just a shame they didn’t use YouTube so you could easily share videos. Also nice to see a familiar face on the site!

Pole Dance Dictionary on Facebook.

Hobby

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“Beware the hobby that eats.”-Benjamin Franklin 

For many modern circus performers the ‘career’ starts out as a hobby; An interesting and enjoyable way to spend a few hours a week. Over time the passion and obsession creeps in and before you know it you’re filling in your first self-employed tax return and cursing the day you passed on a ‘proper job’.

I’ve never really thought about the transition from hobbyist to professional. I’m sure for some there comes a time when they say “right I’m going to make my living from this”, and go on to do so. But for must of us it’s a gradual incline (or decline depending on how things are going!) which we hardly notice.

Occasionally important choices will come our way and remind us that this is more than ‘just a hobby’. Whether it’s applying for circus school, dealing with a serious injury or taking a 12 month contract away from home these difficult choices are not often faced by a hobbyist.

I believe a hobby can (and should) be almost always ‘fun’ but a career is (and should be) challenging.

Does trying to pries a living from an ex-hobby take the enjoyment out of the work? Possibly. From my own standpoint I still love playing with objects, getting on stage, sharing the few good ideas I have with the world and getting a reaction and connection with an audience. I hope that if there comes a time when I don’t enjoy performing then I will change what/how I do it or move onto a new profession.

I still have to pinch myself from time to time, remind myself that I survive and even thrive (at times!) thanks to my hobby, my chosen profession.

Are there times you regret being a professional, do you aspire to be one or think your passion is best kept as a hobby? Love to hear from you on this one…

Penn & Teller: Fool Us

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Yesterday I went to the filming of an episode of ‘Penn & Teller; Fool Us’. Sam Veale was kind enough to hook my up with tickets on behalf of Romany who was appearing on the show.

I was a great afternoon, got to see some great magic but I won’t spoil it for you as you will get the chance to see it when it airs!

At the moment I’m seeing a lot of live magic and I’m really enjoying it. It’s still a relatively new medium for me to watch so it’s still a bit of a novelty.

Off to watch the Shoebox UK tour tonight, which I’m pretty excited about. Been wanting to see one since it started.

Egypt

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Spent a couple of days in Cairo, didn’t have net access ( think if I’d the choice between free water or free wifi, I’d go for free wifi most of the time!) so I’m writing this in the airport waiting for my flight home and won’t be able to post it till I get back. Waste of time, maybe?

Stuff floating in my head….
Taxi driving
Social ladders
Rubbish in the street
Middle classes
The sun
Political unrest
No photos of the police
Pepsi
Empty oil drums
Golf courses
Smoky bars
Unfinished houses
Drumming
Mix grill feasts
Empty plane…

Car
Tube
Bus
Walk
Home.

Knot a problem

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I recently performed with the energetic Jon Udry, in Somerset.

Jon doing 6 rings on stage

I’d been having problems with my Yo-Yos, every six months or so I switch to a new pair of Yo-Yos and it takes a while for them to break in.

Occasionally I get a set which are a little sharp on the edge, this means that they snap strings. If I throw a Yo-Yo hard (easily getting up to 50,000 RPM) and the string were to  snap and the Yo-Yo hit someone, it would hurt. A lot. Even if it doesn’t hit anyone it would leave me on stage looking rather foolish.

So as you can imagine it’s something I’m rather careful to check. In over a decade of performing with Yo-Yos I’ve never snapped a string on stage. When I get a new set of Yo-Yos I can tell very quickly if it’s going to snap strings.

But at this gig I realised as I was setting my props, that I might have picked up the wrong set at home. This understandably worried me a bit, I double checked and realised it was fine I had the right pair so I set my props and waited to go on.

Onstage when I pulled out my first Yo-Yo it had a bit of a tangle in the middle of the string, bit odd. I figured that it was just a twisted string and all I needed to do was to pull it free. That didn’t work but I though it probably needed a little force so I put the loop on my finger and pulled harder. Bad idea. Instead of the mess of string neatly disappearing it held fast, knotting up.

Fuzzy picture of the knot in my string

At this point I was behind on my music and not thinking clearly, instead of changing  to the back up Yo-Yo I had in my bag I decided to carry on and see how it went.  Probably not the best idea I’ve ever had, as the knot was only just big enough to fit in the gap of the Yo-Yo and could easily have jammed up entirely, making me look even more foolish.

Thankfully I somehow managed to get through the routine, I’ve no idea how.

Sun, BJC, SFF

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Been enjoying the London sun far too much to write blog posts, sorry about that! Here’s a quick, sloppy note of what I’ve been up to….

Last week I performed at the 24th British Juggling Convention (BJC). I’ve been going to the BJC on and off for the past 10 years so I know what to expect…. Sports halls filled with jugglers, from those learning the first throws of the 3 ball cascade to technical masters juggling 7 clubs.

A week of inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

In the show I was performing as half of Inside Loop, doing a ‘speaking/skills comedy routine’. A real contrast to my solo act. Sam is a genius, so much fun to work with. Great to see most of the public show, Wes is a juggling super hero…. I wish I could hate him.

I was asked to compère British Young Juggler of the Year, a real challenge given my appalling memory (still need to train it) and lack of ‘gift of the gab’ (if such things exists). An over all aim for this year is to challenge myself on stage, so I accepted. The show went ok for me, somethings I screwed up and other bits went better than planned. Once the competition was over I was a little disappointed with the results of my efforts. But had some nice feedback from some members of the audience and think it’s something I’m going to try again and improve upon, as I did enjoy being on stage for longer and being able to express myself through voice rather than tricks or physicality.

Over all I really enjoyed my BJC. Massive thanks to the organising team, a group of individuals who sort out an amazing week long event, for over 1000 people without getting paid! Good on you (you crazy, mad, wonderful, generous lot)!

Arriving back in London I received a voice mail asking if I wanted to see ‘Slightly Fat Features‘ at the London Roundhouse.

I’m so glad I did. Honestly one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. A true british variety show, with original skills and theatre. So funny, go see it!

The dreaded question….

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First my throat slightly contracts, then I can’t help but breath out a sigh and my eyes sink towards the floor. “I’m a circus artist” I reply.

I know my body language and tone could easily be misinterpreted as embarrassment, but unfortunately the emotion I’m trying to hide is not embarrassment, not even modesty. If it were, I could hope that the questioner would see my distress and move on to something else. Instead my interrogator jumps at the thread and pulls as hard as they can forcing me to unravel the conversation which is almost as rehearsed and practiced as my act. It’s not their fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have a job that sparks off so much interest, seems so wacky and unlikely from the outside and yet so normal to me. Perhaps these encounters are a fresh chance to remind myself how lucky I am to have a job I love.

Instead they just depress me a little. I’m good at opinions, I’m not good at anecdotes or jokes. That’s a hang up I have and one I’m constantly trying to change, but for now this is where I am. It’s hard to get opinion in a conversation about a topic which one half is almost entirely ignorant. That’s not a criticism on them, why on earth should they know about the differences in what I do and what Ronald McDonald or Cirque du Soleil does? It just makes it difficult for someone as socially unskilled as I to connect to someone in this particular conversation in any meaningful way. I know this because I have had this conversation 100’s of times; it either results in an uncomfortable parting or my other tactic – change the subject as soon as possible. I know some artists thrive at the chance to engage in this type of interaction, driving the conversation about themselves and enthralling onlookers, as if the conversation is a performance and a chance for the performer to shine.

I can’t criticize too much, I’m a performer by trade and writing a blog about my experiences and thoughts. However I like to think my ego is slightly different from this type of need for attention. But then everyone always thinks their particular brand of ego is unique. I suspect I just have a bad attitude towards the whole thing, perhaps I should say I’m a chartered accountant when asked, “What do you do for a living?”.

Note: I wrote this in 2009. I recently came across Derren Browns stunning read “Confessions of a Conjuror” in which he also comments on the dilemma of the question (far more eloquently than I). It’s a great read, particularly for any performing artists.

Prop building

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I’ve always enjoyed making routines that use custom props. I’m not sure if it’s due to an insecurity in my ability to create with ‘standard circus props’ or due to the fact that I come from a family of engineers.

I love thinking up improbable ideas (and then struggling to make them a reality) and think these ideas have gone on to be some of my strongest work.

Normally I come to an ‘effect’ that I want and then work out how it might be achieved, a little like how I imagine a magician might work. Then I take these collection of slightly random thoughts to my prop builder and get his opinion, argue about the detail and then help as best I can in the building of the new prop.

I’m really lucky, my Dad is my prop builder. He’s built me everything from skipping rope machines to fake iPods. Being an engineer by trade he often has his own ideas on my routines, most of which a pretty lame but sometimes he strikes gold.

I wonder if there was a USSR circus prop workshop back in the 1950s that made all the props for the acts back then? I wonder who made Alexander Kiss‘ club firing device or rising platform. Maybe his Dad?

Circus Open Space

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Funny I should find myself writing this on a bus on my way home from Bristol after just reading Jessie’s blog post about the very same commute.

But I’m not on a national express coach, I’m on a bus kindly organised by Circus Space to take anyone who wanted to attend Open Spaces, an event at Circomedia.

It’s Circomedia’s 25th anniversary and as part of the celebrations they have organised a networking/conference event for people interested in the future of British circus.

I’m a little surprised at the lack of artists on the trip but unfortunately it coincides with the 3rd year show at Circus Space so I suspect that didn’t help numbers and the coach also left at 7:15. Us circus artists are a driven bunch but morning people we are not!

The day was run on the Open Space method hosted by Improbable. The over all title of the day was ‘Devoted & Disgruntled. What are we doing about circus in the UK?’. Anyone can suggest issues they want to be raised and set up their own conversation at a given time and place in the room. One can drift in and out of conversation as one please and interject if feeling inclined. You can read more about it here.

The intro to Circus Open Space

I suggested a topic about ‘Circus & The Internet’ which a handful of interested people came and listen to me rant and rave about the failing of circus to embrace the internet and the various free useful web tools available to circus artists (watch out for an essay on this in the near future). It was great to meet the brains behind Sideshow Magazine and hear of some future projects they have planned.

Overall I found the experience a little frustrating, it felt like the conversations didn’t produce any clear outcomes or future goals – an action plan. While I think it’s great that people interested in circus actually meet each other and share opinion, it’s all rather academic if there is no real change. You can easily share opinion in the comfort of your own home and be far more concise and clear. Solution takes longer to work out and benefits most from dynamic conversation. I’m not convinced the conversations I heard produced real steps that people could undertake.

It’s too early to tell if there will be any lasting positive change from today’s Circus Open Space but I really hope there are. I enjoyed meet new people and listening to other passionate people talk about circus.

Thanks to all those who came and contributed and special a thanks to Circus Space, Ciromedia and Improbable.

Funny I should find myself writing this on a bus on my way home from Bristol after just reading Jessie’s blog post about the very same commute.But I’m not on a national express coach, I’m on a bus kindly organised by Circus Space to take anyone who wanted to attend Open Spaces, an event at Circomedia. It’s CMs 25th anniversary and as part of the celebrations they have organised a networking event(?) for people interested in the future of British circus.

I’m a little surprised at the lack of artists on the trip but unfortunately it coincides with the 3rd year show at CS so I suspect that didn’t help numbers and the coach also left at 7:15. Us circus artists are a driven bunch but morning people we are not! BTECH?

The day was run on the Open Space method hosted by Improbable. The over all title of the day was ‘Devoted & Disgruntled. What are we doing about circus in the UK?’. Anyone can suggest issues they want to be raised and set up their own conversation at a given time and place in the room. One can drift in and out of conversation as one please and interject if feeling inclined. You can read more about it here.

I suggested a topic about ‘Circus & The Internet’ which a handful of people came and listen to me rant and rave about the failing of circus to embrace the internet and the various free useful web tools available to circus artists (watch out for an essay on this in the near future).

I found the experience a little frustrating, it felt like the conversations didn’t produce any clear outcomes or future goals – an action plan. While I think it’s great that people interested in circus actually meet each other and share opinion, it’s all rather academic if there is no real change. You can easily share opinion in the comfort of your own home and be far more concise and clear. Solution takes longer to work out and benefits most from dynamic conversation. I’m not convinced the conversations I heard were real steps that people could undertake.

It’s too early to tell if there will be any lasting positive change from today’s Circus Open Space but I really hope there are. I enjoyed meeting new people and listening to other passionate people talk about circus.

Thanks to all those who came and contributed and to Circus Space, Ciromedia and Improbable.