Glamsterdam...

Yes, its that time of year again for our aerial groups annual Boot Camp. Usually we go camping somehwere in Scotland for a long weekend of acrobatics, but this year we got to go over to Amsterdam!!! We collaborated with the Movement Academy over there doing aerial workshops, yoga, massage and our perfomance group did a show on the Saturday night.

The space we were training in was a lot smaller than we were use to but, it was nice to have a everyone in the same room so you could see what each group was working on. Boot camp is a great change to learn new trick and work on equipment you dont usually get the chance to in normal classes. I learnt some cool new moves on the silks, hoop and got to do some more doubles trapeze.

 I perfomed on the hammock (or aerial sling) again for this show. I chose Nina Simone's Blues for Mama for my routine, which is a bit slower than other music I perfomed to. I usually get pretty nervous performing but the show was quite intimate this time and I felt a bit more relaxed. Maybe the music had that effect on me?

 The rest of the performers. The venue we were in was covered in graffitti so there were lots of photo opporunities...

             

It was a really brilliant weekend with my friends, the people over there were lovely and really keen to learn so hopefully we'll be able to collaborate again.....

Circus antics...

Well, its been a crazy few weeks!
My acrobatic troupe have been devising a new show for a gig we have at my old university!
Each year the students of the Technical Theatre course at RCS have a Grad Show, where they invite industry professionals along to view their work and have a chance to meet.
This years graduates decided they wanted something a little different and asked if Spinal Chord could provide a short circus themed show.

I am actually a graduate from the same course, so it was a little strange for me to be back as part of the performing group rather than a student.

On the Friday went along to help with the set up, rigging the trapeze and silks, making sure everything was ready for our first onstage rehearsal on the Saturday.

I was a little sad I wasn't performing in this one, I was suppose to be but pulled my hamstrings in a rehearsal and had to pull out. I took on more of a stage management role instead, as there was alot of organising and liasing with the students of the course to ensure the show went up.

We opened on the Tuesday night and all seemed to go well, the audience enjoyed it, the pyrotechnics went off in the right place.....
Heres a wee sneak peak.... (apologies for the photo quality, they are stills from the video camera)

Mela...

This weekend was Glasgow's annual Mela festival in Kelvingrove park and my aerial group were on show again.

On the Saturday we took all our equipment to the park and set up for class there. It was kinda weird doing class in front of passers by but its good promotion for the company and give people a chance to see what we do.

On Sunday we did two perfomances, despite the torrential rain. Our theme this year was zombie pirates! The girls put some amazing make up and costumes together, and to be hinest I was a little jealous I didnt get to be a zombie!
I wasn't acutally perfoming on the aerial equipment this time, so I done a little bit of acrobalance with some of the kids that do our youth classes. As this was their first time performing Rodolfo wanted to have someone who could kinda help them and keep them in place, so I was drafted in as an honourary kid! This did invole me being taken captive by our pirates though!

Our queen of the splits-Lauren. (One day mine will be this good, one day......)
Doubles cloudswing... Zombie pirates trying to navigate the treasure... Mags on the spanish web, I was at the bottom beating the rope so it would spin... I'm not entirely sure what Rodolfo was suppose to be but it involed a scary looking mask...
Aaaah the end, completely drenched, feet covered in mud, but alot of fun.....

aerial boot camp!

Aerial boot camp! My aerial class do it every year but I'd always been working and had never able to go so I was very excited this time round! Basically.we take our tents and trapezes to a new location and do some intense training over a lond weekend.
This year, camp was at Strathaven Airfield as one of the woman in the class works/lives there, a brilliant location had the Scottish weather not been involved!!
The aerial is suppose to be done outside on the truss which is covered, howver it was SOOOOO windy that it became almost impossible to get the truss up in the first place. So aerial boot camp became aerial-less boot camp.

Luckily there was backup, our two heroes and a trampoline. Our first hero, Lauren is a gymnastics coach so she took a trampolining class for a couple of hours inside the hanger where they stored all the aeroplanes.

I hadn't done any trampoling before so it was brilliant to have a go and learn lots of different tricks and somersaults.

Our other hero was Felipe, handbalancing extrordanaire who did a couple of classes to help us out with our handstands. My shoulders ached afterwards but I feel like I know the right poition my body should be in, its just a case of being able to control and hold it now.

As the wind really wasn't giving up , the people at the airfield agreed to let us hang the equipment in the hanger with the planes. Finally some aerial work!!!
Part of boot camp is you get the chance to do some new things that haven't come up yet in the normal classes, so I got to do some hoop- which I've always wanted to have a go at and a little bit of single point trapeze. The video is on its side, but you get the idea......






Even though all didn't go to plan I still had a brilliant time at camp. I really enjoyed the handbalancing classes as its something we hadn't really covered properly before. Although my wee body is a bit sore at the moment, it was definitely worth it.