Skagit County Fair 2016

This year, Wren and I (along with Chipp, Nate, and Harmony) were hired to be circus teachers and performers at the Skagit County Fair.

Wren and I performed three 8 or 9 hour days, which included 4 shows a day and teaching in the blazing sun.

  It was quite a fun and exhausting feat!

Here I am teaching diabolo to some fun young ladies.

 And Nate teaching a group of budding plate-spinners.

The scene.

 Wren, entertaining some curious young passers-by.

 Below is the article from the Skagit Valley Herald about us, well, mostly a highlight on Wren. Pretty neato!

MOUNT VERNON — When Wren Schultz was a student at Anacortes High School, his performance in the talent show involved juggling two hatchets and a hammer.

Though Schultz now lives in Whatcom County, those skills brought him back to Skagit County on Wednesday as part of a circus performance at the Skagit County Fair.

Known as the Circus A Team, Schultz, Della Plaster and Nate Wheeler drew more than 100 viewers, mostly children, during their first performance.

The group danced, performed tricks and juggled, with Wheeler catching a ball on his head to the delight of the crowd. As a finale, Schultz and Plaster performed a juggling routine that culminated with Plaster being perched on Schultz’s shoulders.

Schultz said he took up juggling after a visitor left some juggling balls.

“It was before YouTube,” he said. “You mostly had to teach yourself.”

In time, Schultz began performing. The Circus A Team is scheduled to perform multiple times a day during the fair and will feature a slightly changing lineup. The group is affiliated with the Bellingham Circus Guild.

This year is the group’s first time at the Skagit County Fair, although they give frequent performances at festivals, birthday parties and other events throughout the summer.

After Wednesday’s debut, several of the young audience members filed onto the grass to try their hand at some of the group’s tricks. Members of the group lent them juggling clubs, balls, hoops and other objects to try.

“All the kids lined up. It was sweet,” said Plaster, who performs as Della Moustachella.

The performers showed the group a few tricks to help them get started.

“When we started, we just performed,” Schultz said. “But people want to play as much as watch.”

Kids Fest 2016

 This was our second year at Kid's Fest.

Wren, Chipp, Harmony, and I performed a 20 minute show and taught a bunch of kids and adults how to juggle, diabolo, hula hoop, plate spin, and more!

Circus Campout 2015

 Circus Campout this weekend, run by these two charming people, Jules and Fallon (Sweet T's by Claudia Bernal)

 There were workshops like acro-yoga (I taught my 50 Shades workshop there too!)!

 

 There was helping out in the kitchen.

There was volley-club... this photo is of the first (The World) and last place (The Bloody Lips - aptly named) teams.

 This is one of the reasons for the name...

Along with being a pretty wet and rainy weekend, it was the windiest weekend of the year. Tree branches were snapping and falling, leaves flew in floaty circles like birds, structure tie-downs were spontaneously tag-teamed, there was a energetic feeling of wild-ness, power in town was out here and there, and miraculously no one at campout got hurt. Here is a photo of an Anacortes boat (by Thaddeus Hink) that embodies the power of the weather from the weekend.

Circus Campout is one of my favorite festivals!

18th Annual Free Coop Community Party

Wren and I were part of the Coop Annual Party this year. We came early to help Jason set up his tent, and helped teach juggling and other circus goodies to anyone interested. Then we paraded and performed, then taught circus some more.

 Karl was the mastermind behind it all.

 

There was a "Cooperative Circus Show" there with Poki, Karla and Carl, Strangely and Faith, Jason Quick, Clay, Aralia of Intuitive Compass, and Wren and me (doing our rope and juggle act). You can see a quick action shot of our juggling in this video here!

 

Deakin Hicks and Eneko played for part of the afternoon, along with Yogoman.

 Wren and I were caught learnin' tricks, so were thrown in the paddy wagon (it was the first time either of us had been in the back of a police car... they're super uncomfortable!).

 The whole event made for a long day, but a good one. At the end of this, we drove to Conway to try out for the "Amuse" show... and we got it!

Teaching Circus at Mt. Erie Middle School

Wren and I finished a month of teaching circus.

Two groups of Elementary school kids.

Monday through Thursday.

One hour each day.

Plate Spinning.

Cigar Boxes.

Devil Sticks.

Unicycling.

Rola Bola.

Kendama.

Juggling.

Diabolo.

Ropes.

Hats.

Poi.

!!

!

50 Shades Performance workshop

 So this was my first attempt at a physical theater "performance workshop". It was super fun, people were always coming up with new ideas for their own and others' work. We did some big group pieces, (like this picture) then mostly duo and solo.

 

One of my favorite warm-ups is a laughing exercise I did in David MacMurray's Baby Clown class. It helps loosen up your diaphram and body for better access to personal improvization and impulse.

 We typically lay separately, but today, this spontaneously happened!

 Another group exercise I've enjoyed (in the Devising Intensive with Davis Robinson and Karen Montanaro) called "Amoeba".

 Sometimes you can give a group a word, and see where the shape goes, or to music, or with nothing. It's nice to have one group watch, or name/describe what they see or feel from the Amoeba groups shape.

 I have been fortunate enough to have enough interest in the class that the numbers work out great for the exercises I want to do (between the 3 classes I've taught, there have been a minimum of 8 - when a few people miss class - and 15!), and for folks in the class to have a good size audience to perform for. Here's an example of how breaks are takes... so close together! Cuuuute!

Eric, Dyana, Pheonix, Bootstrap, Thaddeus (hands).

This has been a wonderful opportunity, and huge learning experience for me. I look forward to continuing teaching in the near future! Hooray!

The Pie Hole

So one fun thing that has happened recently is La Fiamma owner, Ken Bothman, asked the Circus Guild if they'd like to perform 3 nights a week in front of their new attraction, The Pie Hole. It's a late night pizza-by-the-slice business for the Thurs-Sat downtown crowd  looking for "after-hours" delicious eats. Wren and I decided to be one of the evenings' entertainers.

Wren (who also has a blog post about this) was a fire-juggling slice of pizza! "Get you're wood-fire, flaming hot pizza!" we would bellow.

I was in the warmest costume I could find... it was such a chilly night!

Wren was great at getting people involved. We taught juggling and rope tricks to the late-night revelers who were passing by... this guy with the anchor shirt and his lady friend hung out for almost an hour with us! Almost more impressive than their tenacity for learning, was their resilience or even disregard for the freezing temperature! All in all it was a great experience. So if you get a chance, check out the Pie hole at La Fiamma Thursdays-Saturdays from 11:30pm-2:00am! http://www.facebook.com/PieHoleBham