stilted
last night was good! except the lily pad is a pretty tiny venue. with a polished wood floor that's slippery when wet.
but by the time there were enough people in seats that we were starting to feel like threats and/or obstacles, it had stopped raining and moominmolly and i and klingonlandlady (on even taller stilts) could duck outside to wander the (concrete, so not slippery when wet) sidewalk frontage, attracting curious attention to the show, which was pretty much what we were there for anyway. i brought the glowy clubs, which looked very eye-catching, though i felt largely constrained to "tricks i'm almost certain not to drop" because i can't as easily pick stuff off the ground in these stilts as in the lower-height, better-fastened bouncy stilts, and asking passersby to pick up my drops felt a bit silly.
we really haven't spent much time on the wooden peg stilts in the past year-- we've been concentrating on getting skill with the bouncy stilts. we were both surprised at how different they felt. partly just in where the balance points are, but also in the possibilities each has. moominmolly summed up our mutual observations as "peg stilts are a costume element; bouncy stilts are a circus apparatus." there's totally skill to the peg stilts too, but they seem to be more... about costuming, about making you look dramatic and strange.
in that regard, we were pretty happy with the giant pinstripe stilt pants. :) and the other accoutrements moominmolly snagged yesterday, such as ties that set off each of our unnatural hair colors. :)
i was worried before the show about what I would do with my glowy clubs when i wasn't juggling them. but we quickly discovered that stilts give you access to a previously-unused part of the world, the alternate dimension that is the tops of doorframes and the like. it turns out there are all sorts of places to set things where nobody else will even know they're there.
today i also discovered that spending all evening on stilts uses a lot of muscles i didn't realize it used, apparently all over my entire body. i feel kinda like i was thoroughly beaten with hammers. i am writing this in a hot mentholated epsom salt bath. it helps. (on top of the muscle aches, i forgot last night to bring the pads that lie under our calf straps, so each of my legs has a little constellation of blisters on the inside calf. at least those don't hurt anymore, and miraculously none of them seem to have popped. tonight, padding.)
we sadly didn't wind up seeing much of the show, standing on the sidewalk peering in the front door (even though we could at least see over people's heads), though harm_city_heart performed on the sidewalk for a while, too. and we left right after intermission, as it turned out. but it was good to say hi to people, at least. this has been a shockingly social weekend for me, starting with dinner at mary chung's with pxr5 and jovianconsensus, then a bunch of friends at the show last night and shiny people at hennaj's birthday brunch this morning. social, and tiring. but so far, fun. :)
but by the time there were enough people in seats that we were starting to feel like threats and/or obstacles, it had stopped raining and moominmolly and i and klingonlandlady (on even taller stilts) could duck outside to wander the (concrete, so not slippery when wet) sidewalk frontage, attracting curious attention to the show, which was pretty much what we were there for anyway. i brought the glowy clubs, which looked very eye-catching, though i felt largely constrained to "tricks i'm almost certain not to drop" because i can't as easily pick stuff off the ground in these stilts as in the lower-height, better-fastened bouncy stilts, and asking passersby to pick up my drops felt a bit silly.
we really haven't spent much time on the wooden peg stilts in the past year-- we've been concentrating on getting skill with the bouncy stilts. we were both surprised at how different they felt. partly just in where the balance points are, but also in the possibilities each has. moominmolly summed up our mutual observations as "peg stilts are a costume element; bouncy stilts are a circus apparatus." there's totally skill to the peg stilts too, but they seem to be more... about costuming, about making you look dramatic and strange.
in that regard, we were pretty happy with the giant pinstripe stilt pants. :) and the other accoutrements moominmolly snagged yesterday, such as ties that set off each of our unnatural hair colors. :)
i was worried before the show about what I would do with my glowy clubs when i wasn't juggling them. but we quickly discovered that stilts give you access to a previously-unused part of the world, the alternate dimension that is the tops of doorframes and the like. it turns out there are all sorts of places to set things where nobody else will even know they're there.
today i also discovered that spending all evening on stilts uses a lot of muscles i didn't realize it used, apparently all over my entire body. i feel kinda like i was thoroughly beaten with hammers. i am writing this in a hot mentholated epsom salt bath. it helps. (on top of the muscle aches, i forgot last night to bring the pads that lie under our calf straps, so each of my legs has a little constellation of blisters on the inside calf. at least those don't hurt anymore, and miraculously none of them seem to have popped. tonight, padding.)
we sadly didn't wind up seeing much of the show, standing on the sidewalk peering in the front door (even though we could at least see over people's heads), though harm_city_heart performed on the sidewalk for a while, too. and we left right after intermission, as it turned out. but it was good to say hi to people, at least. this has been a shockingly social weekend for me, starting with dinner at mary chung's with pxr5 and jovianconsensus, then a bunch of friends at the show last night and shiny people at hennaj's birthday brunch this morning. social, and tiring. but so far, fun. :)