The Floor II

As I've mentioned in a previous post the quality of the floor is very important for someone who works on the ground. Especially someone who does wheel.

Up until now, the Chapiteau has been brilliant. When we're under the big top I know what to expect. I know the floor will be even, I know I have all the space I need, I know all my marks will be there waiting for me. Yup, up until now the floor has been completely reliable.

Up until now.

Part of me thought that maybe I was imagining that the floor had become incredibly slippery. But after comparing notes with A, an acrobat who also relies on a proper, dependable floor, it was clear that the floor had become considerably less reliable. Of course, no one really cares about the whines of the acrobats. Not until something happens, that is.

It was a night like any other. I was doing the high speed spirals in my number, a move that I had been doing a lot less aggressively ever since my confidence in the floor had begun to waiver. But that night, I was really feeling it so I gave the amount of juice I would normally give.

That was a mistake.

In a high speed spiral, the angle to the floor is quite low. The floor, having lost all its grip, simply failed and the wheel slid out from under me. Sometimes you want the wheel to slide. But normally, it's for a specific move and the action of sliding is deliberately set in motion by the acrobat. Here, I completely lost control. I wasn't sure where I was in space, except that I was indeed close to the edge of the stage. When the wheel has that much speed and goes into a slide, it covers an impressive distance. The only thing I could do was put my free leg to the floor, thus burning my knee in order to "brake".

In creation, I had often said that if ever I lost control in that move (say, if I slipped on paint that was left on stage) I could very well take out all the musicians. I think they finally understood what I had been going on about. Except B who insisted that "they had eyes and could move". Sorry, B. But no one has reflexes that good. It all happened in an instant after all.

And so, after scaring the crap out of the director and technical director, the floor was to be repainted. Needless to say, the difference was night and day.

The floor after a year on tour:


The floor after being repainted:


The floor after I took the liberty of breaking it in:


Ah, what a difference a paint job makes...