Shut Up

Ah, the floor. How many times have I talked about the floor? Enough for even me to be sick of it. But the truth is, I am at the complete mercy of the floor I have to perform on. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to articulate just how important the quality of the floor is, the effect it has on what I do, and just how incredibly difficult my life becomes when the floor is out to get me.

After my first disastrous show in Lenzburg, one of my co-workers, a chap fresh out of circus school in his early twenties turned to me and said "That's live performance."

I wanted to smack him so badly.

No, dear boy, that is not live performance. Live performance is my trapeze being a little crooked but me doing my job anyway. Live performance is me messing up one of my tricks but making it look like I did it on purpose, or at the very least, smiling through it and getting the crowd on my side. Live performance is something going wrong back stage and everyone pulling together to make the show work regardless. That is live performance.

Having conditions which make it impossible to do your job is not live performance. Having what essentially amounts to unsafe conditions is not live performance. If I were to go up to him and say "Looks like your mat got lost during transport, you can do your act without it, right?" he would not smile and say "Sure! That's live performance!" He would say that he would not be doing his act until a new mat was found.

Live performance means things go wrong. But not even having a fighting chance before the lights even come up? I'm sorry, but that's just poor working conditions.