Anyway, first and foremost, there was a lot of French, and like my 11th grade class trip to Spain, it made me really disappreciate the way that foreign languages were taught in high school. Anyway, about said Canadian journey:
We left by car Thursday afternoon after a somewhat intense day at ProTrack. The most ridiculous part about that training day was that during conditioning they had us do an ungodly number of frog jumps. I literally got to the point where my muscles were simply giving out on me and I could barely just get myself even a foot off of the ground. Afterwards, when I'd try to squat, my legs would completely buckle. It'd felt like gravity decided to double every time I'd bend my knees. While it was overall very fascinating from a physiological standpoint, it wasn't exactly the ideal state to be in the day before of a big audition. Regardless, what is done is done, and I managed to go through the entire audition with absolutely ridiculously sore quadriceps. Fortunately, I don't think it ended up affecting what they saw of me very much.
Anyway, the car ride was six hours each way, with the US-Canadian border to divide the ride in half. It was a long ride, yet still very manageable thanks to being in a car with three absolutely wonderful people. It pretty much rained/drizzled a good part of going up there (what else is new) but wasn't to the extent as to pose an impediment to our travels.
We arrived at Le Voyageur hotel at around 10:30p that day, navigated the ridiculously icy ground from our parking spot to the hotel, checked in, got settled in a little bit, and then went to bed a little before midnight. We all woke up around 7:20 Friday morning, got ready, shared some hotel "breakfast" "food" (i.e. - continental), and left at around 8:15ish for the school. Registration started at 8:30 and the auditions themselves started at 9:30, which gave us enough time to warm up and stretch a little bit. The school itself, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. The facility is an old church which they've converted into a wonderful circus training space. The main space is just so incredibly open and equipped with as much ceiling height as you could possibly want. There was swinging trapeze, flying trapeze, trampolines and "trampo-murs", and as many riggable pulley points as you could possibly dream for. Definitely a great step up from NECCA. (You can see some photos of their main training space as well as some of the outside of the school here.) Even their downstairs space felt bigger than all three NECCA training spaces combined. They had a springy tumbling floor, multicolored painted walls, and a stunningly beautiful juggling room.
When we arrived at registration, they gave each of us a schedule, as well as large number stickers from 35 to 89 that we stuck on both the front and back of ourselves (I was number 74). At 9:00 they gave us all a little talk in French as well as English welcoming us to the school as well as introducing us to a bunch of the key administrative staff at ÉCQ. The schedule for the day was divided up into six periods, the order of which (except for lunch) depended on your number (for example, the people whom I ended up spending my audition time with were those numbered 69-79). Each period of the day was 75 minutes long and for my group was composed of a flexibility assessment, then a dance assessment, then lunch, then a circus skills assessment, then the presentation of your number, and finally a strength assessment. It was a long day, but sometimes we would get done with all they wanted to see from us before the 75 minutes were up, so it actually didn't end up being quite as daunting as I imagined. In fact, also, there were two people in my group (Shane and Aaron) who were jugglers I had gone to Smirkus camp with a couple years ago and who later had gone on Smirkus tour, so it was at least nice to not be in group of total strangers if they were going to split the group of us four NECCA people up.
The flexibility assessment was pretty standard. They gave us an additional 20 minutes to warm ourselves up in the juggling room (which was conveniently nice and warm) and then had us come out in groups of about five people into the downstairs space to demonstrate our flexibility in the following predefined postures: right front split, left front split, straddle/middle split, pancake (leaning forward in a sitting straddle), standing pike, bridge, cobra, and the equivalent of a skin-the-cat lying on the ground. No real surprises there. It was actually kinda funny (at least for me) because they asked me to do a right oversplit by putting my front leg on a large foam block. All it really ended up doing was taking my normal split and angling it up a little bit. Whatever...I'm just proud I've been somewhat consistently getting my right split on the ground. We actually ended up finishing this station actually about halfway through so I got to spent a little time up in the main training space watching other people's numbers.
Next was dance. First of all, dance was kinda crazy since we were in our own separate room (one made specifically for dance: the floor, mirrors, ballet bars, etc.) and this lady completely refused to speak any English, not to mention also that we didn't have a translator in the room with us (it was kinda funny, because at least to me, she seemed like such the stereotypical strict French dance teacher...it was great). Fortunately, one of the people in our group was fluent in both English and French, so she was able to tell us the super important points. Anyway, we started with some ballet, which for the most part I copied the teacher. There was a little bit of French I could understand, but it wasn't really enough for me to be able to do the sequences that perfectly when we faced the other direction. One thing I'm glad for, at least, was the dance classes we had at ProTrack with Deena. Before this audition, I really thought those dance classes were a bit of not-so-well-used time, but really, in the end, lots of the stuff we did for the ballet portion of the dance assessment was very similar to the stuff we did in ProTrack dance. That, I was thankful for. Instead of being totally confused out of my mind, I was only somewhat confused.
The second part of dance was composed of both modern dance styles, and tried to pick at our ability to both memorize and improvise choreography. They gave us a first dance segment, which I think pretty clearly tried to assess our our ability to be aware of our location in space. It consisted of a lot of turning around (in a half turns, a quarter turn, a three-quarter turn, and a double turn) all in directions relative to one another. It was difficult the first few times, but after we practiced it a bit before having us do it in pairs I was able to get a good sense of the turning pattern. The hard part was then when we had to mirror the movement. They then had us do a second piece of modern dance choreography. There was a lot of lying on the ground, crawling, and rocking back and forth. The intention of this one wasn't exactly quite as clear, but it was a kind of dance I liked and was thus fun to do. We presented this one in groups of fours. For the last exercise, they gave us four words, cours, saut, chute, and fondre, which we had to use as a guideline for an around 20-30 second improvisational piece. THANK GOD that that girl was able to translate for us and tell us that they respectively meant "run", "jump", "fall", and "melt". I would have understood the last one (because of its past participle "fondu" :P), but I would have no idea about the others. Anyway, we presented our improvisations in pairs, and did it only once. Dance lasted a lot longer than flexibility did, but it was overall still very doable.
Next, we had lunch. It's nice to see that they actually have a cafeteria there. As I could see, they didn't make food there, but at least there were tables specified for eating, which was at least a little step up from NECCA's lunch hallway.
After lunch, my group went on to skill assessment. On my registration sheet that I had sent in about a month ago, they had asked for a maximum of four circus disciplines to be assessed in. I, being me, chose fabric, trapeze, and, thinking that I should probably have one other discipline I get assessed in, handbalancing. Lo and behold, I find out that "aerials" is considered one discipline by itself. That's one big thing I noticed about this school in comparison to NECCA. At NECCA, fabric, trapeze, lyra, rope, etc. are all considered (or, at least how I've been perceiving them) different disciplines, all somewhat on par with things like handbalancing, acrobatics, and juggling. One of my goals entering ProTrack at NECCA was to get myself a bit more well rounded, but because of the way my perception of circus arts at NECCA are somewhat skewed, the definition of well rounding myself, to me, was becoming comfortable with all types of typical aerial apparatuses. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just a big difference between NECCA and ÉCQ. At ÉCQ, at least by how I interpreted it, the discipline of "aerials" is somewhat on par with other disciplines like tightwire and floor acrobatics. Anyway, it was what it was, and told me that probably the biggest flaw in my audition this year was my lack of well roundedness as it is defined by ÉCQ. I don't necessarily think it's a make-or-break factor, judging by how they don't require any sort of minimum on the amount of disciplines you get assessed in, but we'll see.
ANYWAY, in the end, I ended up choosing handbalancing, aerials, and floor acrobatics as my three disciplines. Handbalancing was a total failure, and I almost slightly regret having chosen it. Regardless, they saw, at least, that I can hold a solid straight handstand, hold a one-arm crocodile, do a handstand pushup against a wall, and do a forearm Mexican. However, the other "basic skills" that they asked us to do that ended up being total failures for me included walking in a handstand from point A to point B, doing a full turn in a handstand, a straddle pressup, sitting in a straddle and pushing off the ground with your hands between your legs, as well as probably a couple other exercises which at this point have probably been blocked out of my memory. It was somewhat embarrassing, particularly with super gymnastics girl going before me, but it was what it was, at at least it was better than nothing.
Next, I went on to aerials, where they had a trapeze and an aerial rope set up. They asked for me to get on the trapeze, tuck under the bar, do a knee hang, go to sitting, pull up to standing, go back to sitting, go to an ankle hang, go back to hanging, and then pullover to a frontbalance. These are all of the first tricks that anyone learns on a trapeze, so it's clear that they're looking for technique a lot moreso than your skill level. On rope they just had us climb up to the top and back down. It was definitely the highest I had ever climbed. Even though we were on the balcony climbing to the ceiling, there was definitely more height than even the Smirkus tents. It was a bit scary, even for doing nothing more than just climbing. They then asked to show three of our best tricks, and allowed the rope to be switched out with either a fabric or a lyra. I asked them to switch the rope out with a fabric, and then I proceeded to show them a miracle split II and then a one-and-a-half stardrop. The fabric, however, was STRETCH CITY and honestly required at least three pulls before your feet left the ground. It totally screwed up my bearings because your climbs don't go as high and drops fall a lot more with the stretchy fabric. With the drop at the end, I almost ended up hitting the floor, but hopefully that wasn't too much of a problem. The drop was executed nicely, as I thought, and I wasn't used to that type of equipment, so how much could they really penalize me for? Then, on trapeze, I showed them some continuous front hip circles, catchers lock bounce to back hip circle, then pullover off the back. (Don't you see how sneaky I am, saving the sequence for last? :P). Anyway, that was that, and was probably the easiest aerial assessment I could have dreamed for.
Floor acrobatics came last. First of all, the guy judging me was SO NICE. He just made me feel so overall satisfied with what I had auditioned even though it's probably not much at all in comparison to what many of the other guys had shown. He asked me how much tumbling training I had had, and I said "a bit", which was totally fine by him. Anyway, we started with the basics, including a handstand to forward roll, a run to hurdle to round off, and a run to hurdle to dive roll. Everything was repeated two or three times so that they were sure that we could do them consistently. He then asked if I could do walkovers, and I said yes, and he seemed very surprised, and I thought to myself "SCORE!". So then, I proceeded to show him two wonderful backwalkovers. That, I was very happy about. I have been working on perfecting my walkovers for a good portion of ProTrack so far. He then asked about front and back handsprings, and front and back tucks, which kinda struck me as odd given that I said I only had "a bit" of tumbling training, but whatever, maybe they're just crazy with the tumbling at ÉCQ. Anyway, he asked me to show him whatever else I had been working on that I wanted to show him, and so I showed him a Valdéz twice, both of which I think went pretty well. He was so supportive of what I could do and made no big deal of what I wasn't comfortable with doing that it just made it such a stress free assessment. It was rather wonderful.
Next was the presentation of our two-minute numbers. We all went one at a time onto their stage, which gave us a lot of relax/freak out time, as you chose to spend it. There was a panel of two judges watching the acts, including one being the owner of ÉCQ. There was also a table of two others who you went to "before" you presented your act to talk about your experience and aspirations, etc. (I put "before" in quotes because they actually got a little backed up in my group and I ended up having the little interview portion after I presented my number). Anyway, when they asked me to go up on stage to perform, I took my trapeze with me, handed my iPod to the play/pause-button-presser DJ lady, put my ropes in the proper configuration, and handed off my trapeze to the rigger who raised my trapeze to the appropriate height. Just as I was about to begin, one of the judges pointed at me and told me to come over to the table. At that point, I was thinking "ho shit, what did I just do wrong?", but then I soon found out that they just found it awkward that I was going to present a number for them without knowing anything about me. I laughed a bit, and we had a short chat about my training experience and such. Once we were done, I went back up to my trapeze, nodded to the DJ lady, and my music started and I presented my little sequence of six skills. Unfortunately, since I'm not at all used to the grand scale of the ÉCQ pulley system, the amount of bounce that my trapeze had was probably doubled or even tripled than what it typically had at NECCA. Thus, my elbow circles didn't really go past one rotation. I regardless just continued on, and hopefully they understood it as an unfamiliarity with the rigging situation. Otherwise, the rest of the act went wonderful, and I'm glad at least I was able to get one elbow circle. Afterwards, I went over to the little interview area, and they asked me again about my circus experience, other types of movement training I've had before (which for that, I mentioned some gymnastics I had taken when I was little, which I do in fact somewhat attribute to my ability pick up circus skills), as well as my aspirations for the future. It was pretty straightforward and was practically done before it began.
Other people's acts were nice. There were some good, some great, and definitely some bad as well. It was a total mix.
Finally, we moved onto the physical tests. This consisted primarily of pretty standard exercises, including dips on gymnastic parallel bars, pike ups hanging from a ladder bar, pull ups, and holding a sitting pike handstand thing. All went pretty well, I thought. We then proceeded onto the little obstacle course, which tested our agility. We had to do five v-ups, roll over to three pushups, sideways bear walk a little bit, run to a ball, turn around and place it on a foam staircase (making sure that it doesn't fall off), and climbing a rope to touch the top as quickly as possible with both hands and legs or just hands, all in the fastest time possible. I heard a bit of whispering from the other people after I did mine, so I'm hoping that means that I made a good time. Afterwards, we had our "super duper surprise activity", which was just jumping off the balcony into the flying trapeze net. We got to choose how we jumped, as long as we landed sitting or on our backs (landing feet first into a net can end not so well if your feet get caught in the net). I decided to fall backwards off of it, and it was wonderful fun. It was probably about a 10 foot fall to the net, and was probably the best 0.79 seconds of the whole audition. :P It was a great way to end it.
After we were done, they got us together in a group and answered any lingering questions we had. The most important information that I got out of it was that their three year professional training program has 15 people in it each year. They also have a one-year preparatory program that also takes in 15 people, and we'll find out which program we got accepted to via email at the end of the month. I'm pretty excited to find out. I'm not really finding myself right now at the point where any of my dreams will be crushed if I don't get into either. I decided to do this audition mostly for fun, and will continue to treat it as such. If something wonderful comes out of it, great. If not, it's really no big deal.
The ride back was pretty much as non-problematic as the ride up. There were no real show-stopper events, and customs was very easy. We all got back safe and sound, and had another wonderful car ride.
Anyway, in future news, later this month, I'm going to be doing two performances over one weekend (March 26 & 27). The first is a fundraiser benefit show for the American Cancer Society at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) in their gym (we will be setting up an aerial rig there). The about 30 min performance is on the behalf of the Diamond Family Circus* where I will be performing a four(ish) minute trapeze piece. The second performance will be a part of the Bindlestiff Cavalcade of Youth at Sideshows by the Seashore in Coney Island, NY. I went with my parents to see one of the shows from last year. It's a cute little dinky thing (and meant, of course, in the most endearing way possible), but still a performance opportunity nonetheless. When you realize that the biggest thing in terms of performance that you have on your résumé is NECCA's The Flying Nut: A Starry Night and Smirkus Camp end-of-session shows following right behind, that's when you know you need to get a little more performance experience. :P So, pretty much, at this point, I'm taking up as many opportunities as I can as I see fit both for my own sake as well as to beef up my résumé somewhat.
*The Diamond Family circus is a small group of friends I had from Smirkus camp along with one of their moms (who is also into circus and performing, not to mention incredibly awesome). Our official bio for our performance at Brandeis: "Diamond Family Circus, featuring The Diamond Sisters Marci Diamond and Gina DeFreitas, with Marisa Diamond, Eliana Dunlap, Trevor Kafka, and Doug Stewart, will be performing on Saturday, March 26 at the Gosman Athletic Center of Brandeis University, South Street, Waltham, MA. Their high-flying aerial and acrobatic artistry is designed to entertain and inspire the evening's "Relay for Life" participants. This major fundraising event is produced by Colleges Against Cancer at Brandeis University, to support the vital work of the American Cancer Society. The public may register to participate in advance at www.relayforlife.org/brandeisuniversity. Cancer survivors can register for free, and will be invited to the survivor dinner which follows the event's opening ceremonies. This one is personal, so please join us as we celebrate and honor the lives of those we love through our art!"
Anyway, that's all for now!
Trevor
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