The end of ProTrack

Yep, it's finally over.  We had the last of our shows on Saturday, May 21, then a cast and family and friends picnic at Serenity and Bill's the day after, and then almost before you could believe it was true, people started leaving back for home.  The shows, by the way, went pretty spectacular.  It seemed to be a consistent trend among the shows as well as among the cast members that the evening shows went better than the matinee shows.  My initial thoughts would be that this would be when we'd be more tired and thus be when we pay less attention to detail, but I was proved wrong.  My parents came to the last two shows, as well as many others who I knew, both circus folk and not, came to see me during those shows as well.  The evening show on Friday, May 20, two of my great friends from high school (also identical twins), Rebecca and Sarah, came to see me perform. Finally I got an opportunity to perform for some of my Greeley friends.  It was very nice to have them there.

It was pretty sad to have to see everyone go, but with the smallness of the circus world, we'll all undoubtedly see each other again, but probably never completely as a ProTrack group.  Regardless, life must go on, duties must be fulfilled, and dreams must be pursued.

There unfortunately were a couple people who had gotten injured during the time leading up to the show (likely due to people wanting to push themselves really hard before the shows start).  As a result, three people were forced to not perform their majors and Marshall actually managed to injure their wrist bad enough during the first weekend of performances that he couldn't perform either his major or minor during the second week of performances.  During the last show, however, he managed to perform anyway by doing an improv dance piece to his trapeze music on the floor.  It was most honestly one of the most beautiful and inspirational things I"v ever seen. There were themes from his trapeze act that he translated to the floor, and not to mention the three back tucks in a row he performed.  Simply inspiring. He spent time during some of the other shows' transitions prancing around with a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon, which I thought was pretty great.

Anyway, if you are interested in viewing videos of my major and minor, you can view videos in my newly revamped Performer section of my website (http://www.trevorkafka.com/performer.html).  My major is listed as "Single Point Trapeze (dynamic height)" (meaning that I use a pulley system to adjust the bar height while I'm performing) and my minor is listed as Floor Acrobatics.  So far, I only have the preview video of my major, but I did get a professional videoshoot of the performance between the two weekends of shows which I'll be able to get online sometime during this summer. My minor's video wasn't my best runthrough in that things didn't go quite as I had planned, but overall it still managed to be somewhat clean.  The video that's up is of footage that I have as of now, but I might end up swapping it out with a better runthrough once I have more footage to put up.

I additionally got two more photoshoots recently.  On the same day I got my single point trapeze videoshoot, there was a student of the Hallmark Institute of Photography there, Pablo, who took some photos, which came out spectacular.  We also met up the week after to take some more photos, and I got some pretty spiffy ground shots with a solid white background.  I am still waiting on my other pictures I got taken back earlier in May by some other Hallmark students of me doing fabric, lyra, and some more floor stuff.  They'll appear on the photos page of my site just like the ones already there by Pablo. (http://www.trevorkafka.com/photos.html)  The whole arrangement was pretty damn spectacular since the students were using our pictures for their school portfolios, all of the photoshoots ended up being free.  It can't get much better than that!

Anyway, I spent the week after the shows just chillin' out in Brattleboro, and then the following Friday, my parents came up and we packed all of my possessions into a UHAUL truck and left for home.  We spent this weekend at a house we have in upstate New York and are currently (yes, as I type) heading back to Chappaqua, NY.

My summer/fall plans (recall that I am going to Brandeis University in January) are both somewhat definite, and somewhat up in the air.  Here is a summary of what I know so far:

1. There's a place in my hometown called World Cup Gymnastics, which is also where I have my personal fabric set up that I used to train on during the school year.  I talked with one of the staff members there and they're going to let me teach private and semiprivate classes there during the summer.  This is SUPER exciting.  I'm starting this week!
2. I also talked with Bobby Hedglin-Taylor of the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics (S.L.A.M.) in Brooklyn, NY which is somewhat of a circus-influenced action mechanics dance studio operated by Elizabeth Streb.  While they wouldn't be able to have me teach private lessons there through them (i.e. - advertised by them, insured by them, etc.), they are willing to let me rent their space to teach private/semiprivate lessons there depending the demand for them.  Bobby is also keen on getting me trained as a flying trapeze instructor/catcher, which I think would be a total blast.  I've tried flying trapeze a little bit in my circus past and it's been super fun every time.
3. Depending on who I meet and what opportunities come up in the New York City area, I'm going to try to perform as much as possible, which is good for credentials in general.  I know the Sky Box offers monthly aerial variety shows where anyone can perform, so I figure that would be a good starting point.
4. If any of the above end up forming themselves into some sort of a longer term performance-related or instruction-related thing, then spectacular!  For example, if things at World Cup end up going pretty well over the summer, I'd be ecstatic to be able to teach session classes there during the fall.
5. Depending on how the aforementioned things go, I'll sometime between now and January be making a transition between being in the New York City area and the Boston area.  I know in the Boston area, there's an agency called the Boston Circus Guild who I've heard is very lacking in the male aerialist department, which I think would make me a good candidate for joining and thus finding gigs in the Boston-area.  There are also a bunch of circus schools in the Boston area which I am in the process of researching.  Hopefully I'll be able to teach privates or session classes at one of those places, depending on what fits best for me and them.  I'm ideally looking to get a good footing in the Boston area's circus community so while I'm at Brandeis, I'll hopefully be able to combine my college life along with my circus life in a way that is (at least somewhat) monetarily sustainable.

So yeah, that's kinda where I'm at at the moment.  I'll definitely be keeping this blog up post-ProTrack to keep you guys updated on my adventures as we progress the summer and fall.  Exciting! :)

Thanks for reading!
Trevor Kafka