It was the culmination of hours of practice, day after day, for a month. Quick run-throughs that turned into 1am drives home. Emails, chats and text messages trying to get the music cues just right and swelling to the perfect intensity. Four-way spandex arriving late and disappointingly see-through. Drop after drop after drop leaving bruised hips, fabric burned backs and one face-plant. Perpetually dirty feet, at least three panicked meltdowns and two nights of screaming/dancing elation.

At the beginning of the year, after our first show together, Irina and I made the decision…we would be performing at Theatre Bizarre. Without knowing the people we would meet, the connections we’d make and hours of rehearsal that would take us there. This is the way I do things. I decide it’s going to happen without thinking about the how’s and the what-if’s and the might-not’s. I just decide. And this is THE goal I am most proud of accomplishing this year.

We were told by the performance booker that he was not a fan of aerial routines that consisted of a series of tricks strung along to music, he wanted a storyline, theatrics. And so the process of dreaming up a creepy, intense, thrilling and terrifying show started.

We enacted a sort of ritualistic test where Cheryl and I, led to the stage by black hooded candle-bearing men, performed a blindfolded hammock routine. To gain acceptance of our group Irina, the pledge, was forced to perform blindfolded as well and then the three of us completed the initiation by drinking from a skull and performing a triple silk routine.

When we started building the show two months ago, performing blindfolded seemed like a thrilling idea. We needed to give the audience something a bigger and more death-defying than before. But honestly, we weren’t sure it was going to be possible. Just moving while wearing a blindfolded is incredibly disorienting, but spinning, flipping, climbing? While my body knows where the silks are and how to move through the tricks, it’s almost immediately dizzying. We didn’t even attempt to incorporate the blindfolds until about a week before the show and despite the slight nauseating effect, we were determined to make it work. If it’s slightly scary and unnerving for us, we knew it would have an even bigger impact for the audience.

In just under a week Cheryl whipped together all of our costumes – Irina’s from a pair of leggings due to the fabric mishap. Theatre Bizarre provided us with three wrestlers from a local circus-style show (can you spot them, clad in black, in the last two pictures?) who were as excited as we were and made sure their every move went with the story and tone of our show.

Irina absolutely blew me away with her performance. Something lit up within her when the curtain lifted and I was forced to fight a huge smile during her entire routine as I was standing to the side trying to appear serious and menacing. The theatrics and energy she produced were so inspiring. I had seen her routine a hundred times, but was still completely mesmerized by her movement.

Brian composed our music, taking our suggestion of “tribal Phantom of the Opera” and turning it into an epic, intense and beautifully creepy 15-minute opus. You’ll get to hear it and see our whole performance once I get the video edited in a week or two. But for now, the pictures…

Credit for the photos goes to Trevor Long and Red Riding Photography