Having given up a lot to go to nursing school, I was full of joy in witnessing a one-time, single-point trapeze training partner preform at this year's annual showcase. According to her website, she also had a couple of gigs at Supperclub here in the city. Excellent.
Burt Lancaster is a new fave. And it's not just the face. Nor is it just the physique. Actually, this is my favorite part of his biography: Nick Cravat. This life-long friend of Lancaster was also his partner in a doubles acrobatic/trapeze routine in the mid 1930s and 1940s. He starred alongside Lancaster in nine films. In most he was mute. Cravat's daughter attributes this to his incredibly strong east-coast accent.
There was an article in the NYT last Thursday about Clown Conservatory founder, Jeff Raz. I love the clowns. But this article was one of the more absurd, placing clowning in cahoots with psychoanalysis by way of desocialization. And here is where I run screaming from the room... “Working on clown is in vogue right now," says Dody DiSanto, director of the Center for Movement Theater in Washington. Working on clown? Does that sound, um, dirty to anyone else? Here are some of the workshop names for those of you looking for a little clown action*:
Thanks to one MEPN's persistence we made it onto the flying trapeze today; a first for me. Props to the *fantastic* guys who run the program: Scott, our main man, Jiggy Jives and Leo the magnificent. Leo was the catcher for those of us who made it that far (nope, not me) meaning he has both strength and impeccable timing. In fact, all of the trapeze folks seem to have an amazing eye for detail. Watching them work and listening to the feedback given to both novice and advanced fliers is itself worth a visit.
don't really believe this whole circus shtick of mine. Frankly, since nursing school started I
don't really believe it anymore either. Well, there's photographic evidence. (I know, I know -- I'm faceless. But there is 
HIPAA to contend with here, so enough already.)
groundbreaking swinging trapeze act that has redefined swinging trapeze as it is performed today all over the world. Elena won the Gold Medal and at Paris’ Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in 1987, and the Gold Medal at the 1988 All-Union Circus Artists Competition of the USSR. For twenty years, she has performed in major circuses and variety shows on four continents, including the Moscow Circus, Circus Knie, Paris’ Cirque d’Hiver-Bouglione, and the Big Apple Circus. Elena moved to the United States in 1991. She started teaching at Circus Center in 2004.
