Episode 24: From In the Wings to the Stage - The Hidden Soirée

Announcements

• Colorado Aerial Arts Summit (CAAS) — Fallon is teaching workshops with several other ITW company members!
• Flourish — our aerial retreat in Italy!

Mentioned in This Episode

• Follow Ana
• Follow Joulez
• 🎧 Rituals Not Resolutions episode

The Hidden Soirée Performers Nicole, Christine, Naomi, Miranda, Anastasia, Amber & Fronzo (from Starry Night)

Connect with Fallon

📧 info@inthewingsaerial.com
 🌐 www.inthewingsaerial.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to The Aerial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the Arial Alchemist, episode number 24. We're doing another edition of From In the Wings to the Stage, the Hidden Soire edition. Before I jump in today, a couple announcements. The Colorado Aerial Arts Summit is just uh by the time you're listening to this, about uh two weeks away, I want to say. Uh, the 27th through the 29th of March. Friday night kicks off with the instructor showcase, which is always delightful. Highly recommend going, whether you're participating in the festival or not. Everyone's welcome. And then workshops all day on Saturday and Sunday. I will be teaching two of them, as well as several in the wings company members are teaching really awesome, amazing workshops. So go check it out and I hope I will see you there. Then also we have our retreat in Italy Flourish that is happening June 19th through the 26th. It's gonna be an amazing time. It's a creation-based aerial retreat. Everyone is welcome, no matter your, no matter your skill level. Everybody's everybody's welcome. And no matter your apparatus, we will we will accommodate everybody. So hope to see you there. And let's jump in. So I am recording this just the the the week after. The soiree was this weekend, and uh so fresh, fresh on my brain, just coming down off of that after show high. So we did this show at the Savoy Denver again, which I have had the privilege of performing at a good lot of times now. I'm starting to lose count, which is exciting because it's such an amazing venue. It's a very small venue, it can only hold a hundred people, max. Like max. And it's a historic building. It's like art deco decorations in there. This episode might be might be rough. I'm I I apparently have not had enough sleep, and words are not coming to me. But we're gonna do it anyways. So the Savoy, amazing, and uh I performed in it, but I also produced it and did the rigging and ran backstage things and uh and and all of the things, and then and stage kittened and still had to walk on stage like like none of that was happening. Like I was just a performer. Not just, I want to be clear. Only a performer. So I decided to produce this show in with the help of my I'm calling them my high coven. It was previously my executive team, but our end-of-season show is our our vampire show with a coven about. So I just felt like it was appropriate to start calling them my high coven because it sounds cooler than a than executive team. We're in the arts. We need a coven. So, anyways, my high coven and I got together, we started talking about the season, how we're gonna run it, and uh decided that in addition to our fundraiser gala, we should do one other show that uh is maybe a cabaret style show. So um we landed on a cabaret style, and what that means in the work that we do is it's different than our end-of-season show, in that I I am the artistic director and I do a lot less work as the artistic director than I do for our large shows in the theater, in a traditional theater, if you will, in that I basically leave the artistic part up to the performers and the artists, and I give them the theme to work around and make sure that we don't have two of the same songs happening and that there's a nice variance and flow to the show. And beyond that, I I don't really do much. I don't critique the pieces typically before I see them on rehearsal. If I even see them rehearse, a couple of them I didn't even see rehearsed this time. So it's different because it's a lot of trust in that. But when you work with such amazing people, it's easy to have that trust. So we we decided to do a cabaret because it is easier in that sense. There's less um herding of the cats and and molding of the things. So then we needed to come up with a theme for the cabaret. And since we had the Savoy, which is already this historic building from the the 1920s era in in decor and setup, we thought, why not do like a Gatsby style party? Everybody loves those. Who doesn't like going to one of those? So let's let's make that happen. And originally we wanted it to be either the week before or the week after Valentine's Day and have it like be a date night out, and we couldn't get that date, so we ended up being two weeks after Valentine's Day, which was also fine. And it was still like we still kind of made it a date night girls' night out vibe. It was really, really fun. So as far as casting, it was so close to our auditions that it wasn't probably gonna be possible to like get a full-blown cast from just our company members. So what I did was sent it out to all of our company members from last season, as well as a handful of other people that I have worked with over the years that I knew do extraordinary work and wanted to work with. So that's who I sent it to. And then when we needed a couple more acts after that, after auditions, I also sent it to all of our new company members. And so we had a couple of them who did have things that were ready and were available on that day. So important things that need to happen. And we really wanted the audience to have this like very like fun party feel. It was a soiree. We wanted them to like leave the doom scrolling behind, forget about this hellscape that we're living in for a while, and come and just enjoy themselves and like step into this world that we created for them that, you know, they step back in time when maybe it was a little bit simpler in a way, and just and just have a good time. Honestly, that's really what we wanted to just really have it be fun, which was different from, you know, our last show, which was fun at the end, but there was also like a lot of dark themes in that show as well. So it's nice to have the variance, not only for the audience, but for us as performers too. This was I had a blast. I had a blast in the character that I was playing. And even though like the the story was different than you know what we've done before, we still are all about bringing that story. So we had like a bit of a through line throughout the show. So that was really fun to do. The first act was it was a groundpiece with these fans. This was the other reason that we decided on the like 1920 speakeasy Gatsby theme was another company in town had recently closed, and I was able to buy a bunch of costumes from them and these big feather fans and a bunch of them because she knew that I was gonna be doing Savoy shows. She was like, take all of these, like they're all like flapper girl dresses and very like 1920s feel to them, as well as these big fans that were made out of these ostrich feathers, like kind of showgirl type, burlesque type fans. So that was kind of like the inspiration for uh this opening act, which was myself and Naomi and Christine with these big beautiful fans. And we're like, oh, we'll just do like this showgirl thing to like start off the show and it'll be fun. And we started getting into our characters, which were Bonnie, Betty, and Babs. And myself, I was Babs and Naomi was Betty, and we were also the stage kittens for the show. So we sold flowers as tips for the performers so that audience could throw them onto the stage, which was really it's just fun. It's fun to have to have that happen. Whatever's getting thrown on the stage, it's just it's a cool element, I think, on both sides. I know people were like really excited. They're like, oh, I wanted to throw you a flower, but I was but I was out of them at that point, or like I was waiting, I was waiting until until you came on stage, like whoever that person was, like their person was on stage to uh throw a flower for them. Not that, like honestly, as a performers, we we couldn't tell. We just see things, see things flying, but it's just it's fun on both sides of it. But yeah, so it was me and Naomi, Betty and Babs's job to stage kit and pick up all of those roses, and then we are also like doing all of the rigging changes that needed to happen because at the Savoy, it's a very small venue. We just bring in our portable rig and set it up in there, and we can just reach the rig point with a ladder. So we're switching everything out, and we had six aerial acts and four different ground acts. So, you know, we were changing the rigging like four or five times and like throughout the show. So we kind of made it a story. We did have a fantastic MC. Catherine was our MC, and she was amazing, but we all basically throughout the show, Betty and Babs continue to partake in the giggle water and the giggle juice, as they used to call it. 1920s. We're having some some bubbly throughout the night, and you see us getting more and more tipsy. And uh, and then there is also this other element to the show where audiences could solve these puzzles. They were given a password at the beginning to give to the bartenders, which unlocked a secret drink menu that then had a puzzle, which unlocked a different area. And if they were able to complete them all, then it unlocked a special act at the end. And that extra act was Bonnie, Betty, and Babs back on with their fans. And but it, you know, Betty, Betty and Babs have been drinking all night. So the wheels come off, which was also really, really fun to do as well. Um, and Bonnie just trying to hold it together the entire time. So, anyways, we had such a fun time like with that storyline throughout. And then all of the performers like throughout had their own like stories for their different pieces, which was also really great. Um, and it really we had such a wide variety of um apparatuses. Nothing was repeated, which was really cool. And then also the ground acts were also amazing. Uh, and and I'm not just talking about about what we did, but also we had Anna Cruz. Um, she's at Animal Hoops on on the socials. She does hula hoops and she had her feather fans as well, which is great. And then jewels or Julie, and she, I'll tag her too, Ariel Flow Jewels, I think is what she is, on the IG. She brought a chair piece, which was really cool, like a like a folding chair. And what she was able to do on that chair, it was so cool, so athletic, so, so sexy. It was really, it was really cool. It was very cool. So it was a very, very, very fun show. And yeah, I did so much for it. So the producer where I'm working the budget and dealing with the stress of ticket sales or lack thereof and the cast management and the marketing and the flow. And I want to say, like before I keep going into all of this, the high coven helped a lot with a lot of this and taking a lot of this off the plate. But this was just from my perspective and what I was also doing. And then the rigor, so getting the rig set up and then uh switching things out throughout the show, up and down the ladder, carrying the ladder in and out with Naomi and um and catching like things. There was one where the the aerial moon, I don't know what happened. This band set got all sorts of twisted and looped inside itself. Um, it was would have been a very unsafe situation, but I did catch it and was able to fix it. And um Catherine or MC just continued to like talk as I figured it out, and it was it it no one knew. And and I could it was towards the end, so I just played it off as I was drunk and hung it incorrectly. So that was really fun. Um and then and then I was also, you know, the stage kitten, and so changing out the rigging, but then also picking up the tips and then keeping the character of the stage kitten going and trying to make it as believable as possible that I was getting a little bit tipsier and tipsier throughout the night while also staying safe in the rigging bits. So, you know, you do the best you can with that. It's a whole different animal and beast. And then, of course, performing, because I performed in the two ground acts and then I also did an aerial act as well. It was it was a lot. It was a lot. I realized I was so exhausted both Saturday and then also Sunday, and I'm still pretty tired today. But being fun, because I was basically on stage the whole show, that's it takes a lot of energy. And then even during intermission, because part of solving the puzzles was they needed to come tell us the the passwords and the answers. So I had to be out during intermission where normally I'd be sitting down and having some water. That wasn't an option for this show. So it was out mingling and then talking to all the people, and I'm introverted. So it takes it out of me. Um, so yeah, I would say that in a way, like what was the hardest part? Maybe that. Maybe just being on for so long from the beginning of the show through intermission through the end, and then also like doing the meet and greet afterwards with the audience, which is so good. It's so good, and it's also just tiring. I also think like the hardest part for me as a producer is leading up to the show and watching the ticket sales that slowly trickle in, and then it ramps up a little bit about a week out. It's very difficult. I don't know if other producers experience this in other cities. I I think they do, from what I know. If you don't and you know what works, please tell me. But I think that this is sort of, especially with smaller art companies, this is a universal experience that we have of stressing about the ticket sales. I think a lot of times people I I've talked to people who believe that theaters pay us to be there. And that's rarely the case. It's sometimes the case, it can happen, but it's rarely the case. More times than not, we are paying thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars to rent a space and then paying more thousands of dollars to pay the performers to be there. And that's usually the two biggest costs. But then you think about then there's the stage crew and the front of house crew if you need them. And yeah, all sorts of all sorts of different things here and there, costumes. Yes, I had purchased these before, but I did purchase them and I'm hoping to get several runs out of them now, so that won't be an overhead in the future, but it's still part of the cost of doing it. And so the ticket sales is what pays for that. All of that stuff. The tips were nice and added a little a little bump to everybody. But honestly, when I when I broke out the tips and split it amongst the cast, it it ends up being about like 20, 25 bucks extra per per performer, which, you know, is nice. It's a few cups of coffee, but you know, it's not that's not what's like powering the show. It's those tickets. So yeah, um, that's that's a big, a big when you're watching that and like wondering if um you're gonna end up having to pay to do all of the work. And this time we did not, luckily, we even made a little bit of money. I won't say a lot a bit of money, but a little bit of money, which is really, really nice. So, but that's I think the hardest part for me, and it can feel really lonely. Um, and it can feel really exhausting because as a producer, you're just constantly like selling yourself and doing the marketing and sales. But what I really am at heart is not a salesperson. I am an artist. And it feels really hard to have to like sell yourself so much. And I think a lot of artists might identify with that. The moment I felt proud, I remember it very clearly was on Saturday night. So Friday night was a smaller show, not as many, as many people in the audience, which was nice to kind of warm up to. And then Saturday night was full, like almost sold out. Um, to a really big audience. And I remember I remember part way through the show just like looking around the room because we did it in the round and just seeing this full theater of people watching the performer and just like everybody had smiles on their faces. The music was like so much fun. You could feel like the energy in the room was palpable, like of of joy, just joy. It was so joyful in there. I don't know that I find I can find another word. And that was the moment where I was like, oh man, I fucking did it. We we fucking did it. This is what I wanted, this is what I want. Because when I'm talking about like tickets, yes, there's the financial piece of it that is important, but there's also this other piece of this the this intangible of the energy that's in the room that's created with a full house. And you know, it always depends on the size of the venue because like if the full house is 20 people, then 20 people feels amazing. Um but if the full house is a hundred people and you have twenty, it it feels really empty and the energy just feels different. Um and sometimes not a good difference. Sometimes an okay difference, but sometimes not a good difference. So, but anyways, there's this yeah, there's this palpable feeling of happiness in the room, and I think that's always what I'm chasing as a producer and as an artist that I that I want so much more of that just in the world. I I want that everywhere. So that felt that that moment for sure made it all feel very much worth it. And I wish there would been more people on Fridays so we could have had more of that joy. I think it's so needed in this world that we're living in right now. So yeah. Yeah, that was it. And what I learned about myself, I learned, I've been learning this, and I and I think that I'm going to continue to learn this lesson, but I'm gonna be doing much better than what I have been this year. Part of my rituals and my new year's like rituals, not resolutions, and my manifestations, it's all my word of the year is abundance, and I really mean that in so many senses of that word. I mean it, I mean it people think financial abundance, and I and I I've said that, I do mean that, but I want like an abundance of audience. Like a big part of my manifestations have been to sell out every show, and I think that's why I was disappointed because I did have this expectation to like sell out. I've done all of the work, I've promoted everywhere I can. I've told every single person I've known six times that they should come. And and while I will still continue to do that part of the manifesting, like putting in the work, the rest of it I need to let go of like watching the ticket sales come in or you know, and like agonizing over it and just like let it go, do the things because they all always come in. It always happens, it's just never when I want it to, unfortunately. And I'm a control freak, so that makes it difficult. But yeah, I I learned that I need to have better boundaries around that so that I can, so that this can be sustainable because stressing that much every time I put on a show is not sustainable and it's and it's hard. And this is like the hill that I'll die on about art and supporting art. I am always coming from a place of privilege. I don't know how people who have less financial means than I do do this. It is terrifying. It is terrifying in so many ways, is terrifying financially for sure. And then it's also terrifying to just put yourself out there. Like, I made this thing, and are people gonna hate it and never come back again? Because I honestly don't care if they hate something that I make, but are they will they then not give me another shot? And that's the scary part, right? Because then do you get to create anymore? And the answer is yes, it will just look different. But if you want to continue in the way that you've been creating, then yeah, it's very, very scary. So what's next? Now we start flipping gears. Our next next show will be in August. It will be our circumcipala that we will rename this year to Circus Spook, followed by our end of season show Bite. So I'm working on getting all of those things ready to go. I'm gonna get my ducks in a row. I pulled my tarot cards today, and that's what they were talking about at the Crow Oracle card. Talked about preparation. Get your ducks in the row or your or your clams in this scenario is talking about the crows that lay out clams before the fairies come in and the cars drive off of them so then the cars drive over their clams and then they don't have then they then they can eat. So I'll get my clams in a row and for these next shows and get everything so that I can just have it done and be ready to let the rest go and let the universe take over it for me. We do plan to bring the hidden source back next year. I do think that it will do well and might be it'll be a little bit different because it will always be different because it's a cabaret. You don't know what acts you're gonna get, which is fun. Thanks for listening today and stepping a little bit behind the curtain as to what we do. As I'm recording this today, there is still a free private lesson available with me, a virtual one in act creation or cleaning. Uh it's first comfort first serve. Just shoot me a DM or an email. Um you can find me on all the social medias at in the wings aerial or on Patreon at in the wings aerial, and I will and I will set you up with one of those. And if you if they are gone, the point when you reach out, then don't worry. We'll hook you up with one. No worries. I want to thank my patrons. Always, thank you. Thank you for supporting me in this work. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I could not do it without you. If you have requests for future episodes, please let me know. I want to hear them. My my list, it ebbs and flows of ideas, and sometimes even though there's a bunch on it, I'm like, meh, I don't want to talk about that today. So maybe you have something better for me. I'd love to hear it. I hope you have a beautiful week and I'll see you next week. This has been the Ariel Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.