Birthday Party

As much as almost every Counterpulse Work In Progress Showing has brought out the four year old in my soul … I must admit that they always push me through to that next level of clarity and precision I need to get the job done. The fear of not knowing every detail of what I’m making, what the audience thinks … or yesterday’s confusion … where am I supposed to be, what am I supposed to be doing and where are the performers supposed to be on stage (all during a scenario that I’m trying to not have look like Michael Jackson’s “Beat It!”) …. sends me off the deep end. Like CRISIS!  But … keep it real. When has it not? I’m a fairly high-strung woman full of drama and uncertainty that has built her existence around people, relationships, art making, good costumes and just blasting blackness in all of it’s forms. Lol. This is all to say. YOOOOOO! The show is here. Every time …  every single time … I kick and scream and huff and puff and buck and retreat and cry and shrink … I grow. Just like that garden I keep talking about.  It’s so frustrating to know what you can do and feel like you have no clue of how to get there. It’s so wack to put a mushy draft out there in front of a room full of people. It’s like walking into your own birthday party with boogars in your nose, spinach in your teeth, the back of your dress tucked into your underwear and toilet paper on your shoe all at the same time.  Just a mess! The only consolation is that people came to see and celebrate you. They’ll straighten your dress, give you a mirror, pass you a toothpick, some tissue and step down on the other end of the toilet paper so that it comes off your shoe and blows away. Yup. That’s pretty much what Counterpulse, the cast of “Ampey!” and the audience did for me yesterday.  It was hard … but one of the best birthday parties I’ve ever had.

The last round of grant/potential sources of funding rejection letters came a couple days ago. This means, it’s all about Kickstarter now.  There have been several donations over the last two days. ASE.  Gotta figure out exactly how to keep that goin’. We’re still $800 behind where we should be at this point. I can’t even talk about what that’ll mean if we don’t hit the mark by December 12, 2010. Right now … I have to concentrate on seeing what’s in front of me for November 11^th. We did animations last night after our WIP Showing til about 10pm. It was a lot of fun. Just what we needed. The “Muerto” costumes were stunning. Some of my best work.We were definitely a force. Made enough loot for some good food. 16th and Mission showed mad love.   I’ll put pictures up when I get some.  Sekou comes tomorrow. (smile).