Wellington Circus Trust Newsletter - May 2006“Wellington Circus Trust is a non-profit organisation committed to fostering a thriving circus community in Wellington”
Thanks to Jodi York for designing the new WCT logo. Contents1. Wellington Circus Trust Classes 2. Wellington Circus Trust News 3. Fundraising - “Its All Gone Pete Tong” 4. What’s happening in the Wellington Circus Community? 5. News of Aerialists “Out There”
Wellington Circus Trust ClassesClasses and moreAll your regular Wellington Circus Trust (WCT) classes will begin again on 19 June with class times remaining the same. For new bookings check www.circus.org.nz or click on the hyperlinks below. Reminders and changes
Class CoordinatorsTo help with administration a coordinator has been nominated for each class. They will take your forward booking’s and let you know any changes to the timetables or general questions. Class coordinators are: Don’t forget to tell your class coordinator if you want to continue with your regular class before this block finishes, the week beginning 12 June. Kids classesWCT provides tutors and gear for circus workshops for children at Capital E. Check out the upcoming July School Holiday circus school classes from 10-14 July. To book for term time classes or school holiday workshops see the Capital E website JugglingJuggling will continue in the next 6 week block of classes at Te Whaea, on Wednesday nights 7-9pm until July 26 (with the exception of Wednesday 14 June). Got no, some, heaps of experience? All levels are welcome, so bring along your balls, clubs, diabolas just $2/person. New classes - Up coming stilt workshopsWe are pleased to announce that we are able to offer stilt classes very soon. Emily Buttle (of Empress Stiltdance Ltd) will lead the sessions on Monday evenings, 6-7:30 in the 6 week block beginning Monday 7 August. This class is for people who have stilted already, so if you’ve just completed “Intro to Circus” this will be perfect for you. For absolute beginners try out our “Intro to Circus” first. After your own stilts? Contact Emily at Empress Stiltdance studio ph (04) 382 9823. Who to contactFor new class bookings please contact
2. Wellington Circus Trust newsSo far this has been a huge year for Wellington Circus Trust. We have grown really quickly from having about 30-40 people involved in learning aerials at Karori Scout Hall last year to a total of 92 enrolments for the block of classes currently in progress. This has been exciting but exhausting!!! We’re moving our focus onto sustainability and trying not to make too many changes going into our next block of classes. We are tremendously grateful to Fiona Shaw & Jodi York who have volunteered to help out with the administration - especially as I am expecting to be a mother by the end of the month and won’t have the time to put in for a while. In the long term we would like to find funding to have someone work part-time for the Trust. FundingA big win for the Trust has been that we have been awarded Creative Communities grant by Wellington City Council in partnership with Creative New Zealand. The grant is for $1,200 to cover 50% of the cost of buying new crash mats. Now we just have to raise the other 50%… Come to the Paramount for late night movie, aerial performances and an after party in the foyer with DJ’s till late. More details later! Equipment is a big issue for us at the moment as almost all our existing equipment is currently on loan (we do own one trapeze & the scaffolding). We need to make good the wear & tear on this loaned equipment and replace it with Trust owned equipment as well as buy a number of other items. So far we have purchased a set of hula hoops and have bought Tom Beauchamp’s tisu from him (although they will also need to be replaced soon) and we are looking at making some other purchases with the money from the next blocks of classes. Registering for GSTOne downside to our rapid growth is that we have had to register for GST. Based on this block’s enrolments if we had been GST registered we would have come out of it with a small loss rather than a few hundred dollars towards equipment, this is a problem for us. We have, however, decided not to put prices up for the next block of classes in the hope that we make up the money with a slight increase in enrolments rather than by charging more on our existing enrolments. Profit Breakdown 2005/06 year
3. Fundraising - movie “It’s All Gone Pete Tong” at the Paramount, June 16
Paramount doors open at 10pm, the girls from “Circumbendibus” will be roaming in the foyer until 10:30pm when trapeze and tisu acts from Tom Beauchamp (Heavenly Burlesque), Dawn Strindberg (Life of Eileen) and Fergus Aitken will begin the auditorium. Then sit back and enjoy the fast paced romp through an insiders look at the club and rave culture in Ibiza, Spain, following the life of notorious DJ Frankie Wilde, in the award winning documentary “It’s all gone Pete Tong”. Check it out on the official website www.itsallgonepetetong.com Afterwards migrate to the Paramount Foyer to hear DJ’s and party till late! Where: Paramount When: Friday June 16 2006 Kick off: Doors open at 10pm (performance starts at 10:30pm) Cost: $15 (tickets available from WCT members or from Paramount on the night)
4. What’s happening in the Wellington circus community?Clowning
The workshop was an introduction to developing your own clown character, one who could survive in the ‘real world’. 10 people attended, including 2 people from overseas, here for a few months. The workshop went very well and the clowns developed at their own pace and experienced each other and a range of situations over the 2 days. There were laughs and some surprises as they discovered aspects of their personalities they weren’t expecting. 2 days weren’t enough, and the group wants another workshop, sort of Stage 2, before August when the overseas people return home. The plan is to workshop the clown characters further and then we will decide where to from there. I also had calls from people who wanted to attend, but weren’t able to come to this workshop so, there will be another introduction to clowning workshop one weekend late September / early October 2006 and people can email me at connaught@paradise.net.nz (subject: clown) or call me on (04) 973 7585 to register interest until I get details sorted. Theacrobatic Design
Apologies to those of you who were keen to do the stage combat course. I have now taken that off the enrolment form for the moment as those classes are on hold. We are currently working on a concept with Weta Digital to organise a Motion Capture Workshop later on in the year using Carrie Thiel who was our Stage Combat tutor as the tutor for this. Carrie was the Motion Capture Combat Choreographer for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Alexander the Great, Kingdom of Heaven and has recently just finished working on Spiderman 2. So watch this space for more info on this. Flying Trapeze classes have also started off as a great success for Emi out at Shelly Bay. Emi has started with a small group of 9 & 10 year olds looking to eventually train up a group of young performers. These kids are just loving it - so it appears are their parents. 2006 To Book or for more information: call Emi on (04) 479 8188 or email him on ed_emi@xtra.co.nz. Theacrobatic Design Ltd Lynne Breed, Director Email: lynnebreed@clear.net.nz or theacrobatic@clear.net.nz. The Human GardenThe Human Garden Agency has just completed its second live event in Wellington, providing corporate clients with Wellington based physical performers. Kim Potter, Aileen Davidson, Nic Duffy and Chris Donnelly performed at a gig at Te Papa as a result of recent promotional work undertaken by the Agency. The Human Garden Agency has increased its previously Auckland based representation to include Wellington from February 2006. Doors have already begun opening in the Wellington region with proactive marketing being done throughout the country to promote live events. Shona McCullagh, founding director of the Agency and leading choreographer for film, television and live events, took the opportunity to meet with some Wellington based circus performers while on a recent visit to discuss the role the Agency could undertake for the performers. This resulted in Emily Buttle’s skills being hired for The Academy of Sport Gala Dinner in Auckland. Other local performers registered to The Human Garden Agency, Jeremy Brell and Emma Rae performed their exquisite Adagio Act at an event a month earlier also at Te Papa. The Human Garden Agency is currently designing their new Xmas promotional package to be marketed throughout the country. If you wish to be considered for registration with The Human Garden Agency, send your CV to P O Box 9942, Newmarket, Auckland. Include photos, action ones if possible. The Wellington contact for the agency is Lynne Breed, lynne@humangarden.co.nz. 5. News from aerialists “out there”ShyamtaraWorld famous in Newtown as the toe-hang diva in Wellington, Shyamtara started learning aerials during the early days of Circus House aerials classes before heading off to the bright lights of London where she spent time working in journalism and training at Circus Space. However the even brighter lights of Las Vegas called and Shyamtara is there now to get opportunities to practice and perform. She says London to Las Vegas After living in London for a year, the Fabulous Las Vegas in Nevada’s southern desert bowl is surprisingly refreshing. Finding aerial work in London, like everything else there is incredibly competitive. One of my static Trapeze teachers from London’s Circus Space said the city simply has too many aerialists for the amount of work available. So much choice! By comparison, as far as I know, Las Vegas has more Cirque du Soleil shows in one place that anywhere else. Ka, Zumanity, O, Mystere, and then Le Reve - not a ‘Cirque’ show, but created by O’s breakaway director Dragonet. On top of that there are girls performing silks/tiu at the strip club “Scores”, the biggest cabaret show “Jubilee” has a flying silk act (as do many of the other shows around the Strip), the Rio Hotel has the “Show in the Sky”, and of course “Circus Circus” has half hourly shows. While the casino itself is a bit garish, the staging set up is actually pretty good and they hire people on contract sometimes for a year or two. Then there are all kinds of corporate gigs, shows, concerts, parties, conventions etc that hire aerial, acrobatic and other circus type acts. So the possibilities in Vegas make it a very exciting place to be. Work and play For now I am living the ultimate clich� of working graveyard shifts as a cocktail waitress in a Vegas strip club. During the day I train at the new Sandou Circus studio, soon to be circus school, founded by brothers Konstantin and Sergei Sandou, www.sandouproductions.com It’s a big, airy space with 30 foot ceilings, stage space and lighting for rehearsals or shows, and it is usually open six days a week. Last Friday, May 12, they held auditions for “Pink Circus”, a new European show due to start rehearsals in Rome in July. The director had an impressive CV with names including Geri Haliwell, Madonna and Prince parading through his listed dancing and directing career. I spent the week finishing off my silks routine and trying not to play on my new trapeze too much � nothing like spending all night carrying loaded trays of drinks after you’ve spent all day swinging from your arms. Auditioning On Friday morning there were a lot less people than I expected. One guy, a former junior Olympic gymnast, has been putting together a piece for “Zumanity” and did really well - although much to his disgust the panel made him sing after performing his combined chair dance and straps act. I performed my 6 minute silks piece without any ‘noticeable’ hiccups and was surprised to find they gasped at my drops (mission accomplished) and clapped vigorously at the end! Although I lacked the performance experience they wanted - and a show reel and CV � for me it was well worth it and luckily I got away without having to sing … or dance. This weekend a friend and I are performing at a party for another friend who just moved into a house with a vaulted ceiling high enough for her to install rigging points. What Fun! Now what! From there my next project is to finish a single trapeze act - we’ve also being playing with doubles trapeze and silks - and put together a show reel on DVD complete with the required head and full body shots, and CV, to send out to agencies / casinos / auditions / anyone who’s interested - all the necessary material I was lacking for the last audition. Then I’ll be ready to get a ‘real’ job!
Valerie ClaymoreIn the beginning ?! I started my dance training at the age of three. Seven years on, I began touring Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and Poland on the Goodwill through Dance program. Furthering my classical training in ballet, tap, character, and flamenco I performed and trained with the Lancaster Ballet for five years where I gained a level 7 accreditation in the Cecchetti method. During those 5 years, I had short attendances at the Royal Danish Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Boston Ballet. Furthering my dance training at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, I undertook collegiate contemporary training, whilst performing with the Boulder Ballet. One year on, I began aerial dance training with Frequent Flyers Productions Inc. Blending contemporary and aerial dance has been my forte since. During my tenure, I have trained, performed, choreographed and taught; helping produce three full productions and many one-off shows each year. My latest highlight was in collaboration with Frequent Flyers and Cirque de Soleil in an explosive ending for the closing ceremonies of the Formula One races in Montreal. Shifting to NZ Ten years on, the opportunity arose to move to New Zealand to take a position as Lab Manager of the Rafter Stable Isotope Lab at GNS Science. Yes, I am a scientist by days, aerial dancer by nights and weekends. I am grateful to have found the Wellington Circus Trust to expand my aerial training and to be able to offer classes to the Wellington community. Performance and Auditions I have had my first New Zealand performance with Heavenly Burlesque performing a comical aerial duet, Incentua Consulting, with Andrea Knox, and have started my own aerial dance company called AeroTerra Aerial Dance Limited. Auditions for dancers and aerialist will be on June 3rd, 2006, 4-6pm at Te Whaea. The proposed show will include eight original aerial dance pieces choreographed over the last 5 years, plus seven new aerial pieces. | ||||||||||||||||
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Pictures
Stilting costume “Summer Small” is part of the “Four Seasons” ensemble designed by Emily Buttle for “The Human Garden Agency’s” event.
Thanks to creative NZ and WCC for supporting the Wellington Circus Trust
WCT is raising funds for more crash mats! And we invite you, friends and family to a night at the Paramount for late night movie, aerial performance and after party with DJ’s in the foyer.
Introductory Clown Workshop - Aileen Davidson
Term 2 has started off with a hiss and a roar for Theacrobatic Design acrobatic classes although I still haven’t seen some of you who emailed me with regard to these. The new people who have joined have been totally amazed at the physicality involved and just what is required to become a good tumbler but I know they are enjoying it and of course are coming back for more. If you still want to join the beginners’ class it is not too late. Just call Lynne on (04) 387 1193 / 027 441 6079 or email 
ron pasco said,
June 30, 2007 @ 6:53 am
where is your school in las vegas