krazykrazne

Thanks for your kind words, I appreciate it!

There's only one other school that I know of that offers a bachelor course, and that's the National Circus School in Montreal. That and NICA cover a wide range of things in the degree. In terms of the education part/courses, all the years have an anatomy class. First year has circus history and rigging basics, second year has a class on marketing I believe, and third year is more in-depth with business management and company/act creation. My physical part of the day consists of a 30 minute warmup, an hour of handstands, two hours of specialty training, and after lunch is three hours of dance/movement and performance.

This year was a toughy with injuries since I was recovering from an autoimmune disease that I was diagnosed with RIGHT before I moved to Australia, so I was essentially left to figure things out on my own without a consistent doctor. For two years prior to NICA, I was unable to train due to constant dizziness/weakness/"brain fog," etc. Hashimoto's Disease is a huge bitch, especially for athletes, but thankfully I'm on the right medicine and have found out what foods I'm allergic to, which was a major factor in my illness. This year, I did something to my knee (a minor strain I think), grade 1 pec major tear, dislocated my left ring finger, and had a nerve impingement in my left shoulder. Biggest one was spraining my ankle. How did I do it, you ask? I was walking and rolled it in the crack between two crash mats. The irony still astounds me.

I have a cat!! His name is Harvey and he is dapper as hell. I also volunteer at a lion and tiger sanctuary in South Africa every couple of years to help raise the cubs and teenage cats. I love cats just as much as dogs; cats just aren't on leashes outside as much as pups are.

Picture of Harvey: http://imgur.com/1ixbfzF

TL;DR- got an autoimmune disease, getting over it now. Couple of torn muscles and a sprained ankle. I love cats and dogs equally.

Thanks for wishing me luck! Really appreciate it.

I vividly remember watching the DVD of Cirque du Soleil's Quidam when I was about 10 years old, and I immediately knew from that moment that I wanted to be in Cirque du Soleil. That show is responsible for my passion. The original hand balancer in the show, Olga Pikhienko, became my hero and motivation to wanting to become a hand balancer (at the time), and so began my daily journey of teaching myself handstands in the living room, which transitioned into other apparatuses. Fate had it that when I moved to Los Angeles in 2013, we became roommates, and during that time I submitted my video audition to NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts) and luckily got in!

In terms of becoming interested in "spinning stuff," I'm actually not really interested in it-- I surprisingly dread it. I love the look and artistry of cyr wheel, but it took me almost half a year of daily training to not get extremely nauseous from the spinning. It SUCKED. I still struggle with it if I've gone more than a couple of days without training on the wheel. With aerials, again, I'm surprisingly afraid of heights, but the artistry and grace of a performance is worth facing my fears every day. I live by that quote, "Decide that you want it more than you're afraid of it."

Honestly, I feel as if I'm not even in the circus world yet. I've done some great gigs in the recent years, but it feels as if I'm just breaching the surface. In 2013 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease which left me unable to train for over two years, and my first year at NICA was essentially getting my body and mind back-- I feel very behind compared to others in my year. I almost had to defer from school, but luckily things got better and I stuck through it :)

When I'm not spinning around, I'm acting! I got into the stunt industry a little bit when I was in LA, but moved out here before it got to anything. I did workshops with The Actors' Gang in Los Angeles and studied with Bruce Ornstein in New York, and have been extras in some mainstream shows. I've still got a lot to learn though. Hopefully once I'm back in the states I'll get straight to it. Also, a massive hobby of mine is petting any and all dogs I see, because priorities.

(TL;DR- Love at first sight when I saw Cirque. I get dizzy/dislike spinning, but do it anyway. Lived with my childhood idol before going to NICA. Also enjoy acting/stunts.)

It depends on what you're auditioning for, and if it's a private vs "general" audition for the public. Also if you're auditioning to be a circus performer, athlete, dancer, clown, or "other." In 2011 I was invited to a private audition in Orlando at the La Nouba theater. As a 21-year-old, self-taught aerialist, it was extremely nerve wracking. The audition consisted of two days: day 1 was showing your routine, and day 2 were callbacks, which included dance, acting and physical conditioning/strength tests. In my audition, everyone warmed up on the stage (which was a dream come true for me already- I teared up when I stepped onto that stage), and we showed the two talent scouts our routines one by one. There were almost 30 of us at the private audition.

"Fun" story: that day, the guy performing before me fell 40+ feet from his apparatus and broke his heel open to the bone and broke his elbow. There was blood everywhere, he was screaming, and people actually had to mop blood off the stage. And I was next to perform! I got through it (after requesting a crash mat), but I kind of lost my shit when he had gotten injured and was crying a bit. I guess the talent scouts saw it, because when they approached me to let me know if I was invited to the call back the next day, they said no; since I had been self taught, I didn't know exactly what tricks/sequences put into my routine that would showcase my abilities, and primarily because, "we saw you crying and you have to understand that this is something that happens all the time in this industry," and so on. I didn't have the heart to say that I wouldn't have cried had I seen that sort of injury in any other scenario. To me, I saw someone's dream shatter in front of me that was the same dream as mine, and as far as I knew, his career was over, and it really got to me since emotions were high that day to begin with. I ended up being invited to another audition four months later, but didn't go purely because of the fear of being rejected once again. It was dumb and I regret not going, but I'm pretty confident that looking back, it wasn't the right time in my life. Either way, I'm very excited and thankful to be getting a second shot at auditioning in three weeks.

Here's a fun documentary showing the process for each type of audition (the female talent scout was the woman who auditioned me in 2011): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLouxprAHtQ

EDIT: spelling (again)

I get that question a lot! It's actually not my fingers that I'm worried about, it's more about my toes, and hitting my head on the wheel if I fall out of a trick. There are lots of concussions with this apparatus. Thankfully I haven't experienced that yet. A helluva lot of bruised knees and shins though.

I wish there were only 100 people in the world that could do what I do, then the competition wouldn't be as fierce :P There are THOUSANDS of people in the world that are much better, faster and stronger than I am. It kind of depresses me knowing that there are hundreds of 6 year-old kids in China that could shit on my skills with their eyes closed. Pretty much any of those superinsanelytalented kids that were born into the circus world make me say, "Wow, that is incredible! And I also want to quit and go to sleep, bye."

Also anyone that does the "Wheel of Death." YouTube it-- it will make you sweat.