I’m still glowing-I think that’s what you call this feeling-from the three shows that just happened over the past two days. They were so much fun, and I have to say I’ve never so much performing than with these ladies. Literally, it felt like a party on stage and we just so happened to have an audience. *Note:Each audience was so extremely supportive and vocally encouraging, it was truly uplifting!* Plus, my mom flew from Iowa to come see one of the shows! Aaah!

My first act was a physical theatre piece on what freedom means to me and my journey to freedom. I use spoken word on an audio and embodied what those words looked like: living, holding, fear, embracing love, vulnerability, etc It was one of the more personal pieces for me because it directly revealed my soul to the audience and it was kind of a release each time. Like a ritual, mantra, or prayer. It was like each time I did it I let go more and more. 

My second act was stilt walking! What a blast! Myself and four other ladies rocked out on stilts to a song I do not know the name of but the lyrics go: “Because I can..” It was simply pure fun and I enjoyed every second of it. 

My third act was hula hooping. I was little bit more nervous about this one more than others just because I wasn’t super confident in my hula hooping skills but to be honest having the other ladies my side helped that melt away. It was fun, we each had our little debut of a trick and walked off with sass :)

My fourth act was fabrics which I performed with my friend to a mix I created on garageband. It has sick beats and “pregnant pauses” that make the bass sound really awesome, it’s one of my favorite songs. A lot of our movements focused on the theme of breathe and using our voice. A great release. 

I found myself just sitting back stage with my eyes closed for a couple moments just enjoying the experience because this is once in a life time experience. I’ll only experience my first all Women’s circus intensive. 

I can’t believe it’s coming to an end   close. Today, we will do our closing circle with all of the teachers and talk about our experience. I already know what I’m feeling, I’m so extremely grateful and gurgling with this weird feeling of nausea and joy for being able to experience the wonderfulness of the teachers, the emotional ups and downs in myself, challenging and fun classes, the awesome and inspiring women, and frickin’ great city of Santa Fe. It’s been real, it’s been more than real, it’s been a eye opening and heart opening experience. Thank You!

*Next, for the absolutely amazing people who donated their money for me to able to experience this awesomeness expect your thank you videos, tutorials, autographed pictures, and karaoke songs within this coming week :D

Yesterday began my third week here in Santa Fe and my third week as a part of the BUST circus intensive. What better way to kick off the third week than a little hula hooping and clowning!? So, we divided out into two groups. Half went to clowning class and the other to hooping. I did hooping.

Oh, fabulous and wonderful hooping. I love hooping, it really makes me feel alive. We learned several tricks. Tricks that I’d tried attempting in my residence hall earlier this year to Beyonce songs with little success and bruises. There was something about doing it then though was really releasing and care free. Tricks I found difficult before seemed to roll off my body, and when they didn’t I kept trying with little frustration with myself because that is the kind of safe supportive environment that most of our classes are. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of self-judgement since I’ve been here. It’s hard. You want to compare yourself to the awesome women around you, wonder why you’re not able to do something after two weeks but you can’t- you have to be present and in the moment and that takes courage, self-awareness, and a supportive community. 

  Things to remember:

• engage with my core.
• one foot in front of the other
• if you drop the hoop continue on like you did it on purpose. 

Clowning was awesome! I was nervous for it, because I didn’t know what to expect. The instructor described finding out who your clown is as a process of finding out who your authentic self is. Well, snap. That peaked my curiousty. Although, I try to be authentic all of the time there are many many many times where I  hold myself back or censure myself because I’m afraid of what people will think or because that enables me to be vulnerable. And that’s exactly what happened in class. I was vulnerable but I found very few times that I censured myself. I thought I would be but surprisingly my authentic self/clown was just waiting for the opportunity to express herself and I was surprised every time she did. I almost didn’t recognize her at all. And yet, she reminded me of a childhood Tanaya who was just living life boldly and  seeking new adventures. I enjoyed the experience and didn’t want it to end.

   Things to remember:

• There’s power in your inhale and exhale. 
• just say “YES!” 
• remember status and relationship when interacting with an object or another person. 

*That’s all folks. Although I haven’t posted a lot I can truly say I’m being changed by this experience. I’m learning so much about myself. It’s a lot to process and put into words here, but when I can I will. Tonight I have trapeze and stilts.(I have some footage of me in trapeze class last week that I will upload as soon as I have the chance.) Also, I’ve been thinking about transferring over to vlogging (video blogging) instead. What do you think?