Many of you were asking, so how did it go?! After a little break and a lot of reflection, here it is.
The hardest part of auditioning for cirque du soleil was not the audition itself, but the process of preparing for it, and the journey home after the fact. The cliff notes version: I flew to Vegas. I auditioned. I got cut in the last hour of a two day process.
The real story comes here:
Almost every performer suffers from some variation of stage nerves. I happen to be "blessed" with the extreme variety (forget sweaty palms...it's more like sh*tty pants). From the day I found out I got the audition I was launched into the biggest roller coaster of my life. All of my inner demons surfaced and in those two weeks, I was faced with a choice: quit or face my fear. On paper the choice seems obvious, but if you lived in my head you might have certainly chosen the first.
I have performed on a lot of stages, in front of thousands of people, and I have succeeded. But I was always missing something. And that something is the most important ingredient in real success and is the hardest to achieve. The hardest thing for an artist is to believe in their own work. There is always someone bigger than you, someone more talented than you. Everyone always has an opinion about how success is defined in your field. And being an artist often means that there will be many days that you will not be validated, and that means you have to pull from your own inner confidence - the hardest task of all. There can be no halfway for an artist. It's all or nothing. That is a big risk to take. And that is the risk I took when I made the decision to audition for cirque. Halfway was just not an option. In order to step on that audition stage, I had to have overcome all insecurities and fears. Because if I was not courageous and I did not believe in myself, why should Cirque?
If I were to describe all I went through emotionally and physically in preparation for this audition, it would probably take a blog the length of a novel and the content would resemble a cross between "A Beautiful Mind" and a slasher film. So, I will spare you. But the important thing is I made it. And when I say the experience changed my life, it truly did.
Although I was cut from the audition, I feel accomplished. I was among a very small group of aerialists who were selected before hand to get this opportunity. Out of hundreds and hundreds of submissions, there were only about 18 selected to audition. And I made it through almost two whole days of performing my act, strength tests, flexibility tests, and dance without getting cut, There were some artists who were cut on the first day. The feedback I received was promising. The first thing they said when they cut me was they liked my act. I can honestly say I wasn't expected to hear that! They liked my style...but it wasn't cirque du soleil's style. Next time, I audition, I need to make it a little more "cirque du soleil." I can live with that :).
What I also learned from this audition is that there are immensely talented artists out there with the same insecurities, obsessiveness, and fears as myself. We are a breed unto our own. And as I stood outside of the audition building in that last hour with the other artists who were cut, we let the tears roll down our cheeks, and tried to process what we went through in a shared silence. It's not two weeks of preparation. It's a lifetime. And it wasn't just an audition. It was an experience. Our hearts and souls and bodies on display. And in the end, no matter how much you bleed yourself onto that stage, you may not be selected. And that's ok. Rejection is another daily battle an artist must learn to overcome. As we parted, we gave each other hugs, and shared positive words. It was time to go back home. It was time to go back to work. Because that's what we do.
