Performers with kids.

[firegirl]

yes - i must have missed the post about that. however, i was supposed to go to the show... my flat-mate (david hunt - who studies/teaches at the SF Circus Center) gave me tickets... but, at the time i was teaching arts outreach (directing a play) at a middle school in the richmond which had a bomb threat phoned into the office on the day i had tickets for... we were on lockdown at the school until 7pm & after dealing with that i didn't have the energy to go to the theatre...

sorry i missed it!

[theincrediblelarry]

Perorming actually separated me from my kids.( currently 6and 10) I recently moved back with my family -oct, and i'm not sure its going to work. It's fucking hard an doesnt get any easier, the older they get. the older the get the more of them you miss. When you are not around they grow astonishinly fast, and its wierd how they become more ok with you being gone than you are. the thing that makes it the hardest for me is my relationship with thier mother. She doesn't get it, and she thinks she does. its so fucking complicated that to really get into it requires beer, and a night without kids, which is hard to do unless you are out of town. good luck Greg
Larry

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

I was a lucky dad. I had my daughter Samantha with me often as a street performer in Florida, where I did the full time dad bit, while her mom worked as a trainer on horse farms. We ran the wheels right off a couple of strollers, cruising the beach.

Working, I would bring a portable playpen, set it up within view of the pitch,and ask the first mommy type to keep an eye on her. As the crowd formed, I would ask five or six people to keep an eye on the woman keeping an eye on Sammi. They all got right into it. It felt good.

Over the toddler years Sam joined me in the show, performing the only magic in the act by doing a cardboard tip box turn... flashback...

( Dad: "Look in the box and see, there's no little girl!"
Sam, standing, revealing the trick, hands on hips, two years old: "I'm a BIG girl!")

Her mom and I divorced when Sam was one and a half. I lived as a single dad with the kid for fifteen years. Just this past summer, she moved to Boulder, to try life with her mom. She is a fire poi performer and a fire eater, twists an ok balloon, and has worked Pearl Street mall once or twice. She just got into an arts school there. (God, I feel old, suddenly.)

We had a blast living together. Having a kid made me far more concerned about making a living than I had been before. It was good for business.

The cool thing about being a performer was that, unlike most dads, I was there most every day to put her on and take her off the bus. Weekends were 90% off limits, but almost always, she could come to work if she wanted.

There is nothing I would do differently, except one thing, more walks, just the two of us, not saying much.

[firegirl]

out of curiosity, taxi... what age did your daughter start doing fire eating? did you teach her or did she go off on her own (as kids are wont to do) and figure it out herself?

i love the idea of the kid in a box thing... i'm a BIG girl! that's so cute i could hardly stand it!

[theincrediblelarry]

Taxi, i envy you, but why the hell would you teach your kid to eat fire?

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Sam was about five when she first walked on stilts. My mom nearly had a heart attack when she walked into the kitchen six feet tall, complete with pants. We always wanted to have her walk into school like that, but never made the efffort. Bit of a mistake, that, as she'd have had a cool memory, if we had pulled it off.

She did her full fire show for a graduation party,
though, and once for a private party at her principal's home. Her act is solid, she has put in hundreds of practice hours, and "discovered" fire poi on her own, by watching Jake and Sophie on Kho Phi Phi in Thailand a few years ago.

I taught Sammi how to eat fire because she didn't know how to, and I did. I think she was twelvish.

[jester]

Originally posted by Mr.Taxi Trix
.)

Having a kid made me far more concerned about making a living than I had been before. It was good for business.

The cool thing about being a performer was that, unlike most dads, I was there most every day to put her on and take her off the bus. Weekends were 90% off limits, but almost always, she could come to work if she wanted.

There is nothing I would do differently, except one thing, more walks, just the two of us, not saying much.

Kids are very good for business. Responsibility is not quite the same as motivation but kids provide plenty of both.

I often remind myself that my kids are growing faster and make time to spend with them. Luckily they demand it anyway.

It sounds to me that you were very lucky Taxi, but you make your own luck don't you. The glorified sperm donor that likes to play at being my daughters "real dad" sees her once a month and even then he doesn't know what to do with her. I think I sort of understand why some people choose not to be with their kids, but it isn't for me.

Keegan was two when he first tried to climb up a unicycle, he could reach the wheel but not the pedals, so holding on to a rail, he tried and tried to move.

He is nearly 5 and he has a unicycle his size now. He can't ride it without support, but we have fun.

Alex can juggle and likes to play on the tightrope. I don't push them, I let them play.

I am sooo proud of them.

[Cybele]

I guess Garrett was five and a half when he said, "Mommie, I want to be in the show this year."

"No. I'm sorry, what did you ask me?"

"I want to be in the show this year."

"The fireating show? No."

"Yes. The fireating show. I don't want to eat fire, though."

"No, you can't be in the....you don't want to eat fire, but you want to be in the show?"

"Yes."

A premise descended from the heavens, and landed smack dab in the Renaissance Festival, which is village-ish, and family oriented anyway. I checked with the bosses, and they were cool. The boy helped me write new material, shop for props, make posters for backstage (his cues were in pictograms- he wasn't reading yet) set things up, break things down, and remember what needed to be replaced or repaired. He saved my ass a couple of times when I'd forgotten to place a prop, and he remembered.

He started on stilts at about five.

I don't teach anyone to eat fire until they're twenty-one, and then only if they can convince me that they're using it for the benefit of an audience, and not just to be cool for their friends.

My daughter insisted I teach her stilts, too, last summer, and was tottering around eighteen inches off the ground by Faire season. It was her debut year, so it's a family business now.

They're awfully cute in makeup, and it gives my ears a break.

They're ten and six, now, and reluctant to take gigs outside Faire, so we're not working as much as we could. I hate to push them; they've got so much else going on- dance, karate, theatre.... and Number One Son recently asked when he could start doing murder mysteries with me.

We have a great time together. Taxi, I know someday I'll be where you are, with a kid or two living away from me.

And then I'll have to write solo material again.

[Magrat2005]

why has all my posts been removed from this thread, I didnt say nothing wrong, I was just giving my opinion

[jester]

The nearest my kids get to being in my show is when they get lucky and I let them be a volunteer for something.

That's not very often and they get quite upset, but audience participation is for the general audience and I normally have more volunteers than I need or can handle.

However, they sometimes get to do it, if I'm busking or working for free I'll grant them that privilage.

However my kids do their own shows on our street, with the other kids.

Many a time I have come home from work to find that some of my rather expensive equipment is set up under the "magic tree" and the neighbourhood are out with their garden chairs and drinks in hand watching the kids dance or perform magic tricks (we pretend we can't see how they do it.)

The arguments over the timing of a rehearsed show are incredibly intense, different people can do different times and only yesterday there was a major strop by two of the older kids because I wouldn't extend my daughters staying out times to suit them. (It was too cold last night anyway.)

What impresses me is that the older kids on the street don't want to perform anymore, they aren't as naive, but work really hard providing technical support to the younger ones, lugging furniture, beat boxes, changing trax. I suppose being a tech is glamorous to teenagers, but their patience is really inspiring.

However, despite the repeated themes, every school holiday see's a large turnout, including the neighbours without kids, and if I'm lucky I get to see the show too, if not I have to sit through a wobbly video of it.

I'm always flattered when they use my best lines. (sigh!) And they do return my equipment.

[Frisbee]

Dear Magrat...

Magrat,

You were removed for the simple fact that this thread was begun for PERFORMERS...who have KIDS...and can talk about the ups the downs of parenthood while being a part/time or full time performer.
Since I am not sure you fit either of those catagory's you were kindly removed from this thread by request...from me.
I am not sure if you are a performer or not, but I think you made it clear in your post that you do not have kids, nor do you want them...and your posting brought the thread down where I did not want or intend it to be.

Please take this simple, nice request from me to leave this thread and not post on it.

[Jim]

Thanks for replying to Magrat, Frisbee. I've been out of town all day. For a more detailed explanation and any further discussion, go here

And everyone else, please continue to share insight on this thread. I'm really enjoying reading your takes on parenting and performing. I don't have kids yet, but I'm sure there will be offspring in my life at some point.

Back on topic...

[Evan Young]

kind of off topic but...

my girlfriend's four year old nephew learned how to ride a bike the other day. His comment was, "if I can learn to spin a ball on my finger while I ride my bike, I can be in Evan's show".

I thought that was cool.

[Peter Voice]

I'll never forget the first time I saw my partner, Bev.
Tall beautiful, confident and challenging, an ex-nurse studying Art.

I swore to myself that nothing would stop me. When I found out about the two kids, I also found out something about myself.

I convinced Bev to try pavement art (the first time she came out, she took all the dough out of a site I'd prepared for a week before), buy a house in my part of the world and move into one of the Studio's at my place. It took me longer to seduce her.

At first both kids were a bit suspect about the whole thing but when Larry was ten, Clair and Ian McKellar taught him to juggle. He was hooked and at fifteen he could juggle 7 balls. His five tennis rackets on a rola bola on top of a public rubbish bin used to scare the shit out of me. Diana, who was 2 years older than Larry, won the Junior category of the Melbourne p.art comp. on her first attempt at 15 and even wagged school a couple of times (which we stopped) to go busking. In her last year or so of high school, Diana fell into a serious depression that nearly destroyed her life and she hated any thing we did but especially the busking.
Larry was just getting better and wowing people every-where. He had great stage craft teachers, Tim Ellis, Andrew Gill, Christof, O.J.Anderson, among others, but he taught himself all the juggling.

Both kids came on a world tour with us in ’92 that was such a mix of disaster and triumph that it’s a miracle we survived at all. They missed about half their school year and while Diana chose to repeat the year, Larry worked his arse off and still passed his year. Despite her illness, Diana graduated well and the next year Larry got marks good enough to get into any Uni course he chose.

Di’s illness got worse and Larry deferred uni to work in the local juggling shop. He is well known to many people here. The next year he enrolled at Uni and he has never performed since. At 30 he now works in the Dept of Law at Melb. University and is about to pursue his Master’s degree but he can still juggle 7 balls after a warm up.

While Larry was happily studying, Diana’s life had simply disintegrated. Psychotic depression is a very real and truly terrible disease. The voices, self-harm, paranoia and complete debilitation it causes is heart-breaking. It started so slowly as to at first be put down to “those difficult teen years” and even when we realized it was far more serious, it was 2-3 years before we began to get a handle on it and that was just the beginning. I learned stuff about a mother’s love, courage and determination that left me humbled. Maybe I learned a bit about myself too. Eventually we found the right GP, psychiatrist, counsellor and a good place of her own to live.

In the last 3 years Diana has come to love her mum again and her art. She has teamed up with Bev to inspire and produce some of the best pavement art that Melbourne has ever seen (below). She has recently worked in NZ, Singapore and had her first solo exhibition of paintings last November. Next week she is off to Sydney for a corporate gig with Bev.

I have also learned a lot about the courage of the next generation.

20 years ago I swore to let nothing get in my way and I’m glad I kept my word.
It is impossible to put the pride I have for my family into words.

[Frisbee]

ahhh my son

My son is just a bit under one and a half and I have taught him two things which deal with performing, which are two of the cutest things I have ever seen.

1.) When I am at home and practicing spinning a ball on my finger, my son will walk over to me and point his finger in the air to spin the ball too. His fingers are not quite strong enough to hold a spinning ball, but with the support of my finger holding his, he spins the ball...and the smile and laughter he emits is priceless.

2.) I taught my son that when your done with done a trick, you should strike a pose and say ta-dah! Again, he can't quite grasp the full concept, but one day he climbed up on my prop case and stood there and looked at me and then it came...a very long and not quite pronounced correctly..."taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa duh!"


oops, I just thought of a third one...my son sees me juggling often, so when he finds juggling balls on the floor...which is always...he picks up two and shakes them wildly as if he too is juggling....
too cute, I expect that when he is 2 he will be juggling 5.