The phone, as they tend to do, rang unexpectedly. It was my friend Ishya, she of the Salsa on the Beach adventure from a couple of fortnights ago. That evening out provided the impetus for my as-yet-unreported foray into the world of Salsa dancing and my current attempt to make my feet do anything in time to music. This, of course, involves lessons, which are in progress but it’s still too early in the game to talk about. All I can say at this point is that Salsa is definitely not Tango so there might be some hope. When I saw that it was Ishya calling I figured that there might be another invitation to go Salsa dancing in my immediate future.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Hi,” went the conversation. “There are some aerial performances at Versatile Arts this weekend. You should go.” “OK,” was obviously my only appropriate response.

This is where some explanation is in order. Up until recently I did not realize there was anything like an “aerial performance” that did not come with a warning that “these are trained professionals, do not try this at home”. But, as I learned, the experts were not born with aerial ability coded into their DNA and needed someplace to go to 1) – become trained professionals, or 2) – convince themselves that life really is better on the ground. However, sandwiched between the ethereal and the earthbound is a large and vibrant community of, what are best described as, amazingly talented amateurs who train, practice, choreograph, and perform feats of anti-gravity on a variety of apparatus (apparatuses? apparati?) that hang from the ceiling.

I had no idea.

Sure I knew the circus had the flying trapeze and that entertainment companies like Cirque du Soleil had all sorts of people dangling in space but it never crossed my mind that anybody would actually do anything like this for fun. These people find themselves dangling from fabric, rope, bars, hoops, and other, more esoteric, pieces of stuff. Most of these things seem to have been specifically designed to bend, break, bruise and burn bodies in a manner efficient enough to make Doctor Moreau feel like a novice.

An example might be in order, I’m not up on the terminology so I’ve substituted the common household names for some of the equipment. First, imagine your living room; only with a 30-foot high ceiling. Now picture a 30-foot long wispy drapery hanging in the middle. That’s the set. Next climb up the drape – no ladders allowed – to about the 25-foot level and hang on only by your hands. Then tie the filmy fabric around your ankles – without using your hands­, flip yourself upside down, and let go. You plunge headfirst toward the ground, the slack comes out of the drapes and you are snatched from the jaws of certain death by the whiplash force of the curtains not tearing in two.

The crowd goes wild.

That’s just one example, and one move. There are others. There’s a descent from rope or fabric where you toss a loop around your waist and spin to the bottom with only the friction of the loop to slow you down. On the trapeze and hoop there are toe hangs, ankle drops and other probability defying maneuvers that involve keeping yourself out of the hospital using the smallest amount of physical contact with the apparatus in question. A performance involves stringing any number of these moves together, any one of which, should the news leak out, would get your health coverage cancelled faster than you can say “broken neck”. The whole thing is set to music so not only must the moves be done in the proper order, but they must be done at an exact beat in the song. Three minutes is the shortest performance, many go six or seven.

The last thing to keep in mind is that, as you might imagine, all of the performers are quite fit and, being performers, wear costumes that are 1) – especially flashy, 2) – specifically engineered not to get hung up in the equipment and 3) – perfectly designed to show exactly how fit the performers are. The latter is accomplished by having a costume which is very tight or, my personal favorite, by being mostly not there. Hold that thought, we will return to it shortly.

My phone call with Ishya ended and I went online to Versatile Arts’ website to get my ticket for the weekend’s performance. Ishya was performing in two shows on Saturday so I got a ticket for each not knowing at the time that I would end up needing neither. Because, as you probably have figured out by now, things were about to change.

Early last week I got another phone call. “They need volunteers for Friday night’s performance. And, no it’s not in wardrobe.” Damn. “OK.” The story of my life. I received an email informing me that I was going to be a stage hand and that I would be helping to set up the equipment and drag around the mats that protect the floor in the event somebody falls. That sounds like fun! A couple of days later my hopes were dashed by the announcement that stage hands actually had to know something about the equipment they were setting up and that, therefore, I was unqualified. My chances were ruined for getting to play on the toys, but maybe they’d stick me in wardrobe to make up for it. No such luck.

They made me the bouncer.

As improbable as that seems given my physique and stature you must remember that we are talking about Seattle here. In Seattle, people are so nice and rule-abiding that a dachshund could find gainful employment as a junkyard dog. It’s just so chill. My bouncer duties consisted of nicely asking people not to go upstairs until the doors were opened and then, once open, politely hurrying them in that direction. During my brief stint trying to discourage retirees away from the steps, Beverly, the studio’s owner, asked me if I wanted to work the lights for Saturday afternoon’s performance. You betcha. So she introduced me to the guy who was doing Friday’s lights and who, I might add, would have made a much more convincing bouncer than I. He showed me the ropes, so to speak, and I left feeling totally prepared for my debut as a light artiste.

Saturday morning rolled around and I’m getting psyched for my afternoon gig. The phone rings. It’s Ishya again. “Help, there’s a disaster with the costumes and we need you to get some boob glue.” “Huh?” “Boob glue, the roll on kind.” Click.

I am now so glad I didn’t get assigned to wardrobe. It appears, given the skimpy-ness of some of the costumes, that there is not enough frictional resistance, considering the centripetal and gravitational forces involved, to keep the performers’ various body parts where they belong, i.e. inside the costumes. Boob glue is used by liberally applying it to the recalcitrant skin area, then pressing the costume’s fabric down onto the glue, and waiting for it to dry. On second thought….

Being clueless about such things I found myself doing something I never before in my life considered: I typed “boob glue roll on” into the Google search box and pressed enter. Voila! There it was, “It Stays” roll-on “costume glue” – looking at it from a different point of view. I found some costume shops online and started making some calls.

The first was to a place in my neighborhood which did not carry “It Stays” but did keep a supply of “spirit gum” – whatever that is – on hand. The next place I tried turned out to be less of a costume shop than the type of place that has words like “adult”, “video”, “rubber”, and “novelties” painted on the windows to obscure what was going on inside. The guy there explained that their clientele were typically more concerned about getting the costumes off rather than keeping them on. Strike two. The last place I tried was neither nasty nor convenient but it did have the stuff in stock and ready to go. I rushed out and got a bottle. The urgency of the situation required that I move at a pace usually reserved for the delivery of organs for transplant. I arrived at Versatile Arts with minute to spare. Ishya met me at the door, took the bottle and rushed away to glue whoever’s whatever in place. I never found out.

The whole show was recorded so you can prove to yourself that the glue worked. Videos are popping up on the internet already and if you’d like to see one of the performances you can just click here.

Banned from wardrobe, I retired to the light board and practiced my fades and cuts and uppers and lowers. The show began. The lights did fine, the performers did fantastic, nobody crashed, and everything, absolutely everything, stayed put.