Spin Jam vs. Performance Etiquette Recently at a performance I re-encountered a common problem in our community, The Homey Hookup. This can come in many forms: a friend who wants you to spin for free at their house party, a really close friend who wants you to perform for dinner and fuel expenses for their company party, or, in my case, the friend who wants to spin during your performance without any prior arrangements. This can be very disheartening. You’ve been losing sleep putting together playlists, designing and putting together costumes, and working on routines with other performers in your troupe. Most importantly, you were hired and contracted by the promoter to put on the fire show and they know how many performers they contracted. How do you approach this without hurting feelings or coming across as a jerk? The way we handled it probably could have went over better, but I’m all about sharing personal failure. My dance partner and I explained to our friend that because he wasn’t in the same costume, we would appreciate if he not burn during our performance. The discussion didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked, but we stood our ground and defended that we were hired. We had been working really hard to put together a nicely organized show with lots of partner work and continuity. To have allowed someone from outside the troupe, and not in the same costume, to join us at the last minute could throw off some of the performers and jeopardize our show. This particular event is a little unique in that they allow fire spinners to spin wherever they like, at any time, so it was a bit odd that this friend seemed so upset that we asked him to wait until we were done. In fact, I told several people that evening that the answer wasn’t “no”, it was “not right now”. I would be happy to safety them after we finished the rest of the routines we had planned. It’s a constant process to educate ourselves and members of our community that there is a difference between an open spin jam and a performance. I’ve had the benefit of knowing some of the most amazing performers in our business and have had it reinforced for me over and over that I’ve made the right decision in asking people not to join us mid-show. I like to compare it to a band on stage. You’re at a concert, rocking out to your most favorite band in the world when all of a sudden some random guy jumps up on the stage, grabs the mic and yells, “It’s alright, fellas! I got this!” It can turn a great show into a total train wreck. We’re an awesome, big community of big-hearted artists and we can often and easily have our feelings hurt. This makes it important to remember that we shouldn’t take it personally if someone doesn’t want us to barge into their party. We work hard at what we do and owe each other nothing but respect. Let’s keep spreading the word to honor each other’s art and remember that, if we want center stage, we need to put in a bit of footwork before the show starts. -Fire Mecca Newsletter July 2013
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 14:44:16 +0000
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