Southern Migration Tour

We made it

2010-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival starts this weekend and we have arrived. We had an amazingly epic long drive from Denver, across the Kansas flats and into the east. We were notified right before we left Colorado Monday that there was a TV promo the festival wanted us to do on Wednesday morning. We made it but just barely. We stopped to sleep in Kansas the first night. The next day we drove from 8am to 5am 21 hours. We stopped once for dinner at an amazing Indian Restaurant/ Truck stop in Indiana. Well we made it to the KDKA station with an hour of sleep and we had a great time. We juggled tomatoes with the cooking show and did some teaser spots. Our brains had a little trouble with the interview but the juggling was easy. Our van also got some airtime. So if you are in the area come out and see us we would love to see you.

you can get details on the Renaissance festival here: Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival.

2010-07-19T14:46:00.001-07:00

Hey Y'all

If you did not know already we have a Facebook fan page and it is awesome. Here is the link to it Flourish and fool Facebook. We are doing really great at the festival. Working on a great stage right next to the Joust. Our show has really tightened up, we can tell by the crowd response. Two more weeks here in Colorado and then we are off to the east coast for the Pittsburgh Faire.

Colorado!

2010-06-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

The month of June has been a busy one and we find ourselves in Colorado working at the Colorado Renaissance festival until the first of August. Yes we miss Austin but we do not miss the 100 degree days and humidity which is the summer in Texas. Colorado is Beautiful and we are very excited to be working for the Ren Faire this year. It has been great to see all our friends from last year and hang out with other crazy performers. Looking forward to an amazing summer of performing!

Petanque!

2010-01-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

Well it is official we are addicts. Today we played at least 8 hours of Petanque. For everyone who does not know the game Petanque is a french game very similar to Bocce Ball. The goal of the game is to get as close as you can to the Chochone or "little piggy" in french. The team which is closer after all the balls are thrown gets the point or points depending on how many balls they have closer.
Today we got up, ate some food and drove over to the local Miami Petanque court. (yes we are in Miami doing a Renaissance Festival for three weeks. We will be back in Austin int the end of Jan.) The Petanque court is not your normal gravel path or your normal city park location. The Miami Petanque club meets at the Biltmore Hotel one of the fanciest Hotels in Florida. Here is the link http://www.biltmorehotel.com/ This is the kind of place where a cup of black coffee costs $4 and the past guests include the Clintons, Heather Gram and the Dali Lama.
Our Mentor Arsene Dupin (Please check him out he is amazing) is also our Petanque coach ( I know, who would think it?) His addiction to the game is worse than ours. He is the president of the Heart of Texas Petanque club (the one we play with back in Austin). Wow this really is a lot of background. Anyway we arrived at the Biltmore at 11:30 where we were supposed to play with the executive chef and the general manager (Arsene has a way of connecting with people, especially the French.) It turned out that they could not play because of some important meetings and such so we played just the three of us for a couple hours.
Later the chef asked us if we wanted to eat and had a fabulous lunch served for us. Then we went for a walk down the smancy streets of Coral Gables and back to the Biltmore for more Petanque. We were joined later (5:00) by the locals and had a rematch of team Texas vs. team Miami. We won again. We quit around 9pm wow. A year ago we had hardly heard of the game now we are marathon players, what a strange life.
We had fun pretending to be millionaires today. Wherever we follow Arsene we end up in the strangest most wonderful places. Today was fun tomorrow we go to visit a famous animal trainer and pet tigers. (I'm not kidding)

Austin!

2009-12-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

What you are seeing above is the view from our fourth story rooftop deck! We moved into a house in the Barton Hills area of Austin a month ago. This is a big change because we have been living in the van for the last year. Our room is huge. We could probably fit four of the VW's in our room with the tops popped! Our ceilings are about 12 feet high! We can pass 7 in our room. Soon we will be installing a trapeze so that we can monkey around when we wake up. We live with 4 other awesome people who are all into various strange and wonderful things. Music marching bands, theater, and slowly the addiction of juggling and sillyness.

We finished the Texas Renaissance Festival last weekend. And we are happy to say that we will be back next year!

We have been helping teach a class at the community college as guest instructors in acro. The class is Stage Movement and has been a lot of fun. The instructor David Yeckel is an amazing well of knowledge. Teaching everything from basic mime, prat falls and stage combat. We have been helping them learn some partner acrobatics and incorporating dynamic acro into their stage combat routines. The last class and showing is on Wednesday should be fun.

Looking forward to hearing from you all soon. Come visit us in Austin!

2009-10-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

We have a Website! If you have not had a chance to check it out go to flourishandfool.com We have been working at the Texas Renaissance Festival for three weekends. It has been a really good experience but also very difficult. In Pittsburgh we were on a stage and in the program where here in Texas we are on the street gathering our crowds for each show. We have had to cut out some of our material because the attention span is much shorter on the street. We are also learning more of the subtle art of crowd control (dealing with drunks and children). We have met some really awesome people here at the festival. Camped next to us are the Clan Tynkers It has been awesome to meet other performers our age who we can juggle with.

We are planning on moving to Austin as soon as we can find a place. This is a picture of us outside the Long Center for the performing arts after we saw Birdhouse Factory. We should be here in Austin until May so if anyone wants to come visit please do.

will post again soon

Jules

Fire!

2009-10-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Wow! was that the sound of my eyebrows burning off?

What you are seeing is a photo of our last show at the Pittsburgh Renaissance Faire. We cut loose all the strings for this one and invited the Celtic band to play also. If you look close you can see Sam the drummer in the background. This fire show has been an amazing collaboration between us and Wilsome the Fire master. We call it Not Dead Yet! because of how crazy the stunts are. We will miss Dan he is off to North Carolina Ren Faire and we are now in Texas

The Texas Renaissance Faire or TRF as I will now refer to it is huge. we got to see the site for the first time today and wow! Gardens, amazing buildings and the stages are incredible. the Joust is set in a huge amphitheater which probably seats 5000 people at least.
Ok thats it for now but I promise to write regularly.

Please comment so that I know people are reading and don't feel like I'm talking to air.

any questions?

pittsburgh Renaisance Faire

2009-09-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

I am Sorry it has been so long. I am a bad blogger I know.

We are at the Pittsburgh Renaissance Faire in a little more than halfway done with our six weekend contract. We work Saturday and Sunday. each weekend we do between 8 to 12 shows. It is exhausting and exciting especially the fire show (more on that later). We are calling ourselves Flourish and Fool which seams to be working for the Renaissance faire circuit. The faire provides camping and electric for us which is great because we have the van. The only issue is there is nothing to do around here. We are 45 min south of pittsburgh in Depressingville America. The weeks feel long but we have been keeping occupied.
Last week we took a trip to Gettysburg were we met up with other performers from other Ren Faires. there were two rope walkers, one sword swallower, a mime, a comedian, a fire eater, a drummer and three (including us) acro/jugglers. It was awesome check some of it out at "http://heartoftexas.wordpress.com/"
We have also been developing a fire show with the fire eater/ breather who works on the same stage as we do. At the end of the day during the last joust we do a show together. All fire all crazy stunts which we have hardly practiced or just think of on stage. we have been doing it for a couple weeks now so we are starting to develop material. you can see some pictures of us and the fire show at
http://imageevent.com/ralf/pennsylvania/renfest2009/flourishfool
http://imageevent.com/ralf/pennsylvania/renfest2009/fire
hope you enjoy. These fire shows at the end of the day leave us with a ton of "oh my god I am glad to be alive" adrenalin. it is the best way to end a long day of performing.

OK thats it for now but I'll try to post again as soon as I can.

Jules and the Mud Bays

2009-02-11T19:09:00.000-08:00

Jules here.

I am in Vernon BC doing shows with the wonderful Mud Bay Jugglers. The shows have been going pretty well even though they are at 12:30 and in a conference room instead of a theater. We set up the MBJ's pipe and drape system so that we have a back curtain, this makes the environment a lot more appealing. In the last week and a half I have learned half an hour of material including some of the really difficult ones, like drop sequence, slow motion, and tango. At this point the sequence has solidified itself in my mind and I can focus a little more on character, I have to be careful though of loosing myself or being over confident in that regard. Today we layed out drop cloths for the last act, because of my fire drop yesterday. oops, sorry about the melted carpet Vernon Lodge. I did not drop today. We have three more shows and then off to seattle to Austing and back to Kelsey.

It has been strange being away from her. This was our trip together, a joint resoultion for change and growth. It was, and it will be, but I feel a little guilty sitting in this hotel room in the fridged northland while she drives halfway across the country alone. mmmm....

Thats all for now, post again soon

Jules

San Francisco

2009-01-31T22:52:00.000-08:00

San Francisco the Bellingham reunion.

It is strange how the chaos of travel and general inconsistency of plans can sometimes bring a large group of people together for a sunset on the beach. Jules and Kelsey, River, Islando and Shannon (the circus bus back from mexico), Tal, (Bellingham/SF) and Jeff (Jules' high school friend) sitting on a beach in SF together happly surprised. It was an amazing reunion and the sun seamed reluctant to disappear. In the last moment of sunset with nothing left but one horizontal line of sun against ocean, time seamed to slow down as the sun flattened itself into a disk of orange. we thought maybe that the sun would rise after its brief pause, or that rather some force had reversed the rotation of the earth... well that was getting a little far fetched. We had a lovely night. Saw an amazingly talented band, preceded by an awesome yo-yoist, and had loud conversations about consciousness .

The week before had been spent exploring the bay area. On sunday we made our way to the San Francisco Circus School. We talked to some graduates from the Clown conservatory program and toured the facility. After a brief sojourn to an indian restaurant where we were forced to make friends, we came back to the Circus School for Juggle club.

Impressions on the San Francisco Circus School Clown Conservatory Program:

1: Eighteen hours of class a week. leaving time for students to make money while they attend. But also making the class hour to $ ratio pretty high.

2: Cool location. In the Haight, next to the huge Golden Gate park. you would never be bored San Fran has a so much going on. But then maybe it would be hard to stay focused.

3: great facility in need of a renovation.

We stayed in the Bay with Kelsey's god friend Jana in Oakland. This was wonderful and we had loads of fun.

We also made it to Santa Cruz and saw Kelly Peach, some surfers and the sun for a while.

On thursday Jules tried to perform at Fisherman's wharf and all hopes of paying his way through clown college were scattered like his juggling. The scene at the Wharf is depressing. There is so much money to be had but the politics and management are stupid. The whole time he was there the same terrible statue mime was dancing in the circle pitch accompanied by a loud distorting boom box. Jules pulled off one show in a crappy spot before the scheduled performer showed up. Unless something changes San Francisco is not the place to street perform.

after today the blog posts will change because we are now in the middle of two different trips. Jules training an then touring with the Mud Bay Jugglers and Kelsey traveling in the south west.

Thank you: Jana, Kelly, Tal, for hosting us. Jeff for the moonshine, SF CIrcus School and Berkley jugglers for the fun, and the Indian Restaurant for the dance party and samosas!

Change of plans

2009-01-24T20:25:00.000-08:00

Like we had plans anyway.

Jules is going to be a Mud Bay Juggler! Jules is going to be Harry. So... as you can see the vague idea of what we were doing has changed. Jules flies to Olympia on Friday for a week of rehearsal and then a tour with the Mud Bays up in Canada. Kelsey will stay in San Fran area and try to make some money/ learn new stuff/ have lots of fun.

As of now, we are in Oakland, CA staying at Kelsey's friend Jana's house having just arrived today I can't give any impressions of the place yet, although the house is nice. We drove down in two days, on the windy but amazing route 1. It was cloudy and drizzling but the ocean was gorgeous. Crags of rock sticking out of the foaming sea, trees bent over under constant presure from the sea breeze, and all those quaint tourist towns huddled under the clouds.

We just spent the last few days checking out the physical theater school Dell' Arte in Blue lake.
Impressions:
1. It is expensive, but worth it. When it comes to class hours you pay about $12 an hour, (as the Joe the head of recrutement put it.) thats a pretty good deal for the training.
2. It takes over your life. Good and bad, but mostly good because that is what you are there for. bad because it is such a small town and where do you go to escape?
3. The training works. From the classes that we sat in on and the performance lab we watched on friday it is obvious these studnets have learned a lot. I laughed quite a lot more than I was expecting to and I was prepared for funny.

So lets say we are tempted. Not next year but possibly in the future.

This week we are going to check out the circus school here in San Fran and I will post my impressions of that once I have a better idea. Jules is also going to try some street performing down at the wharf and maybe some other places before he leaves on Friday.

Arcata

2009-01-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome friends. To the Southern Migration Tour blog.

I guess I should catch you all up. Previously in life Jules and Kelsey were living in Bellingham, working with Dream Science Circus and the Bellingham Circus Guild. Jules bought land (the Quarry) if you don't know about it he will fill you in later. Jules and Kelsey created a show together, produced it, went on the New Old Time Chautauqua tour and spent the last two months Building giant puppet stilt creatures for the circus.

Now we are sitting in a coffee shop in Arcata CA, connecting to the world via the amazing power of technology. The plan is this: travel south down the coast. see lots of people we miss, and others we do not know yet, perform for tourists and make lots of money off of them. (this is especially important for Jules who still has land payments.) Eventually we will end up in Austin TX for the Juggling Festival Feb 20th.

We Left Bellingham about a month ago. Spent the holidays with our families, ate well, relaxed and organized the Van. After this we traveled to Eugen for Juggle Club which was awesome! Then to Ashland to visit Jules' Friend Justin. And then to Williams OR were we stayed with Sam and Kelly Mae and did an awesome show in their house. We hope to do more house shows like this bringing our skills to the local people instead of the tourist traps.

Tomorrow we check out the Dell'Arte school of Physical theater in Blue Lake. Then down to San Fran.

I should have some pictures posted soon.

Stay in touch

Jules & Kelsey