Tightropes, Butterflies, and Busted Stuff: What is Success?

A few basic lessons in physics explain why tightropes are walkable. But when you want to understand why certain humans think they can walk a tightrope (or at least try), there’s no single answer. And that’s fitting. A tightrope, after all, is a bunch of elements wound and pulled so tightly together that they look like one, simple thing.

Wound Tight: The Creator, The Performer, and The Critic

If you want to conjure up a mess of emotions in those who study circus arts, hit them with two simple words: Student Showcase. If you’re not a circus student (at least not yet), and you have a friend who is, don’t be surprised if you don’t see that friend much during showcase season. 

Why? They’re in the throes of something akin to the elementary school talent show and the high school musical combined. All ability levels are welcome, and there’s no pressure to participate. But once you write your name on that clipboard, you feel as if you’re committing yourself to a dream role - a sparkling mutt of an idea that comes from the remains of your inner child and the supposedly wiser, more refined you. 

And you only get one shot. One performance to affirm that all the work was worthwhile before you put it to bed and wait for the next showcase.

The Fantasy of Success

In an effort to outdo yourself, you become the conceptualizer, choreographer, performer, and critic in an instant. Before you know it, your home office becomes your bedazzling studio, and you listen to your routine music at the same rate you send emails. A year ago, I sent an email that contained my bio, something to include in the program for our student showcase at Iron City Circus Arts:

“Lindsay loves butterflies, the color blue, the stars, and, of course, circus - especially wirewalking. And she really, really loves Dave Matthews Band. When all those things combine into one elegant package, that is what she calls ‘a great gig.’" 

This was the seventh time I’d written my name on a showcase signup list in the studio. But it was the first time I was the first person to sign up. As if to say, “Not only am I doing this, I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve been thinking about it for that long.” 

What’s more, I signed myself up with a discipline that wasn’t on the books yet as an offering of the circus studio. I had my own, portable wirewalking rig built by a welder in 2019 and traveled to other states to study with professionals because, so help me God, I was going to learn how to walk a tightrope. 

And The Reality of Success…All Things Considered

By the fall of 2022, I finally had the opportunity to perform a wirewalking piece for a charitable event in the circus studio. And since I had been practicing diligently, it was a triumph, right? Not so fast. 

My original wire teacher, a well-seasoned professional in multiple aerial apparatuses, once explained to me during a lesson why performing on tightrope is especially difficult. To be clear, every circus discipline will humble you, and aerial arts such as trapeze, silks, hoop, and so on demand notable strength, flexibility, and patience. Here’s the thing: when you go to perform on trapeze, silks, or hoop in front of a crowd, the adrenaline surge you get from nervousness can actually help you power through a routine. If, however, you try to walk across a half-inch thick steel cable while constantly renegotiating every part of your body to stay balanced, adrenaline is not on your side.

So even though my rig is only about ten feet long and puts the wire about a foot off of the ground, it was still a beast of a thing to boss into place while surrounded by loud music, flashing party lights, and a hundred or so nerve-inducing eyeballs on me all at once and for the first time. I lost my balance once while trying to walk backward. I tried to save it, but I had to step off in order to regroup. 

That didn’t stop people from applauding and cheering throughout the routine. And, in the end, I penciled it in as a win in the category of All Things Considered. Still, I wanted a mulligan. So when showcase season came around, I asked one of our instructors, “Could I just do my last wire routine with different music and a different character?” When I got the green light, I felt like I had just redeemed that extra life I had in the video game. You mean I get a second chance at a familiar thing? Game not over. I had another chance to beat the boss.

Black and Blue Bird

There it was. My name was penned at the top of an otherwise blank ledger reading “Showcase Signup. June 24, 2023. Theme: Follow your heart! (No theme) :)” To me, “follow your heart,” in showcase terms, meant a Dave Matthews tune.

The song I chose for my wirewalking do-over was “Black and Blue Bird” from the album, Come Tomorrow. A whimsical piece that ponders the significance of human existence in the grand scheme of things, it’s perfect for someone trying to rumble with the notion of needing to do something sensational (like walk a tightrope) to feel a rush of worthiness. The lyrics are rich with imagery. “Butterflies and black and blue birds…High wire circus never stop. Ashes, stardust. Look at us crawling out the mud.”

I was on track for a cakewalk of a showcase season. For an even more poetic stroke of serendipity, I had tickets to see Dave Matthews Band live the day before showcase. “It’s going to be a very Dave weekend,” I told everyone with a grin. But for every weekend, there is a week before. And with only a handful of days before showtime, the tune of my life quickly shifted to Dave’s song, “Busted Stuff.”

Busted Stuff

My wirewalking shoes already had holes in them where my big toe met the material, but they were in good enough shape to do a showcase routine. At least that’s what I thought. My costume included a bodysuit that I only wore once before. When I put it on this second time, I discovered that one of the closure snaps on the chest had come off. So unless I wanted to make this a burlesque routine, a needle and thread were in order.

Then I broke the rig. And by “broke,” I don’t mean it malfunctioned. I mean a bolt actually snapped in twain. Luckily, it wasn’t the wire itself that broke, and it didn’t happen when I was on it. I was setting it up in the studio for a Sunday afternoon practice session when I

noticed that something wasn’t right. One of the turnbuckles that increases the tension on the wire refused to tighten past a certain point, even though it had threads to spare.

On my third attempt at rerigging the wire, the bolt snapped under the tension, and my rehearsal time was immediately replaced with a trip to multiple hardware stores, none of which had the correct piece that I needed. Okay. Amazon, it is. By the way, if you ever want to watch heads spin, walk into a Home Depot wearing fishnets, sparkly shoes, and a Dave Matthews Band tee shirt explaining how you broke a turnbuckle walking a tightrope.

And then the Amazon product I ordered didn’t fit. Cue the social media blitz because, as it turns out, it’s the only way to quickly score “a jaw-and-jaw turnbuckle with a one-quarter-inch thread diameter and a four-inch take up.” Seriously, how did I become a rigging mechanic overnight? 

Between the DM’s to my circus peeps and an urgent post in the Pittsburgh Technical Theatre Forum, I got some solid leads. But I wasn’t taking chances. I swallowed hard, made a purchase on an e-store I’d never heard of, and spent the equivalent of a week’s worth of groceries on the shipping as my just in case. “Worst case scenario,” I told my friends, “and I don’t get what I need in time, I’ll just turn it into a juggling act.”

Oddly enough, I wasn’t freaking out. Not at this point. As a friend of mine once put it, “Either the meditation is working, or I’m dead inside.” All jokes aside, I was trying to savor the fact that I had reached a level of personal and professional maturity that said, “This truly sucks. But there are ways to approach this problem without it becoming an existential crisis. I have resources. I know how to use them. And if none of it works, I’ll do something else because I know how.”

By 7 am on Thursday, June 22, I scored half a dozen turnbuckles of the appropriate size, thanks to my Mayday purchase and generous benefactors on social media. I was in costume, and my wire rig was set up in the studio for an early morning practice session. And because I finally had my rehearsal time in the performance venue, my do-over routine was finally on track to go smoothly. 

Not so fast. I remembered the last gig. Practicing a wire routine and performing a wire routine can be radically different things. It’s that damned adrenaline that comes from performing on wire in front of people. So how do I get comfortable with that? By performing on wire in front of people. 

Thus, I let go. It was going to be what it was going to be, and the only agenda item remaining was to “do the thing,” as we say in our circus family. I knew I’d be nervous. How nervous? I didn’t know. But I just didn’t want it to feel like a seismic event in my journey. Just another showcase to be grateful for, with others to come in the future.

All this happened with only two days to go until showcase. That meant that there was only one day between me and the other red-letter show: The Dave Matthews Band concert. 

The Spirits of Star Lake and Why Dave Matthews Loves Pittsburgh

The Pavillion at Star Lake, an open-air amphitheater approximately 25 miles outside of Pittsburgh, has endured the familiar corporate name game over the years, rebranding faster than the road crews can change the lettering on the traffic signs. But to the townies, it’s always been Star Lake, a strange patch of earth that refuses to be anything more than it needs to be. Nature. Concert venue. Parking lot.  It’s not a gold medalist in any of those categories. It does have mystical powers, though. At least for those of us who will always be too Southwestern Pennsylvanian to call it anything other than Star Lake.

It summons, within us, three geek spirits…

The Yinzer: The native Pittsburgher who loves doing things native Pittsburghers do, like going to a concert at Star Lake.

The Chosen Family Member: This spirit comes out when you find yourself in a group of people who aren’t blood relatives but say “I love you” to each other as if they are. We should all be so lucky to have friends in our lives who tailgate with us at a concert.

The Ride-or-Die Fan: After all, you come to Star Lake to see a performance. And if you’re willing to pay for tickets, park early, stand in long merchandise lines, confront the weather, and strategize bathroom breaks like a five-star general, you must really love the act on the bill that night. 

On June 23, 2023, I was the yinzer tailgating with members of my circus family before the Dave Matthews Band Concert at Star Lake. It doesn’t get more joyously geeky than that. This concert, though, was oddly significant in its timing. Significant because it was the day before showcase. Odd because I wasn’t hyping myself up over it.

As I explained before, showcases become a bigger and bigger deal the more you invest in circus arts training. By this time, I’d checked a number of investment boxes in my tightrope adventures. These included traveling for the education, paying someone to build a rig, and being the one person who writes “Tightrope” on the showcase sign-up sheet. “Still,” I told my tailgating friends, “I don’t want to get how I get about it.”

I had long abandoned the idea that there was a magnum opus to achieve when it came to creating acts. That doesn’t negate the fact that each act is an experiment - a new frontier of your own ability which means that there is, in fact, something to prove - if only to yourself. Thus, the stakes stay high.

The fact that I was able to even entertain the fact that this wire routine was “going to be what it was going to be,” and it may not be anything more than an exercise in letting go of perfectionism, was an accomplishment. So I let myself bask in the reality that the day before I performed to a Dave Matthews Band song, my only occupation was to enjoy a Dave Matthews Band concert.

As for the concert itself, I point to the words of Stephen Colbert: “There is nothing like a Dave Matthews concert.” I could write several pages more on what made this concert so electrifying. The highlights, for me, include a triple whammy. “Grey Street,” my favorite song of all time (not to mention another routine in a previous showcase), sandwiched in between “Monsters” and “Madman’s Eyes,” my two favorites from Walk Around the Moon, the album released the month before.

For the record, I started writing this piece, titled Tightropes, Butterflies, and Busted Stuff, five days before the concert. I figured that I’d start with my rig breaking and finish with the post-showcase experience. In another Kismet moment that could only put a smile on my face, Dave played “Busted Stuff” at the concert. I sang. I danced. I cheered. I cried. I grinned till my cheeks hurt. I got rained on. All of it was magic.

To top it off, Dave prefaced the performance of “Monsters” by explaining why he loves Pittsburgh. “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Maybe it’s…everybody’s really nice, but maybe…they might kick your ass…Tough love! Pittsburgh.”

Are Butterflies This Nervous?

Butterflies start as a mess of busted stuff. A caterpillar builds a chrysalis around itself where it dissolves into a soupy mix of enzymes and body parts until reassembling itself into a butterfly. When showcase day finally came, I was concealing a lot of busted stuff. The holes in each of my wirewalking shoes were held closed from the inside with duct tape. The snap button that fell off my blue shirt was sewn back on with black thread. My tightwire rig hand hosted a broken turnbuckle the week prior. And, good God, the nerves.  

The phrase “It’s going to be what it’s going to be,” played on a frantic loop in my brain. The only way to become comfortable performing wire in front of people is to perform wire in front of people. Earlier that week, in a nonchalant effort to nip my nervousness in the bud, I told a friend, “No matter what happens, I’ll look hot.” The nerves still came and with a new brand of fury. 

Backstage before showtime, I was pacing a familiar route through my fellow performers while my nervous system became a supercomputer of Oh Shit messages. It’s going to be what it’s going to be, and I’m going to be nervous as hell. I am nervous as hell. That’s okay. I can do things nervous. Then why do I feel like this is a stupid idea? 

“Why am I stupid?” I blurted out. 

“You’re not stupid,” a more lucid friend replied. 

“Guys, I’m just really nervous, and I’m flapping my gums.” Thankfully, I have a supportive circus family, many of whom were, themselves, dealing with their own pre-showcase jitters. They let me flap my gums.

It’s usually the first time you try something that you feel the most afraid. But if the events of the past week with that damned tightwire had proven anything, it was that it’s going to be what it’s going to be. In fact, it could be a lot more than what I thought it would be. Butterflies in the stomach. Fidgety limbs. Belabored breath. All natural responses, but brains can be stupid. 

My brain took an inventory of all these physical symptoms and connected them to the memory of the last gig on the wire - the one where nerves shook my balance and confidence enough to mess up in front of people. “This nervousness is a bad thing,” I thought. So, of course, I became more nervous. Racing heart. Bone-dry mouth. Trembling limbs. Oh no. The last things I need right now are wobbly legs. At least, thank God, I’m first.

Each showcase opens with a company number performed by the coaches. Then, the student performances run for a solid two acts separated by an intermission. Then, an amplified baritone chimed, “Up first is Lindsay Surmacz on tightrope.” It’s going to be what it’s going to be. And it’s going to be over soon. I am a mess of busted stuff right now. This sucks. Will I suck? I guess we’ll find out.

A guitar accompaniment fluttered like butterfly wings. I walked out to my tightrope. On one of its pedestals, a piece of gaffer tape with the words “You’re not NOT there” scribbled in silver ink sparkled like the friend who first said that to me, reminding me that there was no distance I needed to cross to be worthy. It didn’t help.

Black and Blue Butterfly

Even with Dave serenading me, the simplest moves were, suddenly, a test. My wobbly legs made the wire quiver like a spider web in the breeze. In the end, the act looked a lot like the first gig. I lost my balance going backward. I didn’t do the turn I practiced. I managed to pull everything else off despite feeling like a gelatinous mess of blood and stress hormones the whole time.

There was one notable difference, though. From start to finish, I sold every bit of it like it was just another surprise in the act. While my insides were living a nightmare, my face carried a gentle joy as Dave sang about a dandelion reaching through a crack in the sidewalk toward the sun. When I stepped off during the backward cross (which, by the way, still earned applause), I simply turned to the audience and, with a little mischief twinkling in my face, lifted my finger as if to say “But wait. I got this.” I stepped back on the wire, finished the cross, baled off again, and, upon landing on the ground, threw down my hands in a kind of in-your-face gesture. The audience ate it up.

Then it was done. There was applause, a little curtsy, and one smiling wirewalker power-walking her black and blue butt offstage. Then I was on the floor. Not passed out, thankfully. But catching up on oxygen as I clutched my friend’s shoulders with my head almost between my collapsed knees. If this was a success, it was, once again, all things considered.

When I finally felt well enough to stand, one of my classmates who had yet to perform said she had something for me. Okay. Surprised face. I have a supportive circus family, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to greet me with gifts after an All Things Considered performance. And what could she possibly have for me? We worked together on the stage crew for the studio’s stage production the previous fall, but beyond my helping her rig her lighting design and giving her a ride home, I didn’t have any ideas on what earned me a surprise gift. 

“Would you like it now,” she asked, “or would you rather wait until after the show?”

“Whatever works best for you,” I said humbly.

As it turns out, knowing how to professionally design, rig, and operate stage lights can make you a part of some sweet events. So it made beautiful, fantastic sense when she said, “I worked the Dave Matthews concert last night.” What she had for me included a tee shirt reading “Dave Matthews Band Tour 2023 Local Crew.” She also gave me a wristband they gave to the stage crew and a guitar pick. It was a blue guitar pick with black letters reading “Tim Reynolds. DMB.” No. Freaking. Way. Tim Reynolds, Dave’s right-hand guitar virtuoso and all-around musical genius, had shredded into the spirits at Star Lake with this very pick. And as if that wasn’t special enough, the other side of the pick contained a drawing of an alien smoking a cigarette. Classic, cheeky, bad-ass stuff.

Once again, my breath was gone. This time, for joy and gratitude. I wrapped her in my arms and said how much it all meant to me. Then she gave me more. “I substituted for my daughter’s daycare not too long ago,” she said. “And this five-year-old girl told me about a circus performer she saw who put these stars on her body and made acrobatic poses that looked like the constellations. She talked about it like it was one of the greatest things she’d ever seen in her life.”

Here’s where I briefly explain that I direct an educational outreach initiative through which I teach kids astronomy through circus arts. That’s a whole other chapter, but for now, it’s a part of this story that if another friend of mine hadn’t been present to hear it, I would never believe it actually happened. It can be hard to know how my program impacts young people long-term, so to hear this story was such music to my ears. 

The Best of What’s Around

It’s going to be what it’s going to be, and you truly don’t know what’s on the other side of the thing until you “do the thing.” This thing was a beast. I’m grateful for its lessons and glad that it’s behind me. Or, at least, behind me enough. I wrote to my wirewalking teacher describing the whole experience, and she gave me what I needed: the assurance that it was normal and an explanation of what I could do next.

So did I emerge as a butterfly from this mess of busted stuff? I don’t know. The more I do, the more convinced I am that everything, in some way, remains a work in progress. Different adventures have different outcomes and different ways of making you accept that there is no elegant resolution. But at least there will be another showcase and another concert at Star Lake, each offering surprising treasures along the way.

And the people around you who encourage such adventures, from the music legends to the friends who score their guitar picks, truly are The Best of What’s Around.

Check out my black and blue, all things considered showcase performance in the video below. Then, go to my Instagram profile to see more circus adventures. How do you like that, Dave? “The circus never stop…”