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inthedusksynria · 4 years

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Chapter 2, part 1 “the race against time” and 2″....the backtracking”.

The funniest and like cool AND THEN frustating thing about chapter 2 is that like.

The first third is so gripping and a race against time(...game couldnt you just have given us more turns plz i would take 13 instead of 10 to save the bargain ring) in order to save Lachesis, then the castles on the left side. I will admit, while i was pretty grumpy over the limited turn limit i had a blast pushing through. Then Lewyn appears and you can save the villages weee LORE AND M O N E Y.

I ENJOYED REDUCING YOU TO SHREDS THIS MOTHERFUCKER TRIED TO DESTROY MY BARGAIN(PRINCE HALVED!!) RING I MEAN THE VILLAGERS. LEWYN WHO BUSTED HIS ASS SAVING 6 VILLAGES FROM YOUR FUCKIGN MINIONS HAD HIS FUN DEFEATING YOU.

“first part: do ya think there are descendents of the dark god/lord Loptyr around?”

....vish

Also beating those little shit lords of Agustria fuck them bro.

I looovvveee Lewyn and Sigurd conversation and how Lewyn calls out Sigurd then sees Sigurd honest answer and decides he aint bad and follows him to deal with Chagall and his shit lords. Pretty cool.

SYLVIA CAN DANCE 4 PEOPLE LIKE RAFIEL HECK YES BRO.

And Erinys!! i was surprised but i liked her take on “serious pegasus knight troupe” and her recruit convo was really nice, especially in setting the...err setting? and highlightning Lewyn flaws of immaturity/running away from responsability under the guise of “but there would be a civil war if i stayed~” and i enjoyed that Erinys does show him that yeah bro no, you gotta go back, our people are waiting. And while Lewyn towards the end jokes and tries to make her stop crying by teasing her it....it was nice.

So funny thing, there are 5 castles right, one is lachesis in the middle, two on the right side and two onthe left side.

And the left side is where you go first, so race against time to savelachesis and beating the next castle to unlock lewyn and allow him and silvia to save the villages. Like it is strangely heart racing doing this and it was pretty fun! then the game allows you to regroup after that so you can go beat moneystealer lord.

Oh yeah! Midir and Edain became lovers while everyone waited for Lewyn, Silvia and Sigurd to regroup before beating moneystealer Lord. Yay one pairing down *checks notes* 6 to go. While i prefer jamke x edain, azel x edain and claude x edain (ohhh holyn would also be an interesting one huh *thinking emoji* ulir plus odo blood would be interesting on their kids and holyn looks like a cool dude), this one does the job alright(also i am already crying over 3 messes i cant decide of pairings, i cant get invested in more). Also it is kind of cute loyal knight x lady.

After you complete the left side. Yikes. The backtracking...begins.

Like, while you have the “return” and “warp staff” THE GAME DOESNT ALLOW YOU TO WARP FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON TO LACHESIS CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAP. NO. YOU HAVE TO FUCKING EITHER GO BACK TO EVANS ON THE CORNER LEFT OF THE MAP OR JUST WALK THERE.

The Edain and Ethlyn (and Sylvia dancing) were truly MVPS sending the infantry squad to Evans and then the horse squad had to walk until the middle of the map. Which fine ugh, but dear god it takes too LONG.

THEN THE PATH TO THE RIGHT SIDE HAS SLEEP, MAGES, FUCKING CRITICAL MYSMIDOMS AND 5 UNREACHABLE BALLISTAS FUCK THAT PART DEAR GOD THIS SUCKED SO MUCH. ESP BC YOU HAVE TO KEEP LACHESIS SQUAD ALIVE WHICH IS SUICIDAL IF YOU PUT THEM SLIGHTLY ON THE WRONG PLACE.

Me: ok i will put lachesis a lil close to the Hallway Of Death And Frustation so she can heal, bc Edain is on the other corner of the map to help Lewyn grab Erinys, and those 5 hell spawned ballistas are the worst.

NPCS: WEEEEEEEEEEEE LETS FIGHT GANG.

Me:..

Me: Lachesis ur abt to be benched. Forever.(or until u marry/2 night stands someone....we gotta get Delmund and Nanna).

Alternatively, i did my strategy of the first part that is... keeping lachesis on the safe side close to her castle guarded by noish and holyn.

I did beat the fourth castle and FINALLY WAS ABLE TO WARP THERE (THE COST WAS AND IS EDAIN HAVING TO WALK....ALL THE WAY THERE...LEWYN SAYS THANKS)

But i stopped there bc GAH that was a lot and is late. i will try to finally finish this part tomorrow.

So this chapter was half fun half frustating.

overall is still being a fun ride, bUT WHY CANT YOU WARP TO LACHESIS CASTLE. WHY. IT IS A ALLY.

oh yeha! i settled on the er predestined pairings gang for this run mostly bc i want to relatively chill in this playthough(and everyone gets pursuit yay!... no angsting over who between tinny and arthur get it!!) (also!! again found Lewyn!Tinny convo so i am cool). And the pursuit ring is going to go to *plays drums* Altena! Passed down by Leif first!. or wait... should i give the pursuit ring to quan?. Hm.. i want taitiu to have it first mostly to level her well. hmm hmm.

so Lewyn x Erinys (auto marry in 4, but i have to watch out for sylvia to not shadow marry him first)

Claude x Sylvia (easier and their movements are similar, plus i always want a healer close to the cavalry)

Azel x Taiutiu (!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!! individually and together!!! AND!!! PURSUIT FOR BOTH ARTHUR AND TINNY!!!! YAY)

Lex x Arya(me tired and its easy and also broken)

Dew x Brigid(bargain on a holy weapon user. tho i am considering Holyn too *thinking emoji* dat skill stat plus allowing Patty to use more swords is nice)

Beo x Lachesis (Pursuit, and its easy)

#syn plays genealogy #wow this got long #cant wait to beat chagall #lex and arya are next in almost becoming lovers #thank god they aint yet tho bc they have a not-lovers convo where arya gets a juicy brave weapon #wow i sure do hope the two convos sylvia had dont make her accidently the lover of someone not intended...otherwise...someone might die #and i will be really angry over having to restart this chapter... or welll i can always bench alec

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thewidowstanton · 7 years

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Lil Rice, Cyr wheel artist and singer, Alula Cyr

When your grandmother is the textile designer Pat Albeck, your mother is the ceramic manufacturer Emma Bridgewater and your aunt is the circus artist/owner Nell Gifford, it's possible you'll follow in one of their sets of footsteps. But Cyr wheel artist and singer Lil Rice started out by studying philosophy and theology at Glasgow University. She later trained at the National Centre of Circus Arts and, along with Fiona Thornhill and Jessica Ladley, won the NCCA Business Plan Award, which helped them launch Alula Cyr, the world’s first all-female Cyr wheel troupe.

Lil’s first performance was as an aerialist on the London Eye for Elizabeth Streb’s One Extraordinary Day during the 2012 Olympics, and she co-founded the events company Tangerino with her sister, Kitty. She also performs with musician Ollie Clark as Rice and Clark. Lil chats to Liz Arratoon for the last in our series of interviews with the Alula Ladies, before her appearance in their first full-length solo show, Hyena. They are presenting it together with Jacksons Lane – where they are associate artists – at the Spiegeltent on the Southbank in London during the Underbelly Festival. Hyena runs from 6-11 June 2017.

The Widow Stanton: What did you want to do after university? Lil Rice: I didn’t know, actually, I really didn’t know. I wanted to be a rock star, always, and my parents said: “For goodness’ sake go to university first and then you can choose what you want to do.” So I just did what I was good at at school, philosophy and theology… ethics was the thing I was most good at so I went and did that. I didn’t want to be a vicar.

A rock star; did you start singing professionally very young? I didn’t sing so much professionally but I sang in public all the time. Always, that was my main thing. Even when I was five, I’d sing at the piano with my dad after dinner.

You come from rather a famous family, was there any other showbiz or singing in your background? Yes, my uncle worked for a country record label and my aunt, Nell, is a circus artist and runs her own circus, but no other singers.

Were you just born with this fantastic voice… Yeah. My mum’s got a lovely singing voice. She used to sing me to sleep and I’ve just always sung.

Anyone circussy knows of Nell Gifford. Is she why you swapped to circus? Well, I had quite a tricky time at university, actually. I didn’t enjoy it, I wasn’t myself, I behaved really badly and had some quite bad mental health problems. I left university and I couldn’t find anything to do that kept me sane. I wrote a letter to Nell just saying, ‘I’m a completely at the end of my rope, I don’t know what to do. I’ve done waitressing, I’ve done nannying, I’ve tried working in businesses, I hate it, can I just come and be your general slave. I’ll do anything. I just need to be physical’, and she said: “Yes.”

So that’s where it started. I was her PA, really, for six months and then she slowly put me more and more in the show. I was front of house, then I started dancing for the chorus. I had to do a lot of extra rehearsals for that. I was really cack-handed. Then I was singing in the chorus and I just kind of caught the bug. There was an amazing hand-balancer there, a fourth generation Belgian circus artist called Pat Bradford…

Oh Pat, he’s fantastic, I’ve interviewed him and Kate. He pushed me. Kate still does all the choreography for Giffords. They’ve been so supportive. They’re very, very strict with me. I send them anything I do and I always get a very nice paragraph and then: “But you need to work on your splits, this bit isn’t good enough…” They’re really very important to me, Pat and Kate.

Had you already got a certain level of fitness? Were you a sporty child? I was, I did athletics. I was in the first teams for everything at school and I loved sport but I was much too self-conscious to do dance or gymnastics or anything like that so I only played very aggressive team sports. [Laughs] That was my thing.

How did Nell inspire you? She was the biggest influence in my life before Alula. All the creativity at Giffords is Nell (pictured below). She went to Oxford and did English and she’s just got the most amazing mind. I remember this amazing conversation I had with her about how to make an act. The first thing she said was: “What colour is it?” It was so the opposite of: “What’s it about, what’s your character?” She was like: “What does it feel like? Is it heavy, is it light?” I want to think about circus in the same way she does. I looked after her children and they made me into a new person. I was depressed and miserable and didn’t know what I was doing and she let me into her life and showed me how it worked. It was amazing and saved my life. She saved my life.

Did you go to Giffords when you were little? Yes, I’ve been going there forever. I’ve worked there. My first job was sitting in the box office when I was 14 and selling tickets. We used to run around at the interval selling programmes. We were always allowed to dress up in a lion’s head or whatever was there. I loved it. Two of my best friends [the jugglers] Bibi and Bichu, I’ve known since I was 12. I came to it really late on but it’s funny cos it’s all really relevant. I speak to Bibi and Bichu about making their own show, Circus Abyssinia and I call Nell and ask for advice…

What made you choose Cyr? During the BTEC, which is mostly shared between Hackney Community College and the NCCA, we didn’t do a lot of circus. We did a lot of dance and theatre and we did two to three evenings a week of NCCA classes. I did a bit of acrobatics, a bit of aerial. And I also trained with Yam Doyev at Gravity in the evenings. She taught me some aerial, which is what I auditioned with for Streb’s One Extraordinary Day for the 2012 Olympics. A terrifying silks routine that I’d learnt.

How did you get chosen? One of the teachers on my BTEC, who obviously saw that I was quite bonkers and said yes to anything, told me they were looking for English dancers and suggested I audition. It was terrifying! That taught me mind over body, definitely. It’s scary and you just have to do it. I had very bad vertigo but Streb sorted that out. Climbing the ladder up to The London Eye at 2 in the morning, that was the moment I got over my vertigo because you can’t not. There’s someone in front of you, someone behind you and you just have to keep climbing for 15 minutes. Then they clip you on and it’s just go, go, go.

I was applying to do aerial on the NCCA degree course but while doing Streb I tore my shoulder doing the Human Fountain, the jumping in Trafalgar Square. When I auditioned I really wanted to do straps, but I went through the physio thing and they said: “It’s probably not a good idea to do aerial.” I saw Charlie Wheeller doing Cyr wheel and he kind of just taught me. I wanted to do something where I could sing. The school really wanted me do to do tight wire and I didn’t want to; not dynamic enough for me. It didn’t give me the adrenaline thing, so Charlie taught me a tiny bit of Cyr wheel and that’s was it. Nobody sings in it and I wanted to do something that nobody else does. That’s why I chose it. You use your whole body, there’s no particular stress on one joint…

How hard is to sing at the same time as performing? The only thing that’s difficult is choreographing the breathing. When you’re moving from an arched-out position to back in it’s hard to keep your voice even. It’s all about stomach control and because of doing Cyr wheel, my core is really strong, so as long as I’m tensed, I can sing.

Was there a move you found particularly hard? My nemesis really was back coin. It’s tough. In the beginning my nemesis was backflip but I just did it until I fell over and smashed my head. Then it was back coin because I started training variations of it, and that’s just scary. Fi was a gymnast and Jess is the same, very acrobatic. They know how their bodies move but I have to turn my head off and be like, ‘It’s going to go all the way round. It’s just going to happen’. For me it was that and upside-down things, just because I’m not used to that. Anything going forwards, anything fast, was fine.

Why did you decide to form Alula with the others? We were told right at the beginning that we weren’t all going to get through. Lots of people said to us: “It’s going to be very difficult. You’re not going to be able to get any work. You’re all coming out with the same discipline. You’re all going to fall out with each other. It’s going to be very competitive.” We suddenly just found that the more we were in class together, by the beginning of second year, training together, everything we needed we got from each other. We had amazing teachers but each of us gives each other, the love, or the tough love or the push that you need. We realised that it would be completely mad if we didn’t do it together. The school put us together just as an idea for a thing in Auch and we thought “Why would we ever do this on our own again?” It’s amazing performing together.

What can you tell us about Hyena? Basically when we came out of school we realised that not only were we three women who’d all learnt the same way, we’d also started exploring new ways of using the wheels; climbing on top of them, jumping in and out of them, like fusing them, putting them together and making weird structures, so technically that’s what we wanted the whole show to revolve around; cool new ways to use wheel, and also looking how to synchronise it in very tight spaces. Emotionally for us the show is about the pack but it’s also about the inner workings of a group and how you have tradition, you have ceremony, you have ways that you are as a group and things that you know about each other. And the way we learnt Cyr wheel and the structures that we make lend themselves perfectly to that. The way you put things together looks ceremonial, the way you take them apart, the things you do inside them that are a bit different are things that only our pack does.

Obviously it’s hard to make a circus show that isn’t just about the physical and just about you, so we’ve all read this book called Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. That’s kind of our bible for this show because it’s all about empowering women and finding the best kind of wild version of you and how you let that be without stifling it or letting yourself go completely crazy and wild. So for us the show is very much about walking that very thin line between being the most true woman you can be, that allows you to be open and inclusive but be able to be you and be completely 100 per cent how you wanna be. This has been our baby for like two years really, so it’s really nerve-wracking. It’s like putting your baby out there and saying: “Please don’t hate it!” Because it’s so personal, it’s so us. There aren’t really characters in the show, it is us.

That’s always been so much a part of the charm of your show; that you’re all so natural and engaging and everyone just loves you. We were really interested when we went into creation and rehearsals – we worked with directors Rosamond Martin and Layla Rosa – in that thin line between playing yourself but also being able to shade that with a character, which is a version of you. It’s really hard in circus to maintain a character that isn’t you; there’s always a moment when you have to do something scary… dangerous, or you have to trust the person you’re with and if you’re having to clown or be something that not you, it slips. So to make the most virtuosic show that we could we couldn’t be characters, we had to be us.

Tell us a bit about Fi and Jess. I feel like I’ve known them forever. I need them, I don’t know how I’d do any of this without them. Jess is just the most kind and loving person, so non-judgemental and so supportive onstage, and Fi… I wouldn’t be half the Cyr wheeler I am without her. She makes me want to be better. It was her who said: “Ignore what everyone says about you having no background in this or that, you can do it.” And to have that from someone like Fi, who is easily the best acrobat I’ve ever met, that’s what really gave me the incentive to push myself, always, push. Because of those two I push myself and I don’t listen to anyone who says: “You started at 22, you’ll never be any good,” because I listen to the girls instead and it’s proved to be the opposite. I really owe it to them.

So many troupes now are all men with one woman, did you ever think you might throw in a man? We did! Very early on, we really wanted to make this show about two packs, a male pack and a female pack and looking at interaction that was the opposite of sexual. We wanted to find something that was more interesting than one tiny little girl being thrown around; she has no character or purpose other than being the ball that gets thrown around. We wanted to look at competition between the sexes that had nothing to do with sexual intrigue and we made really fun show that we did up in Liverpool with three boys from NCCA and oh, loved it!

We looked at the playfulness of two packs of animals or even male and female animals within one pack and how you interact if it’s nothing to do with sex. It was really fun but we couldn’t fund a show with six people in it first time round. Everyone said: “Wait, that will come.” Then we looked at getting three male musicians in and looking at a dynamic like that but it was the same thing, we literally couldn’t fund six people onstage. But we will.

When we were doing a bit of corporate stuff and working in Europe we noticed in Finland… Sweden, there are really interesting shows. There’s a company called Sisters that completely reverses that idea of having tiny females and men throwing them around. All the men dress up like women and they really reverse the sexual stereotype and we just thought: “God, there’s not enough of this.” Even amazing companies like XY, they did that brilliant thing in the recent show It’s Not Yet Midnight of having an all female four-high but it’s sad that still feels token, and we really interested in making it the norm. It’s just what happens, there’s nothing to be remarked on that it’s a show of all females. We shouldn’t have to make a point about it but sadly we do.

You sing in the show, but what about you other singing career? Ollie and I have been playing together for three and a half years. We met when me and my sister were putting on a cabaret when I was in the first year at NCCA. We employed loads of people from our school and I needed a musician who could accompany me singing while Charlie and I did some Cyr wheel. We just never stopped working together since then. We went to America last year and did a two-and-a-half-week road trip and wrote a country and blues album, which we’ll be recording this summer. Ollie has done all the music for Hyena.

Does he play live onstage in the show? Unfortunately not. He’s in such demand he’s playing everywhere. Also we kind of agreed that we wouldn’t mix the two. We have to do our singing and then if he’s gonna work for circus stuff, he won’t be present onstage, because we just argued all the time, which we never do when we just write music.

What are your hopes for the company? We’ve set up Alula as a limited company now and I want it to be an entity that continues. We’ve talked a lot about turning it into a production company as well, which we’d really like, but really we want to make this show, tour it for however long it tours and then make another show and tour that. But ultimately we’d love to have a building where we could teach people and we’d like to be able to do outreach and basically inspire people. Especially for me I feel it’s really important to inspire young people who have no idea what to do and are always being told: “You’ve got to do accounting, or you’ve got do a vocational job,” and I’d really love to be able to give back something that circus has given me. Obviously we’d like it to be a business that can sustain us and I’d definitely like to be able to step aside in four years’ time and direct shows for Alula, have a family and children and then come back to it.

What has been your career highlight so far? Oh, that’s a really good question… … Some of the highlights have been so bizarre. Underbelly is the most exciting thing, but also probably doing Canvas just recently with the girls was emotionally one of the hardest things we’d ever had to do. Fi was injured; it had taken us a long, long time to get the show together and we kept being knocked down. We did a short section of the show, with Fi in a boot, and having reconfigured everything five minutes before we’d had to go onstage. We’d had to give away our hour-long slot, which we’d invited hundreds of people to.

It was really nerve-wracking, and I fell over onstage, not particularly badly, but enough that I was just sitting on the stage finishing the song thinking, ‘Ive just got to get this out’. And Fi hobbled over to me with her boot and picked up my wheel and gave it to me and Jess, who was supposed to do a bit of wheel, just gave me the stage so I could do my thing. It was exactly what the show’s about, exactly what I love about our company and I feel like that’s the highlight. It was solidarity and female love onstage and it was amazing. I don’t think anyone else would have noticed it but honestly, it’s the reason I work with them.

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Lil appears with Alula Cyr in Hyena at the Spiegeltent at the Southbank in London from 6-11 June 2017 during the Underbelly Festival.

For Hyena tickets click here

Picture credits: Lil’s headshot: Roger Robson; Hyena outdoor pics: Craig Dagostino; Nell Gifford: Giffords Circus; Streb: BBC News

Twitter: @AlulaCyr @UnderbellyLtd @southbankcentre @jacksons_lane

Follow @TheWidowStanton on Twitter

To read our interviews with Fiona Thornhill and Jessica Ladley, click the links

#lil rice #Alula Cyr #Fiona Thornhill #jessica ladley #cyr wheel #hyena #underbelly festival #interview #NCCA #jacksons lane #circus artist #giffords circus #nell gifford

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