Forums > Social Chat > I know it shouldn't matter....

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
naw, it shouldnt matter. listen i get snubbedd by strangers all of the time because of the way i look
i just figure forget them....
u should too

Walking slowly through the rain...Without worries theres no pain...If you see a shooting star...All your problems seem so far.

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
beautiful one

My heart feels for you and I feel that anger again ... *sigh* I posted about that a while ago and maybe you might want to take a look at what people said then ?

"So What ???" thread

please do not let it get to you.

Stupidity is around every corner of the world, so is intelligence... you just did not get lucky that time.
Seeing as i allready worded my opinion on that one in the previous thread, I'll let everyone who hasn't share their view

but I just want to give you a big hug and tell you that you should not worry at all.

SHINE ON, Clairebear
Cassandra

"I want brown bread... no, that is diesel oil..."
"So I was raised in Europe, where History comes from ..."
"NON !!! La Plume de mon oncle n est pas Bingibangibungi !!!"

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
Absotivly posilultey SHOULD NOT MATTER.. if people take you on exterior values.. then walk away - it's what is inside and what you can do/offer that makes the difference - Take the typical sterotype of the Dumd blonde . very pretty no brain - I'd prefure to be ugly and intelligent than a pretty airhead anyday...

I honour you as an aspect of myself..

You are never to old to storm a bouncey castle..

Posted: 9th Oct 2002

quote:

---

Originally posted by clairebear:

Unfortunately a couple of these requests came from people who also requested that I be left out of the group as i didn't "fit their image of alternative arts"

---

Grrrrr... PISS OFF!
(Not you, Claire, them)

You didn't fit their "image of alternative arts," huh?
Well, as far as I'm concerned, their "image of alternative arts" can "fit" right up their...

Claire

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
No way man, what kind of socialy retarded people are these?!

Of course it shouldnt matter, what are you, nuts?!! Theres no way on earth it should matter whether youre 1 foot tall or 10 foot tall!! If youre good at what you do, your appearance should not matter.

Besides, being small could help with your performances, have you thought of doing a routine with a few of you who are all different heights and seeing what interesting stuff you can come up with. I'll tell you now, people of different sizes together can create some pretty awesome shows!!!

Fair play to your mates for sticking by you and you dont let the bastards grind you down!!!
Moan at us if you need to, thats what we're here for!!! (well, its not all we're here for, we do have other purposes as well like cooking, and goat farming and.........)

whats up with all the limitations?

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
I'm confused, you didn't "fit their image of aternative artists" because you were short? That doesn't sound right... Are there two seperate issues here?

-5' 7" NYC

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
Just out of interest, how tall are you clairbear?

I find it very amusing that people who want to watch alternative arts don't want to watch people of an alternative height performing them.
What they need is a good surprise eyepoking, just to remind them that shorter people are worth watching too

I still stand by my comment in the thread Cass linked to - I'd much rather watch a really good performer, regardless of what they looked like, instead of someone I find attractive but who is a poor performer.

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
Didn't "fit their image of alternative arts"? What the hell does that mean?

Sounds like its THEIR problem, not yours. People need to be judged by the content of their character, and nothing superficial like height/weight/skin color/piercings/etc.

Personally, I'd tell these people to BITE ME.

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
Grrrr, what exactly was their problem? Were you not tall enough to fit the requisite amount of tattooing & piercing on your body or sumfink? What on earth do they think "alternative" is?

- from another shorty...

Roz

It was a day for screaming at inanimate objects.

What this calls for is a special mix of psychology and extreme violence...

Posted: 9th Oct 2002
Hun If you ask me if they wanna see some slightly dressed gril with a size 5 waist spin fire..tell them its not about "their" sexual fantasies and they have escort services...go look them up. Your an artist and a performer who said that means your have to look like Madonna??

People are ignoranat sometimes...

Hey dude your beer gut and butt crack turns me off..I don't want you working on my car...let the hot young 18 year old who doesnt know sh*t work on it....Minus the fact the other guy might have been a certifed mechanic for 40 years

Come on..like that makes anymore sense?

IGNORE THEM, they don't know any better!

And all my days are trances And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy gray eye glances And where thy footstep gleams-In what ethereal dances By what eternal streams. Edgar Allan PoeThe prophet is a fool and the religious man is fucking mad, and for the multitude of your sense and your inequity, and the great hatred......NANCY BOY

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
hey hey.
clairbear... you're not alone darl!
at work i said not long ago that i started doin poi- of course i had to explain it. and their immediate reaction was "omg your like camron??" (my very good freind who uses staff and used to work with me- but he's also really into witchcraft and stuff along those lines.) i had to laugh at them. just because one person is like that... i am supposed to be as well??? wtf??? and then they started sayin stuff "your not the kinda person who would do sumfin like that" ok... so i admit i'm not all weird at work. i work in a male dominated area... i cant be all warm and fuzzy- doesnt go with the job... but shit... doesnt mean i'm not outside of work. it shocked me that people think just becasue one person is like something, all others that do stuff near the same is as well...

but onto your lil prob... well not yours... the other people...
didnt fit their image of alternative arts? what was their image? in a way i would half expect to see smaller performers... its like a circus performer... the better acts come outta smaller people. not sayin that your a part of a circus, or that larger people cant do it... lol... tis just a point. i woulda just singed a bit of their hair... or all of it.

but anyway hun... screw all the up themselves people in the world... if they look past your fire and look at you and judged you one your size - they obviously didnt want the act... assholes.

so take carem and keep twirling... and just turn a cheek to those assholes!

And wherever you've gone and wherever we might go. It don't seem fair. Today just disappeared.

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
people - read what the grrl has written! I'm fairly sure this is not about her height...

"I'm not the smallest of people"

Anyway, it doesn't devalue anything anyone has said to you clairebear

Embrace your womanliness!

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Posted: 10th Oct 2002
i have to say your very lucky to have such great friends

i also have to say; yes it does hurt whn other people snub you. But dont worry bout them if they want to be like that then fine. just dont let yourself be influenced by them

sam

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
thanks, flash fire, with your reminder, let's pick up an idea of Kurobei's most appropriately.

clairebear, there are at least 3 sides to any perspective.

first, it shouldn't matter to enlightened audience members with good hearts

second, we all take a social stand that we are family, performers and audience, and welcome each other, appreciating each others' art

third, for professional performers of higher calibre, the responsibility for audience reaction is entirely on you, even if the venue sucks, the equipment fails, the crowd is evil, it's a bad night. "the show must go on," and "never let them see you sweat." this is something beyond our genuine consolation with you for the recent past hurt. this is about a successful future, as Thomas Hobbes said, with humans "as they are and laws as they might be," before the thousands of years our species still needs to significantly raise the enlightened proportion of our population. when you're ready to be the fullest, most creative, most entertaining, performance artist which is your very real potential, and by this i mean something different, something in addition to a technically good fire spinner,

i wanna see how you can use your shape and special body assets, especially your grand largeness, to wow the audience during your set and make them love you DOUBLY.

every serious performer MUST review and edit our every motion by seeing ourselves recorded or in a full-wall mirror. how long have Baryshnikov (ballet), Shakira (for whom pop dancing was mainly new), and Kiri Te Kanawa (opera) practiced & refined their performer's presence?

speaking of opera, i will now say, with love, the forbidden "f" word. pork sausage-and-high-calorie-beer German gurls are found among the biggest Europeans. one of Wagner's brilliances as a composer, celebrating who his German people are in their own cultural sense of themselves, and showcasing it for the world, was to create operas featuring big German gurls. Brunhilde and the famous Valkyries in the hugely famous Ring of the Niebelung. Parts where you needed big-chested sopranos and altos, big, healthy arms to SWING SWORDS - like you SWING FIRE - while the oxygen in their lungs, and their diaphragms, and chest muscles were already busy singing like only big women can sing! where their movements across the stage, their placement at every moment in relation to other cast members, became such great drama to watch and hear and feel, it became a renewed icon of the Germanic people from Scandinavia to Austria. and this is much of the reason we have the globally recognized phrase about how an opera "should" end now: "it's not over til the fat lady sings." well, we have a great cooking show on telly here, "2 fat ladies," very happy to give you who they are, get good viewership, their technical moves are good, they are naturalistic in their style of presence, just homey reassuring, which suits much of the audience who watches cooking shows to begin with, and the mainstream when they are in cooking show-watching mode. so part of the question is, who do you want to appreciate your fire performances, and in what mode(s)?

this is big "lived large" as the rappers say, and there area rappers who celebrate "Biggie"'s biggieness, because he carried it as a virtue, not a weakness, in his identity. Queen Latifah (right?) and other big African-American women have brought this to the primarily Euro-descended American mainstream, too.

anything special about editing professional performance motions, for big peformers? yes, some things i've encountered. strengths you might want to use and develop: larger circumference of swings; using your body consciously as a color and texture artistic background for toys passing in front of it between you and the audience; enhanced presence of glee when you smile throughout your body, or show any other emotion, you can be the focal point and anchor of a group routine and use your body in successful, interesting, dramatic contrast with smaller troupe members in the arena at the same time; you may have greater strength for certain moves; you automatically look authoritative when you raise, smash, or gesture at anything or any one; you naturally get attention when you walk on, around, and off, so polish up keeping that attention, you can cause awe and exude mystery as all large things archetypally remind us of mama earth and sister moon, or even great sun in our local part of the galaxy. weaknesses which might be skipped or developed: ranges of motion and flexibility might vary from mere statistical averages.

clairebear, you can be an incredible bear - how does a bear move, does she growl, how would her spinning poi make the audience feel, what would a bear's spins be like? a bear with a staff?! exciting (Shardik by Richard Adams, author of Watership Down)/ scary (human-mauler)/ friendly (US Forest Ranger's icon, Smokey the Bear)/ surprising (Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus)/ funny (Yogi bear cartoon) / snuugly (Care Bear!). is she not only caring, but clear/ bright/ insightful/ uplifting/ claire? does she have some signature things she does, ways she looks, which makes everyone, kids to oldsters, eagerly anticipate seeing here, and ask for her in gigs?

i've done this myself with a dear big friend, Inanna, considered my sister, who has been my stage & dias partner. frankly, she avoids sensing her body position and movements (though her early unconsciousness of sloppy habits and crossing her arms when defensive have become subconscious to conscious now), hates exercise, and is highly sensitive about her size. so no matter how gentle, the actual consciousness and work of performance self-review was traumatic. and she improved 350% by the time we walked out and finished to applause. and how did she feel? elated! a triumph and an receipt and access of admiration and love, not just for those performances, but a highpoint about a major aspect of her life. the alternative for her is to have less, mainly smaller gigs, among audiences drawn from the more selective parts of our population, and less ambitious show routines.

so in addition to your doing the vital work of recovering from your very real hurt, dear snuggly clairebear, your next question, merely obvious whether we raise it or not, and i offer the positivist's encouragement of winning through it, is what effect you WANT to have on your audience, what your performance ambitions are, which must be paramount before you can achieve any social ambitions of being a role-model and advocate of further enlightenment, anyway. or before social enlightenment advocates can use you effectively as a role model for their work. are you hungry to "knock em off their socks" as a fire artist, with BOTH technical skills & performer's presence?

our peformer's presence: from how we walk into the area, our poise, our eye contact, our engagement physical and psychological and psychic with the audience in all directions, the way we pick up our toys and manage mistakes in public view, what angles we show during each burnlet to each sector of the audience, how we interact with lighting, our spatial pattern in relation to stage props and other troupe members at each moment, so we don't destroy large structure for close-up-requiring tactics alone, what emotions we project in a changing, mesmerizing series flowing out and engaging people, who we are as identities for the audience to react toward, the joy we shine out which is contagious so we make people excited, shocked, intrigued, or happy and they share it back with thanks, even regardless of our technical faults, how we approach the time and space of conclusion, finale, and "taking a bow," and how we carry that out of the arena, how we look and feel to people afterwards during meeting, greeting, congratulating, and exploring next opportunities and new acquaintances and friends.

what can you do with your poi & staff in relation to your shape which no one else can? invent moves and become known for new signature effects, be the talk of the town! use costuming & make-up NOT to camouflage but to emphasize and USE what makes you unique and thus impressive when you wear your uniqueness, and move it artistically, with the confidence of a performer who will, in the ancient Broadway saying of many old theater stage divas, "give em what they never knew they wanted."

your loving, right-hearted, right-minded, stand-up-for-you in contracts and speech troupe-mates: what group routines can you come up with, and even get into a new phase when you've innovated a lot of routines so you can do it WELL impromptu, unrehearsed, a new flow -- what routines can you do AS A GROUP or in subgroups which specifically glory in your size as part of a spatial pattern of multiple spinners, as part of story complete with characters who happen to spin fire as you go, or spin fire at moments during a theatrical vignette, like "when momma bear went to her porridge bowl". . . or "Pele, Queen of the Volcano, emerged" (* slowly rise from floor *) and "erupts!" (* have assistant dressed all in "invisible" black behind you light your poi from behind your back, suddenly swing them over your head *)

just a few starter thoughts.

let's have more practical, amateur or "professional" (snobbish, that) suggestions from Home of Poi members, giving their best working experience and performers' imaginations, in addition to plenty of ego-rubbing and emotional support for dear clairebear. let's be all that Home of Poi can be for her, solving the personal and ALSO the interpersonal, outward-producing things which trouble her, so she DOESN'T only get sympathy, she gets the LARGER GIFT, with whatever help we can offer from the best of what's in us, of SUCCESS.

what will you create with fire, and your body, and your personality, next?

with all my love for the wonderful much of you we are blessed to have -- my body isn't so big, hope you'll find my heart is enough to cover for it, clairebear, and i'm eager to see in action,

~ Mikie

[ 11 October 2002, 06:01: Message edited by: FíreMîke ]

molten cheers,

~ FireMike

FireMikeZ@yahoo.com (personal messages welcome, no promo spam, please!)
Laguna, California, US

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
claire bear

YOU and every human on this planet has the right to spin within fire.

You dont have to have any look or specific requirements to be a good spinner I think thats a bit more within than on the outside.

I thought I had no coordination at first and I kept at it until I managed to fight it off in my mind and let all the good stuff flow...

You are who you are and no person can tell you that you cannot do something because that is up to you. Dont let ignorant superficial people affect you. They might be jelous!

Keep shinign I'm sure it will get better if you stand up for yourself and let people know that you are very capable.

Good luck and much love n hugs your way, Drome

JUGGLEwithyourmind!

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
I'm so sorry that people feel they have the right to make such upsetting personal comments to/about you Clairbear. I can only say that so long as you and your friends are happy with your performance then it doesn't matter what others think. However, I know that these kind of personal attacks can destroy your self confidence but if it does then the cruel people have achieved their aim. Please don't let the socially inept beat you down.

Everyone is beautiful, no matter what size or shape they are. It is only the twisted view that is pushed by TV and magazines that women should be a certain (emaciated) shape to be beautiful. You don't have to buy into that if you don't want to. I don't and neither do the majority of women I know.

Take care lovely.

Are we nearly there yet?

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
Hey Clairebear, I think it is kinda lovely that we all assumed it was about your height. Cos trust me, I would never think of someones body shape as being a reason why they shouldn't perform. Not only am I a shorty, I am also around a size 14-16, about Marilyn Monroe size . I am all curvy & luscious, but certainly not rake thin.

Despite my poor reading skills, the same applies. They have this image of "alternative", which is just the mainstream image with some piercing and tattoos, (and a hope that it also contains a more liberal attitude to having sex with them).

It was a day for screaming at inanimate objects.

What this calls for is a special mix of psychology and extreme violence...

Posted: 10th Oct 2002
excuse my dense-ness,
but what's going on?

are we talking boob size here?

again i apologize on the thick-skulled subject

orangu-funking-tan