Centreville, VA-

I had the extreme pleasure of working with Kate Guntermann (aka Sensoriel, aka “The Kate”) for the City of Roanoke’s Dickens of a Christmas Street Fair, held annually the first three Fridays in December in the historical district. Kate’s work with fire is astonishingly beautiful and her grace of movement stops people in the streets, a good quality when working amid said streets.

We worked in High Victorian attire, complete with straight skirts, high collars and yours truly in a corset. We looked marvelous together and decided to work the square in tandem, the advantages to this arrangement being twofold: One performer to watch the other’s props and one performer to watch the other’s back and maintain working space amid the crowds. We did twenty minute sets switching off every minute-thirty or so and then cleared the square for the remaining ten in the half-hour to allow the traffic to move among the vendors and other variety acts further along the way. This also kept us from having people stand still in the cold for more than fifteen to twenty minutes at a stretch, an important consideration given the high number of children in attendance.

When we finished four such sets over the course of our contracted two hours we were definitely feeling the cold but we returned to the hotel elated with how well the shows had gone and how naturally we had been able to work together and share the space. Once more I find myself not being able to say enough about how wonderful it is to work with adult professionals. We celebrated with a bit of room service hot chocolate before we began to really feel the effects of the evening’s activities.

It was a short jump from post-show energy to post-show fatigue and we were more than happy to curl up among the plethora of hotel pillows for a long sleep. Less than 24 hours later we are back home in our respective towns. I am still a bit mystified as to the sudden Christmas season popularity of sword swallowing, but I very much look forward to seeing it grow even more next year and I hope also to be a part of this event once again, sharing the space with Kate.

You rock, woman! Here’s some inspiration for our next meeting:

I’m Mister Green Christmas
I’m Mister Sun
I’m Mister Heat Blister
I’m Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I’m too much!

I’m Mister White Christmas
I’m Mister Snow
I’m Mister Icicle
I’m Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
I’m too much!

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