by Kirby Lindsay, posted 28 June 2013
In the authentic European Teatro ZinZanni cabaret tent, swinging from the trapeze riggings during the current production of ‘Lucky In Love,’ Fremonsters can catch a favorite aerial team, Duo Madrona.
Through September 8th, Duo Madrona (Rachel Nehmer and Ben Wendel) bring their aerial finest to ‘Lucky In Love’ as well as dancing, singing, clowning, acting and improvisation with the rest of the talented cast. “It’s quite a phantasmagoria of comedy, theater, acrobatics and dinner,” Wendel said of the latest ZinZanni creation, “They really tie it all together.”
Magnetically Drawn In
Wendel and Nehmer appear with ZinZanni – and at shows and festivals around the world – as full-time professional performers. Yet, neither started with dreams of the big top, a vision of vaudeville, or any idea of how creative their lives would become.
“I was in a children’s performing group,” Nehmer explained, about her road to the trapeze, “and I went to a summer performance camp.” At French Woods, “I was drawn into circus arts,” she said. As a teenager, Nehmar learned to love aerial, “but I still thought I was going to lead a normal existence.”
She did do normal things, like attending Haverford College and studying biology. She forgot about the circus until her final year when a friend gave her a trapeze, “I started practicing again,” she recalled, “and I remembered how it felt.” She encouraged her classmate to give the workout a try, she recalled, “I convinced Ben to jump up on the trapeze.”
“I was an athlete growing up in the Midwest,” Wendel explained. Where he grew up, he said, “You either chose athletics or performance.” He chose athletics, he said, then. “Of course, I hadn’t found circus arts.”
Climbing on the trapeze, and working with Nehmer, Wendel found a “whole new part,” of himself. “There’s this really strong feeling or sensation,” he described, that felt like he had found a world he belonged in. “Try something that seems like it is magnetically drawing you in,” he said, “you should go for it.” As he explained, “I was never daring as a kid,” but working on routines and performing with Nehmer felt right, “and we had fantastic chemistry!”
A Way To Meet
After graduating in 2004, the couple moved to Seattle to work in the bio-labs here. In their spare time, they studied at the School of Acrobatics & New Circus Arts (SANCA,) including studying with Lara Paxton. Aerial became, “a really intense hobby,” Wendel recalled, and a way to meet people.
Through their friends, Nehmer was asked to join The Aerialistas, the local all-female aerial troupe, and they worked with Circus Contraption. Then, at the end of 2005, Duo Madrona got its debut at a Moisture Festival fundraiser, for the vaudeville/burlesque showcase based here in Fremont.
“It’s a little less intentional or planned,” Wendel said of his path to professional performing. “Sometimes you have to be ready,” Wendel mused on his move into the world of the trapeze.
Moisture Festival introduced them to a community, and provided a sense of camaraderie, from which they could safely launch a professional career. “We got so much encouragement there that took our lives on a whole new course,” Nehmer observed. “The best thing about Moisture Festival,” she said, “is that it is an open slate for new artists.” Some of the greatest performers in the world of vaudeville take the Moisture Fest stage at Hale’s Palladium, but the showcase also allowed two scientists to turn into aerialists before the awed eyes of the audience.
From Hobby To Profession
“We quit our science jobs in 2006,” Nehmer said, and the (now married) team struggled for about two years before they found steady work as performers – including the opportunity to work at ZinZanni.
In their first show with ZinZanni, ‘Under The Gypsy Moon,’ “we had considerably less to do,” Nehmer recalled. “It’s been building over the years,” she said, of their contribution to each show. “Some of it was the style of the show,” Wendel explained. In ‘Lucky In Love,’ the couple are ‘on stage’ in nearly every act of the show – but so are all 10 members of the cast.
They’ve learned and built on their talents with every ZinZanni show they’ve appeared in – this is their fifth ZinZanni show in five years, and this fall they will be in another. At ZinZanni, “we are asked to do a lot of character work,” Wendel said.
In the Teatro ZinZanni process, at least with ‘Lucky In Love’ directors Joe de Paul and Tobias Larsson, the cast help create the characters they play. “Here we work together,” Nehmer observed, while Wendel described it as, “just a ton of cross-pollination going on. We don’t work with a script,” he said, “It’s a lot of improvisation.”
“Working at ZinZanni,” Wendel said, “this cast is full of our role models. It’s the folks in this cast that really make the show special.” However, they also appreciate the professionalism, and the high production values, that make ‘Lucky In Love’ into a wild, wacky yet warm, lush performance, every night.
“Teatro,” he said, “it’s a very sensual atmosphere. I think our act in this venue comes off as very romantic, erotic, sensual,” Wendel said, but he also thinks audiences respond to the connection he and Nehmer have. The romance in their act isn’t deliberate, “We think more about structure, and timing,” Nehmer explained. As Wendel pointed out, they keep a tension flowing between them, in the choreography, that brings romance to ‘Lucky In Love.’
Since they abandoned a ‘normal existence,’ and turned over their fates to the trapeze, Nehmer observed about the circus arts, “it’s really blowing up everywhere.” Which means, perhaps, that someday soon a boy in the Midwest won’t need to go to college to find his future in aerial.
It also means that fans of Duo Madrona need not wait until next March to see the team at Moisture Festival. Fremonsters can travel, today, to the historic speigeltent of Teatro ZinZanni to see this remarkable act, and many others, in ‘Lucky In Love’ through September 8th. Tickets can be purchased, now, for a delicious dinner and a thoroughly engaging show through the Teatro ZinZanni website.
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©2013 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.