Cover Story: Rebel Spirit

BY JEANETTE PRATHER

This article was originally going to be titled, “The aerialist/pole acrobat/teacher/mom/writer/museumworker hustle (and why anyone would want to do that),” until my stepdad weighed in with, “It sounds like you’re confused.” To which I replied, “Which part?” “All of it,” he responded.

That statement made me reflect a bit. Am I confused? Perhaps at some point in my twenties I was confused about my eclectic lifestyle choices, but as I am forging onwards through my thirties, I’ve come to embrace this multi-faceted approach to life and even recognize a cohort of other wild individuals who share in this innate ability to maneuver laterally like a crab – a trait particularly helpful in the thralls of pandemic living.

How did this happen? While navigating through choices and decisions in life certainly paved the way to where I am now, I honestly believe that this lifestyle happened to me rather than my choosing it.

In the interest of saving precious text space, I’ll omit my resumes (available at JeanettePrather.rocks and JeanetteBent.rocks for both my writing and performance careers, respectively) and abridge my professional life by explaining that I’ve simultaneously grown a writing and live performance career throughout my entire life. With that, I’ve never really held down the a-typical “nine-to-five.”

Lending itself to some stressful situations like bouncing between three shows spread throughout the Central Coast on the same day, to once-in-a-lifetime experiences like dancing in Super Bowl XXXVII at 18-years-old, maintaining a lifelong performing career is thrilling. And then you pair that with freelance writing, mom-ing and working part-time at the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery, and we’ve gotten ourselves caught up to 2020.

One of the last long-term performance contracts that I had was for California’s Great America 2019 Halloween Haunt season. During this time, I’d perform all night in Santa Clara, often getting home close to 1 am, just to make sure I’m awake to help volunteer in my at-the-time 3rd grader’s classroom and then head into the MOD.

Advice for crazy people like me who firmly believe that you can do it all; do it! Just make sure that you’re smart about your schedule and not over-extending, a quality that I am certainly guilty of. Taking proper care of yourself and truly striking a work/life balance by not working all the time while still taking care of business is both fruitful and a balancing act. [All-night ambient aerial or pole performance gig hack: Bananas! I’ve eaten multiple bananas backstage and in many a greenroom during an evening of strenuous ambient work, and the sustainability is unmatchable.]

The ambitious mindset of “it’s possible to have it all” actually comes from an early pole mentor – in the pole community we refer to pole gurus like this as our “pole mamas” – Zoraya Judd, an amazing woman who has three children, a husband and a lucrative performance and teaching career. Clearly, an inspiration.

Ok, so now we’re here winding down 2021 and despite the love of the long-term gig contract, times are uncertain, motherhood commitments and working multiple jobs doesn’t necessarily lend themselves convenient for any non-local long contract. Of course, this isn’t the case for California’s Great America or even the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the latter a long-term gig that my company, Stellaria Creative Company, landed in 2015 and 2016.

This wasn’t always an issue for me. One of my immediate post-collegiate large contracts was for six months as the assistant choreographer at Club Maeva in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. We were called “Maevamigas.” That led to me working for Club Med as their chief choreographer in Cancun where I learned aerial skills. Then, I was sent to Turks and Caicos in the Bahamas where I met my now-husband (he was the executive chef, and I was the choreographer; very Dirty Dancing!). I had done one last contract in Florida to round out my two-year resort stint, many new skills and experiences under my belt.

New York City, which book ended both my postgraduate and post-resort destinations, was where I leaned heavily into my performance career while starting my family. When my young family moved back to my old collegiate stomping grounds of Long Beach for a brief stint before our current destination of Santa Cruz, our story must have prompted the pole studio owner where I taught to call us a “gypsy family.” In a way, we are. And in another way, it’s because of my (and probably my husband’s) rebel spirit.

Now, I’m really starting to identify these people. Call it middle-aged, maturity, 2021… whatever. Pockets of formerly “confused” individuals who are multi-faceted and don’t conform to what was our norm pre-2020, are now emerging in full bloom ready to seize the day. Not confined to performance artists, but anyone who identifies as a rebel spirit; people who are wickedly talented illustrators and photographers, those who’ve invented some new piece of tech but also tear it up in the air, mathematicians who are also chefs, you get the idea.

For these individuals – rebel spirits, warriors, freethinkers, if you will – not only do I identify with you, but I’m also hoping that my newest endeavor, the Stellaria Rebels Society app (to be launched this fall), will provide a free enterprise platform to unleash all your skills and wiles in one place.

So, if you carry a whole bunch of titles or labels, then this message is for you. Now’s your time to shine! If you weren’t shining your brightest before, or you were misunderstood as confused, or you just love multiple outlets and don’t want to give one up, you don’t have to. Take it from my pole mamma; “I’m a firm believer that you can have it all.” So go out and have it all while remembering to have some fun along the way.