I've been able to experience the intersection of my interests recently - aerials and acro, musical and improv. It always feels like new worlds are opening, and the possibilities are endless.
Musical improv especially, by nature of its spontaneity, brings forth the worlds within me that I don't even fully realize. Sometimes it's hilarious (someone giving me a line about a drink in a can elicited me to say "it tastes good, like a man") and sometimes it's sad (a prompt about a computer led to me talking about the difficulties of connecting to others during the pandemic), but it is always amazing.
The class showcase was the pinnacle, in that I inadvertently weaved the funny and the tragic, to great effect.
The audience suggestion for my solo song was "hot air balloon".
I introduced myself as a singer-songwriter who had been performing for longer than I was single - neither of which I intended. And said that my last relationship from 13 years ago culminated in a hot-air balloon ride that I mistakenly thought meant a proposal and an engagement... but that no one was let down gently that day.
And then I sang a crash landing of a song about how we flew over the mountains into what I thought was going to be our new life, except that when he bent his knee it was only to tie his shoe... and now whenever someone wants to take me for a ride I say no, because I've stopped hoping.
And then after a long pause I sang "the end", which of course coincided with the end of the show.
And when I sing songs like this invariably someone will ask me if it's real, because it sounds so real. And maybe that's my superpower. Taking my broken heart, and making it into art.