A Crowdfunding SUCCESS!!!

Updated on 4th July, 16:20 pm

It’s 00:24 o’clock and I’m feeling quite bedazzled. Let me tell you what’s going on: I’m setting my alarm for 5:20 am, because at 6 am I have to get into a beautifully ricketty bus with two gorgeous circus artistes to drive to a school where we’ve been giving a circus workshop all week. My part in all this isn’t circus-teaching; it’s film-teaching: I am teaching 8th graders to make a documentary about the circus workshop, beginning from the first classes to the full-on performance for the school & parents on Friday afternoon. If you want to read more, it was in the Schwäbische Zeitung today: http://alturl.com/fa698

Apart from that, I am also participating in the first Dance Festival in Ulm: ULM MOVES! I will perform tomorrow (Thursday), Friday and Saturday as part of the “Parcours”, wherein dancers, actors and performers make static buildings come to light. Marion Glöggler, for example, will do a “vertical dance” in which she suspends herself from the walls of the Deutschhaus car park.

Marion Glöggler of the Vertical Dance Compagnie

I am at the Kulturfahrschule (at the Ehinger Tor), performing on my red aerial silks, suspended from a red crane… Here is an image from today’s rehersal:

photograph courtesy of Sabrina Fischäß

If you want to see it, here are the dates:

Thursday, 4th July:  approx. 6 pm

Friday, 5th July:  approx. 6 pm

Saturday, 6th July:  approx. 4 pm

I say approximately because my performance is part of a tour / parcours through the city, so when I perform really depends on when my audience arrives. I’ll be told some 5 minutes beforehand, which should give me enough time to climb the silks and get into position.

But none of this has anything to do with the title of this post! I just wanted to show you what I’m up to, give you a bit of an insight as to why I haven’t been blogging lately: BECAUSE MY HEAD IS in the air… in school… on the StartNext Website!

Which brings me to the POINT.

THE POINT!

It is now 00:43 o’clock.

It just happened. 5 minutes ago we were beneath the goal. Now. RIGHT NOW, I clicked “refresh” and everything suddenly moved slower…

screenshot 00:45 o’clock on http://www.startnext.de/qayqa

We did it. We actually actually DID IT. 

About an hour ago, Pixie called me from the States. All she said when I picked up was: “Congratulations!” We hadn’t reached the goal yet, but we were €50 away.

I couldn’t believe this. I replied: “I feel like I should do something crazy as a thank you for all these amazing people! Like maybe jump out of a window naked.” She laughed and said: “You totally should!”

Dearest most wonderful, most beloved ayllu of my heart. I owe you more than words can express. I owe you more than a ridiculous blog post 4 hours away from getting up again.

You have baffled me, bewildered me, AMAZED me. You supported me, you believed in Qayqa, and now, my dearest people of the world: Qayqa you will get…

I want to take this moment to express my absolute sense of … UTTER PANIC. If you’ve been watching Qayqa on StartNext, you’ll know that we were slowly trickling, and when people asked me if I thought we could make it, I replied honestly: “I really have NO IDEA. It could work. It could not. No clue.”

Then a sudden overnight leap of €800. It put us back in the game! And that was the moment when my panic struck.

Shit. People will actually read Qayqa. To the end. What if it’s rubbish? What if no one likes it? Is it too late to back out now?  Maybe I should go back quickly and do some serious last-minute-full-of-panic editing. Delete everything. New ending. Damn damn damn. Why do I always do such silly, ridiculous things? I never learn.

So, no lies: you are actually going to get Qayqa and that makes me feel a terrified – and excited!

I want to post properly about my crowdfunding experience, but the main thing I need to say right now is that I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough (and I probably wasn’t). There were amazing people out there who sent me long emails / messages, suggesting brilliant new tactics to get more supporters. I couldn’t follow up on all the ideas, and I often felt like I really wasn’t doing enough. For example, I never got around to making a Qayqa facebook page. Such sacrilege!

And yet. Crowdfunding: A SUCCESS!!!

I made you a video just now. It’s just me being nonstop grateful in my pajamas:

A few days ago, after the €800 struck overnight and I first realised we could actually make it, I was pulling a heavy suitcase along a train platform and my head began singing a song. This song, my darling ayllu, my beautiful supporters, IS FOR YOU. For everyone who believed; for everyone who supported; for those who wrote saying they couldn’t pledge but believed & wished me luck; for everyone who spread the word (like love), who hit the forums, who believed.

THANK YOU for helping a dream come true. This song – along with all my gratitude – is for you. Y’all made Qayqa feel pretty damn mthrfcukn special. 

1:21 o’clock. GOODNIGHT AYLLU.

You people kicked some serious Crowdfunding BUTT. I also decided something:  In the last pages of the book Qayqa, I will publish an excerpt from her sequel Munay, in English, so that you get a feeling for what is coming next…! Like?