I was a male contortionist on SkinWars

It’s such an awesome gift to be able to meet and be painted by the best body paint artists in the world! This is one of the reasons being a contortionist in Hollywood is so incredible. And it’s really fun to see what a group of contortionists can do when you put us all together in a room and cover us with paint. The advantage to working with contortionists: we can hold an uncomfortable position for a long time, which is something we do in training. That was crucial to figuring out the skull, from sketch to paint.

See the eyebrows? I’m the eyebrows.

Dutch and Felle figured out how we’d all fit together, and some of us didn’t bend certain ways, so we had to figure out who did what in the skull.

Between sketching, painting and rehearsing, we were all there for about 16 hours (and shooting was relatively quick). None of the contortionists were very comfortable as we held our positions (though Dutch watched out as he was concerned) but we made something really cool.

Like if David Bowie was a male contortionist. And was also making a fish face.

As the skull top, I spent my time leaning forward, sitting on a stool with my chest between my knees. A third of my weight was on my head and I had to pick up my elbows as high as I could, like wings, to create the effect in the video. While we didn’t have time to train for these positions, we managed to hold pretty still. You can see some shaking as our muscles were giving out toward the end of the day.

The animation of the skull may have come from the fact that we were shifting around during the process, and Dutch figured out a way to use that as an advantage.

I don’t normally get to work with this many other contortionists — male or female — and it was fun to see what everyone could do and the different ways we all work. I got to compare notes; I’m not sure if this is a male contortionist thing, but after doing front-bending contortion, I often have very loose hips, and my walking is a little wobbly for a few days.

I got to hang out with a few others people, too. I was eating some fruit backstage, and RuPaul asked me if I was afraid of eating too much fruit before having to contort. I told him I wouldn’t be the fruitiest thing out there. I think he liked my joke, but I’m not sure. It was dark, and I ran away intimidated by his awesomeness.

I was happy to see people there from the Vau De Vire Society and others from Eccentric Talent. It was also great to see Robin Slonina, who was a judge on the show and is married to my good friend Jimmy Slonina. Thanks to Chantel for the awesome gig.