Halloween 2023 will mark my twentieth year atop stilts. It's a mind-boggling milestone, even for someone who's spent most of his adult life looking down on people. It's wild that I even arrived here. I didn't grow up in a family of sideshow performers. Kumquat me went to a circus once, but I'm not even sure I encountered a stiltwalker before becoming one myself. So how did I end up on height enhancements? Make yourself comfy, it's story time.
If what's left of my memory serves, it's early 2003. I'm occupying dance floor real estate at a Denver club when Jennifer Avalon scouts me for a dance team she's assembling. Kevin Larson's Rise Nightclub opens a few months later, and I'm shaking my peach alongside breakers, poppers and go-gos. I finance my Burning Man ticket with the money I make dancing four or five consecutive nights. Halloween creeps up. Jenn pops a question that radically changes my worldview, “So, do you wanna get on the stilts tonight?” Life begins outside your comfort zone, right? I say yes and strap on the drywall stilts stashed in the green room closet. I spend most of that maiden voyage fondling the walls (emotional support architecture?). Spoiler alert: I don't die.
Twenty years ago, there weren't many stilt performers in Denver. So I get other gigs here and there. In 2005, I get cast in a circus show at Six Flags Elitch Gardens. The show runs nearly every summer night, so I enlist an understudy from the Rise team: Nate Leite. Veteran fire dancer Melinda Rivers teaches us some rudimentary fire spinning for the role. Inspired by Dark Crystal Landstriders and Broadway Lion King giraffes, Nate proposes a four-legged stilt creature the following year and lands the lead stilt role. I become Nate's understudy and we start walking on all fours via modified crutches and jumping stilts. At one point in the show's choreography, we even carry one of the dancers on our backs for a short distance.
The intervening seventeen years have been unquestionably elevated by countless high points.
— Cosplaying characters like Buddy the Elf, Jack Skellington, the Mad Hatter, Slender Man and the White Rabbit
— Performing with world-renowned EDM artists like Kaskade and Deadmau5 – the latter straddled my saddle backstage at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival – and bouncing around the court of current NBA champs The Denver Nuggets
— Strapping on height enhancements in Canada, China, Costa Rica, India, Japan, Mexico and all over the U.S.
— Auditioning for America's Got Talent and nearly stilting in a Stephen King-inspired TV show
— Filming an EDC China festival trailer in Shanghai and an iPad ad in New York (after discreetly peeing on a tree backstage:)
— Greeting Cirque du Soleil fans - astride a tall bike - at opening night of Luzia’s Denver run
— Walking in NYC Pride Parade two days after Supreme Court green-lights gay marriage
— Dancing the Electric Slide, hoisting babies in the air, juggling fruit, hula hooping and making hermaphroditic mermaids out of orange peels
— Landing on front pages of publications including The Aspen Times, The Denver Post, El Universal, Instagram and Vail Daily and appearing in Atlanta Magazine, High Times, LA Weekly, KMGH and The Washington Post
What a long, strange...stilt walkers generally sidestep the next word in that well-known Jerry Garcia quote. Halloween — and my twentieth stiltversary — is creeping up. How and where should I celebrate my milestone? Follow me on IG @orangepeelmoses and comment below - I’m gifting a stilt performance to the person with the winningest answer (travel expenses excluded).
Image: Bennett Sell-Kline / Insomniac Events
Like a caterpillar preparing for its radical metamorphosis, I devoured 2018 with zeal. Over four hundred twenty singing telegrams were delivered via my singing telegram agency this year, the majority of which I personally performed (though mad love to my whole roster). I entertained in China for the first time (then returned a mere six months later), visited the Indonesian island of Bali and finalized my upcoming single “Butterflies” at Colorado’s Grammy-winning Airshow Mastering. Below is a smattering of highlights (words and images) cherry-picked from a bliss-filled year of playing dress up, enabling joy through music and hopscotching around Earth's curvaceous body.
Bathing elephants at Thailand elephant sanctuary
Booking world-famous belly dancer Sadie for a holiday samba gig
Carving Godzilla-shaped “Orangami” for fellow performers in Tokyo
Celebrating ten years of performing with world-renowned music promoter Insomniac Events
Character performance at Colorado’s legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater for Seven Lions
Climbing Sticky Waterfall near Chiang Mai, Thailand
Clowning on stilts in China (twice) and Japan
Dancing on stilts at Washington state's stunning Gorge Amphitheatre for Paradiso Festival
Delivering singing resume to iHeartMedia office on behalf of creative job applicant
Driving camper van to California's Lightning in a Bottle festival with Suze Q
Experiencing Fungineers' Ice Cream Truck show with Alexandria Baker
Exploring bioluminescence exhibit at Denver Museum of Nature & Science with my nephew Kai
Filming EDC China trailer on seventh floor balcony of Shanghai's W Hotel
Facilitating 420 plus singing telegrams through my singing telegram agency:)
Finalizing my upcoming single “Butterflies” at Colorado’s Grammy-winning Airshow Mastering
Floating above the heads of Mexico City festival goers as a stilt-elevated fish
Greeting Denver Dia de los Muertos revelers - on stilts - at Los Muertos Fantasticos
Hovering six to eight feet above Bali’s Tanjung Benoa Bay on a water-propelled Flyboard
Impersonating Hunter S. Thompson at Cannabition Cannabis Museum in Vegas
Impressing Insomniac CEO Pasquale Rotella on the dance floor with Angelique
Imbibing bug bites in a cave restaurant near Mexican pyramid complex Teotihuacan
Imbibing dragonfruit in both Bali and China
Insomniac Thanksgiving banquet at China’s Chimelong Ocean Kingdom
Landing the cover of The Vail Daily as a stilt-enhanced Uncle Sam
Meeting Portland singing telegram / stilt performer / kindred spirit Jon Dutch in Aspen
Musically ambushing Fox 21 news anchors as singer Barry Manilow
Musically ambushing 9 News anchor Liz Kotalik as Cupid
Nicknaming Mexico's Chichen Itza Mayan ruins “Chicken Pizza”
Organizing nine singing telegrams in a single night for Colorado chapter of Young Presidents
Parasailing above Patong Beach in Thailand
People watching at Lefthand Brewery's voodoo-themed Nitro Fest
Playing EDM Unplugged in VIP speakeasy at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas
Practicing AcroYoga with my Flight Club family
Pretending to defecate on the dance floor at Bassnectar with Michelle
Rapping Cypress Hill at AEG Live Rocky Mountain offices as a tutu-clad gorilla
Seeing both Janelle Monae and Lauryn Hill live in concert
Singing Janelle Monae's “Yoga” for Buti yoga teacher Ashton August and her class
Shooting “Butterflies” imagery with longtime photographer friend Jonathan Shoup
Snorkeling in both Bali and Mexico
Taking my four-legged stilt unicorn on the road with Unicorn Whisperer Anastasia
Terrifying Escape Halloween haunted house visitors as faceless giant Slender Man
Three person ukulele jam session on The Great Wall of China
Winning Temple Nightclub's $500 Halloween costume contest with Future
Zip-lining through the jungle at Tarzan Adventure Phuket in Thailand
Follow along with future adventures via Instagram
Last week, I was a nine-foot tall unicorn. Allow me to explain:)
Lifestylez, a travel agency that organizes winter resort trips for college students, is one of my clients. A few years ago, they booked a pair of parkour athletes and myself to provide roving entertainment for three of their Colorado SnoDaze events: Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Keystone. Each night, as the headlining DJ filled the dance floor, I roamed through the crowd in my four-legged stilt unicorn costume. Mariah, my then-Unicorn Whisperer, occasionally rode atop the silver saddle strapped to my back. If what's left of my memory serves me correctly, I skied a half day at Breck with my dad in between show dates.
When Lifestylez' owner Steve Smolinski inquired if I'd join SnoDaze for another jaunt in early January, my interest was piqued. Having gotten tired of the awkward posture necessary for performing Unicorn version 1.0, I was chomping at the bit to upgrade. Also, I needed to enlist a new Unicorn Whisperer, as Mariah had recently moved to California. I commissioned a white bodysuit from my seamstress friend Sophie, and tasked my longtime fabricator/performance buddy Nate with fashioning new fur stilt covers and a unicorn head designed to sit atop a bike helmet. Michelle, a lovely go-go dancer I'd grown to know through Denver's Team Ez Entertainment, was invited to play Unicorn Whisperer on the week long mountain tour featuring sibling EDM duo Hippie Sabotage. The trek would include four stops: Crested Butte, Telluride, Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs.
Departure day dawned. With my gun metal grey Toyota Corolla Tetris'd to the brim with stilts, food, costumes and makeup, Michelle and I set our sights on Crested Butte. Although I've been skiing since I was a wee kumquat, I don't recall ever having been to the tiny Colorado resort town before. I enjoy driving long distances even when I sometimes have the option of flying instead – many of my best ideas come to me while my body is fully engaged with motor vehicle operation. Case and point: a unicorn name brainstorm produced a great new contender – Hornelius. My transmission gave me a little trouble on the trip, but we arrived alive, checked into our digs and set about applying makeup and shimmying into costume. Michelle's Unicorn Whisperer wardrobe consisted of white boots, a bellydance hip scarf, a fur shrug, fingerless gloves and a long blonde wig. I wore a spandex bodysuit with a tail, fur covered leg and arm stilts and the aforementioned unicorn head.
TO BE CONTINUED
