Cellista, an aerialist who regularly performs upside down with her cello, shared her daily routine while traveling in Germany. She is based in Las Vegas but spoke to us during her trip, detailing how she trains and writes for the stage.
Morning Routine: Early Wake-Up and Fasting
Cellista woke up at 7:10am, beating her alarm set for 8:01am. She described feeling triumphant, though the feeling lasted only until 11am. She does not eat breakfast, as she dislikes eating in the morning and has little appetite upon waking. However, she does drink a large cup of coffee with ample milk and sugar.
Before work, she reads and journals over coffee. Currently, she is reading Nabokov's love letters to his wife, Véra. She calls Nabokov one of her favorite writers but suspects from his letters that he was a neurotic love-bomber. After reading, she writes, working on a book to accompany her aerial theater piece, Mémoire. The book interlaces her writing, old journal entries, a film she directs, and aerial cello into one stage poem or one-woman show.
Work Tasks: Grammy Submission and Freelance Challenges
Her work that day included beginning the process of submitting the album accompanying Mémoire for Grammy consideration. She also followed up with a client about very overdue payments. She described this as feeling weirdly emotional, noting the freelancer life: you feel guilty asking for what you're worth or requesting what is due, and you're tempted to default to being nice because it feels easier in the moment.
Cellista admitted she is not good at taking breaks. She knows rest is better for her body and mind, but her mind chatters away, making it difficult to take enough time off from training.
Personal Connections and Evening Activities
Her favorite person she spoke to that day was her dad, a professor of philosophy for 42 years at the University of Denver. She shared her experience visiting Nietzsche's house in Naumburg, and they discussed Nietzsche's breakdown in Turin, when he tried to shield a horse from being beaten by its owner and became inconsolable at the horse's suffering. Nietzsche never recovered; it was the onset of the neurosyphilis that would kill him.
For dinner, since she was in Bayreuth for the Wagner Fest, she ate schäufele, roast pork shoulder with crispy skin, served with a potato dumpling the size of the moon and cabbage. She tries to sleep by midnight, watching old episodes of The X-Files every night, but nothing after season seven because it gets intolerable. She usually has a cup of cocoa and three Voortman Vanilla Wafers while watching, and passes out when Scully utters her last exasperated “Mulder!!!!”.
