The Extra Mile Adventure

Name: Summer Shapiro
Role: Bus Peopler
Age: 25
Hometown: San Francisco

Who are you and what do you do?
My mother tells me that when I was four years old a guru, Gurumayi, bopped me on the head with a peacock feather and said to me, “She likes to fly.” As I have grown up, forgetting about what Gurumayi said, I have found that my life has become entirely about learning to fly. I find myself reaching forward and stretching myself constantly, the amount of growing pains and the magic of all of it really does parallel flying – that free falling feeling at the beginning when you take that chance you were so afraid to take and then the triumph of soaring onward into uncharted territory is exactly what the last few years of my life have felt like. Martha Graham once said, “Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.” A few years ago I graduated college- very passionate and very defeated, like what next? I went to clown school.

Now I am a young woman growing at a very rapid rate:
I am a physical comedienne who writes and performs her own shows, who loves working with people, who loves creating the space for people to come home to themselves: www.summershapiro.com.

I am a regional director of a non-profit where I get to supervise households of young 20-something Jewish adults as they create their expression of a young vibrant Jewish community from their homes: www.moishehouse.org.

I am a resident artist at the Climate Theater in San Francisco and have premiered 2 original physical comedy/clown plays there since this past April ’08: www.climatetheater.com. I just returned from the New York Clown Theater Festival with my clown partner from Hawaii.

I am very passionate about growth and personal development. As I grow those around me do as well, the impact I can have on my community infinitely increases each time I grow in areas I didn’t know I had room to grow in. The current methodologies I have had incredible success, and rapidly developed my flying skills, with are Landmark Education and The Landmark Forum: www.landmarkeducation.com as well as delving into meditation and energy healing at The Foundation For Spiritual Development in San Rafael.

On the horizon I see developing a workshop series for performers wherein they gain a new connection to their commitment and passion for their craft free from their fears of failing – inside of that I plan on assisting them in accessing freedom and full creative self expression. Additionally, I am currently looking how to take my physical comedy to the next professional/international level, and well as finally opening up to the possibility of dating and relationship!

What is important to you in this world?
1. That people get how powerful they are and go for what they truly want in life regardless of their circumstances. “Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.” – Martha Graham
2. Love, affinity, honest communication, compassion, acceptance, listening, freedom, and copious amounts of laughter.
3. Allowing others to have their realities.
4. Breaking out of the illusory world, being powerfully related to reality, and creating miracles for oneself and others from there!
5. Self-acknowledgement and love – if I could dig on myself as much as I dig on everybody else magic would occur! Now, imagine if everyone could love themselves for who they truly are – the world would look very different…

Your childhood dream; your adult dream?
When I was very small I would say, “I never want to grow up and I want to be Peter Pan.” (Interesting, he’s a flyer). Then a got a little older and thought, well if I have to grow up I at least want people to like me, so I said, “I either want to be an Olympic gymnast or a famous actress.” Now, I say, “I want to breath new life into large amounts of people, to be completely human in front of them, giving them the permission to be who they truly are. I want to bring people home to themselves.” I see opportunities to do this anywhere I go, but the one place I am continually drawn back to doing it is on stage.

What inspires you about TEMA and why are you contributing?
It’s a Peter Pan project in adults clothing! It’s a huge flight out of the normal routine of life, and into a world of making a difference. It’s being fully self-expressed, what ever that looks like to each individual, and being courageous enough to do something that is bigger than our day-to-day constructed identity we have gotten so very attached to. To be who we really are, to have our life used by something larger than our petty concerns of looking good or doing things right, is a huge contribution. To simply be in the presence of such a force gives others something that wouldn’t have been available otherwise. Now, imagine 18 individuals being who they truly are and being that together. Now, that is a something worth leaping for.

What are you passionate about?
“There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.” - Martha Graham

What is your favorite food?
Green things!

Have you ever left the country?
Lived in Dublin, Ireland for a year, traveled to Spain, Amsterdam, London, France, Israel, Guatemala, and Mexico.

What is your educational background?
BA in Acting and UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Certificate program at The Clown Conservatory, San Francisco, Ca.

Tell an extremely memorable moment.
It was Sept. 11, 2001. The twin towers were burning and it was my best friend’s birthday. We had gone to pre-school together and now we were waiting for our first year of college to start. We saw two options for the day: one was to sit still, think of the pain, fear, and horror happening in NY and then go to sleep. The second, to use the life we were inhabiting. We spent the day together and were so alive. We promised to celebrate life for those who couldn’t. At the end of the day, the sun was setting and we drove through Presidio Park. The eucalyptus trees were flipping by like cards in a deck or a slowed down old-fashioned movie reel. The sun was blasting through each on flashing on and off across our faces. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen. I was filled with gratitude.

Tell us a joke.
What kind of bee makes milk instead of honey?

A BOOBIE!