We were lucky to catch up with Kaylin Saur recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kaylin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
In 2021, my career as a circus acrobat ended unexpectedly due to injury. I was told I needed open rotator cuff repair surgery, the healing time on which is more than 18 months to return to full function. By the time I was diagnosed, I had been in pain for nearly two years, and had been powering through as an athlete and artist training and performing full time. When my doctors told me I would have to give up performing I found myself, shockingly, relieved. The sudden loss of the career I’d worked so hard for was devastating, but I was looking forward to no more late night rehearsals or training, no more months of financial insecurity if a gig fell through, no more obsessing over what I ate or how I slept, no more constant audition hustle. I really thought I would never be an artist again, and that I was going to be happy with that.
Of course, depression lies to us all, and “you’ll be happy with a regular job” was one of the biggest lies mine ever told. Just months after surgery, I desperately missed being onstage. At the time my arm was still in a sling, so there was no way I could go back to all the tricks I’d done before. So I reinvented my drag persona to accommodate the body I now had and got back onstage as TJ Barr, even if I couldn’t go back as Kaylin yet. I leaned into comedy, and puppetry, and magic tricks to make up for the physical skills I didn’t know if I’d ever regain. I found that without the pressure of the constant hustle to make a living, without the pressure of being perfect or risking injury, I loved performing again. As my body healed and I started to get things back, I reintegrated more dancing and even light acrobatics into my work. I tried new things, and ended up getting into traditional theatre (albeit by starting with a multi-disciplinary variety show), and somehow found my way back to performing for a living just by saying yes to one gig at a time until they added up to enough. It turns out, I wasn’t ready to give up being an artist, I was just ready to stop constantly hurting myself for a career that I had always struggled to be enough for. An artist’s life is rarely easy, but I have come to believe that it’s crucial to recognize when the pain is productive and when you’re just doubling down in the belief that present struggle is somehow proportional to later happiness. Yes, hard work is necessary, but so are generosity, adaptability, humility, and resilience, and those are things you can practice while being happy (in fact, a little happiness makes them easier!). There is no guaranteed reward for suffering more. Knowing which kind of struggle is which is, I think, the key to being happy no matter where you end up — if you can figure out how to love the process, you’ll never regret the time you spent as an artist, regardless of whether it brings money, or fame, or any other external measure of “success” in the long-term.
Kaylin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I started my artistic career as a street performing acrobat in Anchorage, Alaska, a crazy choice at the age of 19 that eventually led to performing all over the world on cruises and cabarets. After unexpectedly leaving the circus in 2021, I found myself in San Diego and fell head over heels in love with the theatre and nightlife communities there, which sparked an artistic pivot that has allowed me to bring all the unusual skills I’ve acquired into one brand. These days, I call myself a “theatre artist in the loosest sense of the word ‘theatre’”, because I am a performing artist across many artforms. I am a director, drag king (like a drag queen, but my drag persona -TJ Barr- is a man), actor, dancer/acrobat, makeup artist, costume designer, and producer, and all of these things constantly inform each other. Throughout all the outward-facing creative projects, I am also a certified Strength and Conditioning Coach; my highly flexible private coaching practice focuses on providing high-quality physical training for other performing artists, especially those preparing extremely physical onstage roles or who are recovering from injury.
When onstage, I am best known for precise, evocatively physical performance across a wide spectrum of gender presentation and characters – last year alone I was everything from a greaser to a Shakespearean zombie! As a director and producer I am known for interactive multidisciplinary works that focus on the magic of everyday human emotions, and often for adding unique movement or music elements to plays. In terms of approaching all of these things, I bring an unusual blend of traits that has led people to jokingly refer to me as Count von Count (from Sesame Street): I am capable of being simultaneously a dramatic showman and the numbers guy on any given project. This combination of organization and zany creativity is one of the biggest gifts of my widely varied background as an artist and business owner.
The areas where I am most useful are those that need a unique point of view and benefit from a multi-faceted approach. A decade of performing in circuses and drag clubs has made me an expert in audience interaction, and I love any time I can bring a little bit of that flair to a more traditional theatre setting. I am constantly reaching out to new audiences – introducing drag lovers to straight plays, or bringing theatre-goers to an interactive game show. I always say that live performance should be for the audience, otherwise we should stay home and do it in our living rooms. Welcoming audiences, growing them, and getting them excited about new ideas is when I do my best work, whether that’s as a performer, director, producer, or teacher/coach.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I believe that the purpose of art is to create empathy, that pain is not the price of passion, and that everyone has a story to tell. Live performing arts (theatre in particular) has undergone such a cultural shift in recent years: we are trying to hear more voices, stand up for each artists’ rights as a human being to be in control of their body, time, and energy, and figure out how to be more inclusive in our work. I believe that the place where inclusivity is both most important and logistically easiest to practice is in the process. The part of my work that is seen by the audience, the actual show on the stage, doesn’t always feature themes of gender equality and women’s rights, or queer culture, or my intense belief that artists should be compensated for their time, but I can always bring all of those things to the rooms I run. Viewing each member of a creative team as an individual who can, should, and will have their own unique set of needs and skills, is a crucial step towards creating truly-inclusive creative culture, as well as the best way to foster new ideas and creative breakthroughs. If I can practice that every day, I am helping build a world in which people of all kinds of backgrounds appear on all kinds of stages, and regardless of what kind of the entertainment the audience enjoys I am helping create a world in which suffering is not an assumed part of being an artist, and creating opportunities for new creatives to have it easier than I did when I started out.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
The artists and art-lovers around you are an infinite well of resources that I always wish I had appreciated sooner! We always say booking work as a performer is partly about “who you know”, and it’s true, but when someone says that most people just think “oh, if I know the director I’m more likely to book it”. That’s not even close to the true value you get out of actively engaging with more people. If you dive deeply into developing honest relationships with other artists and people in the industry, not only might you hear about auditions earlier or get offered a role, you will also discuss new ideas, receive a wide range of inspiration, get regular feedback on your work, create a buffer against loneliness/burnout, and develop a network of people you can share resources with. On top of that, consciously practicing making new connections speeds up developing your crucial skills of playfulness, professionalism, and visibility, all with no barrier to entry except your availability and interest. My best advice to new performing artists is: “Ask someone you admire to have coffee sometime; you can get all kinds of great advice for the price of a latte”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tjalsokj.com
- Instagram: @tjalsokj
Image Credits
Aulio Ivan
Estefania Ricalde
Rich’s San Diego
Prine Photography
Daren Scott
Emerson Clarke
Oasis SF
Animate Objects Physical Theatre