So What is This About a Circus? In Your Pocket?

I suppose I should explain.

I have been involved in circus arts in various ways for twelve years. It all began when my parents took my brother (Pickolas) and me to Club Med Eleuthra (I know, I know, it sounds like "urethra"...shut up) where I tried the flying trapeze for the first time. It was all over after that. Since then I have studied acrobatics, static aerials, and flying trapeze (among other things) at the San Francisco Circus Center, I trained and worked at Club Med Sandpiper for a little while after college, I am the director of circus arts at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the summers (this summer will be my seventh in the circus department and my fourth as director), and I am also involved in aerials here in Seattle (I take lessons and classes from Darty, a local aerialist, circus founder, budding scientist, broke philanthropist, and altogether lovely person).

Aside from my own participation in aerial arts, I consider myself a student of The Circus in other ways as well. I will watch, read about, or listen to anything that has anything to do with circus, whether that means dragging my partner (Chrissymine) to Vegas to spend a stupid amount of money I don't have just to see Cirque du Soleil again, or pouring over human interest pieces from obscure newspapers that people send me, knowing how much I like that stuff (the latest was a piece about a woman in St. Louis who celebrated her 80th birthday by performing an aerial hoop routine for her friends and family--rock on, old lady!).

Anyway, since that summer when I was 16 and I first tried the flying trapeze, I've been thoroughly smitten with the circus. It's brought me more joy than anything else, anywhere, ever. I carry that joy around with me (in my pocket?) all the time. And I suppose I'm coming to the realization that "circusing" should be a bigger part of my life than perhaps I've allowed it to be.

Over the past year (since I got back into circus hardcore), I've been throwing around ideas about starting a circus school. At first I was playing it off as a joke, but...um...I really want to do it. I don't know when or where this would happen, but it doesn't really matter because there aren't enough circus schools in the U.S. anyway. This would all take money and some sort of business sense, not to mention a coaching staff...and...yeah, I don't have any of those things. So it's at the level of a pipe dream for now. But it's still exciting.

Ready for today's list?

Ideas for my circus school:

1) We would definitely have flying trapeze classes. If my school was mainly a flying trapeze school, in fact, I could do it here in Seattle without stepping on the toes of Darty or SANCA (the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts) or anybody else. I can't believe there isn't a fly rig anywhere near here already, by the way. There's gotta' be a market for it, considering how Seattlites seem to be always looking for new and interesting (or dangerous) ways to be active.

2) There would be programs for kids and adults.

3) There would be special programs too, like "circus for weight loss" workshops for women (that was Chrissymine's idea), a kid's troupe, little camps for kids during school holidays, and free or cheap workshops for certain populations (special needs and/or at-risk kids, victims of domestic violence, etc.).

4) A lot of circus schools have tried and failed, but I would like, eventually, to start a multi-year professional development program that would offer students comprehensive training geared toward making them marketable to the big circuses, or to giving them the tools to start their own troupes.

5) How would I do all of this? By myself? No. My dream would fizzle without a terrific coaching staff. Even if it were just a flying trapeze school, I would be useless as a teacher once students got through the basics. Besides, I can't pull lines and work the board and catch at the same time! I'd have to figure out a way to recruit amazing people to be a part of this endeavor.

6) I want the school to be a fun place to hang out. I picture a large building with people up in the air and upsidedown on the floor and juggling stuff, and the parents of the troupers hanging out chatting while their kids rehearse, and first time flying trapeze students freaking out about being up so high while reminding their friends on the ground to take the lens cap off of the digital camera...the picture is a lot like other circus schools at which I've been a student, only somehow warmer.

Look, don't get me wrong. I get that this is wildly optimistic. I get that it's an almost-surely unattainable dream. But we all have to have dreams, right? Something has to keep me sane while I toil away for two and a half more years of graduate school.

Now to think of a name...Pocket Circus? Eh, that's a list for another time.