An Interview with a Circus Performer

“At first, I totally just saw it as a hobby and never intended for it to be a career”, confessed Rianna Brennan, circus artist and coach, who picked up a pair of stilts one day in middle school and has climbed to new heights every day since.  When you enroll in a circus camp for fun at 12 years old, in all probability, you don’t anticipate that your future will include teaching one of the world’s highest-paid supermodels to fly trapeze in stilettos for the cover of a magazine—or having to do so yourself on set of a commercial for a reputable shoe brand—but this life, I suppose you have to learn to expect the unexpected—life’s a circus after all.

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to see Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. I couldn’t tell you much about it because I fell asleep. Falling asleep in the presence of such a lively performance might seem unfathomable, but the list of other places I’ve fallen asleep includes firework shows, concerts, the middle of Magic Kingdom at Disney World during its peak season, and broadway plays (including Les Misérables—where I turned around at 5 years old and told my parents the show was making me “les miserable” before resting my head on the armrest and falling asleep). This limited experience at Cirque du Soleil (which I thought was called “Circus Olé” at my early age) and my love for “Circus” by Britney Spears are the only examples I have of coming close to being immersed in the circus world. Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to visit Circus Academy New York and sit down with circus artist and coach, Rianna Brennan—who took a leap of faith by agreeing to chat with me and familiarized me with all that circus artists like herself have to juggle.

Lucy Geldziler: So you’re a circus performer and a coach? What types of circus artistry do you practice and teach? Is it mainly trapeze, other forms?

Rianna Brennan: With flying trapeze, I work all the positions. I work as a board worker—who is holding the people’s belts, making sure everyone is safe jumping off the platform. I’m also a lines puller. Flyers stay in safety lines. We tell people that trapeze is like a game of “Simon Says”. We tell people what to do and when to do it. It's a game of physics, so I’m pulling their lines but staying two steps ahead to give them the calls for when they need to move. I’m a catcher as well. I love catching students. We start catching students as early as the first class. I also do aerials and dance trapeze. I also am a stilt walker and teach that. I teach the kids aerials, juggling, trampoline, etc. I do a little bit of everything because as a professional circus artist, you kind of have to.

I guess you could say she’s juggling quite a lot.

RB: My favorite is probably aerials and flying trapeze. Then again, I can’t really pick a favorite because it’s like comparing apples and oranges. 

LG: Do you think the circus is a dying form of entertainment? Is its heyday in the rearview mirror? 

RB: Not at all. I think the opposite, but in a sort of different era. I think there’s been a rise in popularity in it because it’s been recreationalized. In the 1900s, it was uncommon to get involved without being born into it or kind of get scouted. It’s sort of being born again. We have hundreds of students we see on a weekly basis, but we are getting thousands and thousands of new applicants each year. The circus is ever-changing and evolving and taking different forms. Companies like Cirque du Soleil are more focused on performance and theatrics, but we have other forms and more contemporary flying companies. 

LG: Do you ever get to work with animals? 

RB: No.

LG: Where do graduates of your schools go after this? 

RB: Right now we’re in this transition period. We just did our first performance program for children who wanted to train more rigorously. I wanted to audition for a program at one of the larger schools like NECCA in Vermont or National Centre for Circus Arts in London. There are a lot in Canada too. Those are traditionally 2-4 years. After that, you audition for one of the bigger circus companies—like Cirque du Soleil or Seven Fingers—if that’s something you’re interested in. You can also coach and do smaller gigs around the city. There’s a different path for everyone, but it depends what you want to get out of it.

I had no idea there were so many different circus schools and there was such a structured path of education you could take until this conversation.

LG: Do you think the circus—especially clowns—have gotten a bad rap after horror movies like It, the Freak Show season of American Horror Story, and killer clowns like John Wayne Gacy?

RB: Horror films freak me out, so I never really watch them, so I’m not really sure how to answer this, but I definitely think there’s a negative connotation when it comes to circuses—like when people use terms like “it’s a circus over there” in a derogatory manner.

LG: What do you think can be done to rehab their image?

RB: I’m not sure because the word “derogatory” might even be too heavy now because the times have changed and not as many circus performers are exploited and it’s been recreationalized. In the past, when circus performers were being seriously exploited, I think these things and language we use might have had more of a negative effect, but now that times have changed, it’s not as detrimental.

This assuaged some of my apprehension because I had intended on using some circus idioms and puns in this very article, so I would’ve had to steer away from doing so if they were in any way detrimental to the circus community (they may be cheesy, but as long as I know they’re not ignorant, I’m in the clear).

LG: What does your family think of your profession? Have they ever come to see you? What did they think? 

RB: They have but not often because they live far away, but I’ll send them videos. I’m fortunate enough to come from a family who is very supportive.

LG: How long have you been performing? What was the process of how you got to this academy like? 

RB: I started very late. I went to two different circus camps when I was 12. The first one was in the middle of the woods with 50-acre fields, yurts, etc. Half the day was focused on nature and yoga and the other half focused on circus skills. 

If she didn’t say the other half was focused on circus skills, this kind of sounds like a glorified rehab to me.

RB: I left that because I was kind of the oldest there, and I wanted to push myself more and not be aging out, so I went to this other place where I was the youngest by 3 years. That one was definitely more rigorous, but I had an amazing experience and all the coaches were so kind. That’s where I learned how to stilt walk and asked my parents for my first pair of stilts—which are still the ones I use today. My parents were very supportive. 

I put my circus hobbies on pause for a little bit after that because high school was very busy and I was focused on academics. 

I suppose that despite the fact that her stilts might have made it easy for her to have her head in the clouds, she still needed to ground herself and focus on other things.

RB: Flash forward to my first year after college, and I wanted to be physically active again and remembered loving this, so I found a circus school near my college and signed up for a trapeze class. I kept training and loved it and came down to New York and wanted to start flying trapeze, so I kept taking more classes, and at first, I totally just saw it as a hobby and never intended for it to be a career. Then I auditioned for a company in Boston and got in and trained and got offered a job here, and now I’m here. I feel like my process was kind of expedited, but that’s not everybody’s case.

LG: Have you ever faced a work-related injury? What safety measures do you have to take? 

RB: Like any sport, injuries are a part of the game. I was out for a whole year after I dislocated my shoulder and broke it. I actually put my shoulder back in myself. 

I gasped upon hearing this. That’s badass.

RB: I’ve had many injuries but that was the first significant one I had. I’ve sprained things, torn things, and dealt with a bunch of small breaks here and there. We take safety very seriously and do a lot of physical therapy to maintain the longevity of our health.

LG: What’s the most interesting story you can think of on the spot that you have from all your time working as a circus performer? 

RB: I got to teach Gigi Hadid trapeze. It was for a magazine cover. I was pulling her safety lines for this, and she’s like the nicest, loveliest, most respectful human and really just wanted to learn and had a lot of trust in us. This ginormous crew came, and I asked her why she was flying trapeze for the magazine cover, and she said it was her decision because she tried flying trapeze as a little kid and loved it, so she wanted to try it again. She did the whole thing in stilettos and climbed up the whole ladder wearing them and was serving the whole time.

I also did trapeze in stilettos recently for a Steve Madden commercial. That was a wild experience—even though they cut out like 95% of my part. They had to tape the heels to my feet so they wouldn’t fly off. I had to wear them for like 12 hours and was jealous of everyone else who got to take theirs off throughout the day. There was a fog machine and a disco ball and bubble guns. 

Truthfully, some of the aforementioned words even existing in the same paragraph together is unfathomable to me, but who knew that such a skill could be of use not once but twice? I suppose that when it comes to the world of trapeze, nothing is out of reach.

LG: What would you say is the biggest misconception about the circus/circus performers? 

RB: People think that getting to Cirque du Soleil and companies like that is like the “be all, end all” or biggest achievement in the world of circus, but it may not be for everyone. The circus kind of works in tiers. It’s like how some people think that getting Harvard is like the ultimate achievement in school (What, like, it’s hard?), but there’s a different path for everyone. If life ever did provide me with the opportunity to be a part of big companies like Cirque du Soleil, I’d be interested, but as of right now, I’m just focused on university.

LG: Is there anything else you’d like the people to know? 

RB: Circus is for everybody. Everybody should try it. A lot of people think they’re not in-shape enough or they’re too old, but truly anybody can do it.

If you’d like to take Rianna’s advice, here’s the website of Circus Academy New York—where she teaches: https://www.circusacademy.com/ (I, for one, had a pair of silts in my online shopping cart after speaking with her).

—

While Rianna assuaged me of my circus-related ignorance with her thorough, articulate, and enlightening answers, she simultaneously stretched, geared up, and fueled up with a granola bar. She briefed me on the importance of food when it comes to her routine. She prefers not to get going on a fully empty stomach, but is also disinclined to eating a full meal before—walking a tightrope between overfueling and underfueling. Like any athlete, diet is an important part of their regimen, and for Rianna—as a circus performer, it’s all about finding balance. 

As we conversed and she prepared herself for action, I concluded that if Rianna is even half as good at what she does as she is eloquent and charming, then everybody who enters Circus Academy New York is in good hands — figuratively and literally. 

After she was ready, Rianna swung right into action and we had the pleasure of watching her do a few tricks. I was so awestruck and inspired while watching her fly trapeze that I was attempting to discreetly research circus classes near me on the side (but quickly closed out of my tab because I was unwilling to miss even a nanosecond of what she was doing). 

Editor-in-chief, Mark Bluemle was by my side capturing it all, and I wish I could say I meant it idiomatically when I say he was jumping with joy, but there were moments where his feet were, in fact, inches off the ground. Perhaps this is why we had to ask Rianna to do some of the same tricks multiple times for clearer photos. One thing’s for certain—there was absolutely no way I was falling asleep watching this performance.

Rianna—like many other artists—felt inclined to put her circus artistry on a hiatus to focus on practicality—walking a tightrope between dreams and reality—but these recommenced in later years and unexpectedly metamorphosed into a career when she hopped on the trapeze bars again and has flown to new heights ever since. I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned there. I’ll spare you of the clichés like “follow your dreams” or “shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”, but Rianna, who found herself back on the trapeze bars for a living, is a walking (and flying) testimony that nothing is out of reach—so shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you’ll land safely on a mat below you, doing what you love, with someone pulling your lines and catching you—all while wearing Steve Madden Stilettos.

Written by Lucy Geldziler

Photography by Mark Bluemle @barks.mindd