By Bob Audette, Vermont Country Magazine.
The high-vaulted trapezium of the New England Center for Circus Arts echoes with the voices of people who have traveled from all over the world to spend a week learning aerial fabric acrobatics or perfecting their pole dancing.
One man hangs upside down from a 20-foot-long fabric hanging from the ceiling, weaving intricate knots with his arms and legs while a woman practices handstands. More than two dozen other people are in the process of jumping, rolling, leaping, and twisting all around the padded space as Serenity Smith Forchion, who founded NECCA with her sister, Elsie Smith, in 2007, watches the bodies gyrate at just before noon on a Friday.
“The Pro Track program ended last week and we are now hosting week-long workshops until our summer programming starts,” she said.
The NECCA ProTrack program is a full-time, three-year professional circus training program offered by the New England Center for Circus Arts. It’s designed for performance careers that require dance, theater, tumbling, hand balancing, juggling, and more.
Those folks get the summer off but activity never ceases at the trapezium, with week-long intensive classes in circus skills such as aerial hoop, trapeze, and ropes. NECCA also offers focused workshops such as Dance Trapeze and Performance Boot Camp.
The people filling the gym with their voices and bodies in June are from all over, said Forchion.
“Some of them are aspiring professionals and some are recreational. The guy who’s standing there with his hands on his hips, Matt,” she said, pointing to a 50-something person wearing knee pads and wrist splints, “he’s from Houston. Last year he came up for this workshop and he loved it so much he told his friends about it.”
“I’m aching, said Matt Ho, during a lunch break. Ho said a friend talked about a workshop she attended last year at NECCA and he thought it might be fun to try.
“I told my boss that I’m leaving for the circus,” said Ho, who practices on what is known as the wheel, or a cyr wheel, which acrobats use to perform spirally loops and rolling maneuvers on the gym floor.
“It takes a lot of energy and focus,” said Ho. “I just have to shut it off and enjoy being in the moment, and so it’s a great way to turn everything off, and because you’re being flung upside down, left and right, it’s almost like a ride like amusement park ride.”
Having fun and tuning out the world was only part of the benefit for him as an older person.
“About a year ago, I had a doctor’s appointment, and he told me, ‘Matt, you’ve gained too much weight. You’ve got high blood pressure, you’re pre-diabetic.’ I didn’t do any sort of physical activity. I literally just sat behind a computer and typed.”
Ho had seen an acrobatic performance a few years before and it was so amazing it stuck in his head.
‘I loved it so much but it never occurred to me that I could do it.”
“There are a lot of lot of different stories in this room,” said Forchion. “Someone can be taking a beginner lesson on something they’ve never tried it before, and then next minute, they’re taking an advanced skills class. On one level, it’s very physical. They all take joy from being in their bodies … their spirit and their physical are very connected. Whether they’re aspiring to be a performer or just doing it for the physical joy in a welcoming space that is open to all shapes and sizes and physical abilities.”
Kennedy Brown, who just completed the NECCA’s three-year ProTrack program, moved to Brattleboro from Houston to work on her clown-contortionist alter ego, Pom Pom Cuddle.
“I’ll be moving wherever the wind takes me,” said Brown, who plans on spending the summer at NECCA before following the wind.
“I also have a dance trapeze clowning act,” she said. “It’s really funny, but a little scary. It really connects with the audience about relating to the hard things that we do.”
CC Smith, who traveled from Reno, Nevada, for the week-long course, works in the tech industry.
“I did gymnastics when I was 8 or 9 years old,” she said. “I stopped but I think it was always within me. As an adult, I found aerial fabric and aerial yoga.”
Smith said there is limited availability of high-level courses in Reno, but she hopes to bring back the skills she is sharpening so she can work on her own, unique aerial act.
“I’m part of a circus group that just formed the past year called the Biggest Little Circus. We do different events, whether it’s festivals or special events here and there. “I’m looking forward to building a routine based off of the new content I am learning this week.”
Forchion said learning circus arts can be a challenge for people who are driven to excel.
“There’s a lot of failure,” she said. “Imagine learning how to juggle. You’re going to drop balls forever. But the failure is celebrated as a part of the process of learning. And you may one day get to a point where you don’t drop the balls, but probably not. You’ll probably be performing and still drop the ball. And that’s OK.”
It helps to be in a community of other people who are dropping balls, she said, and sharing and laughing about their mistakes.
In addition to its three-year professional program, NECCA offers week-long intensives, daily drop-in workshops, youth programs, summer programs, and a specialized program for older adults.
“Anyone from the community can come in and take a class,” said Forchion.
Forchion said NECCA also offers private classes for families, friends or coworkers.
In November, NECCA is hosting the first Vermont Circus Festival, an offshoot of a weekend circus workshop that was started years ago. The festival will include performances, seminars and free classes for the community.
To learn more, visit necenterforcircusarts.org.
Bob Audette a cranky old white guy, is experiencing the world anew under the tutelage of an 11-year-old forest sprite. He’s been writing for the Brattleboro Reformer for nearly two decades.
