The circus isn’t just about clowns on unicycles and bears jumping through hoops.
Toledo’s circus arts professionals are harnessing the playful, exploratory energy of the big top to teach people to fly.
Local companies have noticed circus arts classes growing more popular in recent years, in line with a nationwide trend. The classes are a creative outlet and a fitness challenge, inviting folks to replace the elliptical with the aerial silks and the treadmill with the trapeze.
“Circus is the perfect marriage between creativity and physical resources,” said Chloe Whiting Stevenson, co-owner of Toledo circus arts studio Bird’s Eye View. “It allows for folks to really explore finding strength and flexibility within their own bodies, as well as being able to explore storytelling or creating work in a movement-based way.”
Circus arts classes are offered at all levels and age groups, across a staggering number of disciplines that circusgoers might see within the ring when the professionals come to town. Bird’s Eye View’s main classes focus on aerial apparatuses like silks, hammock, lyras (a suspended metal hoop), and stationary trapeze. They also offer training in juggling, hula hooping, acrobatics, tightrope, and balance skills like the walking globe or rola-bola, according to Whiting Stevenson.
Circus arts helps to build flexibility, strength, balance, and stamina in an exciting new way, Whiting Stevenson said.
“I always say, I enjoy it a little more than the gym,” she added, laughing.
Although it may be hard to believe while watching seasoned aerialists float through the sky, suspended by nothing but a length of fabric, there is a low barrier of entry to circus arts.
“Usually, people surprise themselves at how much they can accomplish within their first class,” said Morgan Sopko, another co-owner of Bird’s Eye View. She teaches aerial silks and trapeze. “The really big step is for people to actually sign up, but once they sign up it’s a really positive experience for them. It allows them to grow as a person, whether that’s physical or mental.”
Whiting Stevenson said that her least favorite phrase to hear from students is, “I could never do that.” This is absolutely untrue, she claimed.
“I just love seeing folks thrive with it and discover new things about themselves,” she said. “It truly is open and accessible for everybody.”
Originally operating out of a single classroom in the Collingwood Arts Center in the Old West End, Bird’s Eye View has “exploded” over the years, Whiting Stevenson said. Aerialist Erin Garber-Pierson founded the studio in 2012, and it’s since grown to occupy two studios and an entire theater at the Collingwood Arts Center.
Garber-Pierson recently stepped away from the studio, and four instructors — Whiting Stevenson, Sopko, Renee Granados, and Matthew Miller — took over ownership.
The studio now offers classes every day of the week except for Fridays, and teaches about 50 to 70 students during each four-week session.
“With where the world is now, a lot of people are willing to put more effort into experiences, especially when those experiences are physically beneficial,” said Brittany Loren, an instructor at Bird’s Eye View and the owner of GLOvation Circus, a Toledo circus entertainment group.
Loren said that there has “definitely” been a blossoming of interest in the circus arts in Toledo since she started taking classes at Bird’s Eye View in 2014.
She first fell in love with the circus arts in 2012, when it became an escape during a “really difficult time.” A friend introduced her to hoop dancing, and she soon enrolled in classes in other disciplines at Bird’s Eye View. Now, she is also an aerialist, stilt walker, and fire performer.
In 2018, she founded GLOvation Circus, a professional circus company that now employs 30 different contract performers in northwest Ohio. GLOvation Circus entertainers perform at smaller gatherings like birthdays or graduation parties, as well as at larger events and festivals; on July 15, for example, they appeared at the Bowling Green Firefly Night Festival. They also hold their own expositions, featuring fully choreographed acts with fire performers, aerialists, acrobats, and light shows.
“Circus arts is a unique expression of art and performance art that helps to specifically bring joy and magic-like entertainment to others,” Loren said. “It can be anything from playing with a singular prop and creating art by movement, or it can be something grander, like creating a story and expressing that in a different way.”
Bird’s Eye View also has its own performance troupe, which takes the stage at events like the Old West End Festival, displaying elaborate routines and storylines expressed through circus arts. On July 31, three Bird’s Eye View instructors are scheduled to perform at the Art Loop’s Summer Spectacular.
Instructors at the studio all entered circus arts from different directions. Some are former cheerleaders and gymnasts, while others developed a passion for movement at a much later age, taking a class at Bird’s Eye View on a whim.
What unites them is a love for this blend of art, fitness, and performance that they hope to share with as much of the Toledo community as possible.
“As an adult, there’s not a lot of opportunities for us to play and be silly or sometimes serious and embody a character,” Sopko said. “I really love that circus includes that but is also a physical activity, so it helps keep me healthy, keeps me moving and keeps me thinking creatively.”
First Published July 24, 2022, 12:00 p.m.
