Rylynn Voykin, a 16-year-old aerial silks artist, loves being high in the air and then dropping.
“I love the drops,” she says, “just letting go and falling, and knowing that you’re secure. But also feeling like there’s a little bit of fear, but the fear is freeing.”
Rylynn was one of the 130 performers in Discover Circus’s showcase at the Capitol Theatre this past weekend. She and other young aerial silks performers spoke with the Nelson Star at a dress rehearsal the day before the event.
Performer Navah De Chezet, age 12, also talked about a feeling of freedom.
“You feel very carefree and you don’t think about anything else, really. This is one of the only things that I do right now that lets me think that way.”
Mackenzie Savill, who has been an instructor at Discover Circus since its beginnings 2015, says they are teaching the young performers self-expression and self-discipline through play. They work hard with skills training and physical conditioning, but the point is to do it playfully.
“The classes themselves are half conditioning and half skill-focused. But we have lots of games to make conditioning fun. Climbing the silks itself is a pretty good workout.”
She says just the basic act of climbing the silks takes time to learn.
“They’re trying for a few weeks or months or however long it takes their individual journey. And then all of a sudden they can do it. And we build up from there.”
Another instructor, Jake the Lady, told the Nelson Star that the unique thing about the students’ performances is that they take place on “a stage in the air.”
She explained that “aerial arts are very specific, it takes a lot of careful wrapping, technique and precision to execute those skills, especially on stage. The students have so much involvement in creating the pieces. It really is a collaborative process which I think makes them feel even more proud.”
Each season Discover Circus has about 200 students, ranging in age from three to 60, with 11 instructors who teach partner acrobatics, aerial hoop, aerial silks, trapeze, clowning, and flow arts (hula hooping, poi, dancing, and spinning sword).
Back at the dress rehearsal, Violet Kasai, age nine, told the Nelson Star that her most recently-learned skill is “a thing where you roll, and then you flip. And it’s super fun.”
She said it was hard at first, but they are given lots of time to practice.
Asked about the next skill she hopes to learn, Violet said, “I want to learn where you flip forward twice, or maybe even three times.”
She said she likes performing in front of a crowd because it’s “scary and exciting.”
Kyren Gagnon, age 10, wore a bright gold costume with dark make-up around his eyes.
“I have black for my makeup because it’s like a storm starts before a rainbow.”
Kyren said he has fun learning new tricks, “and I really like performing in front of a big audience.”
His favourite trick, he said, is “the double waterfall, where you flip twice.”
“I love seeing the passion come through,” Savill said, “and fostering that. I love giving students an opportunity to perform and seeing them shine on stage. It fills my heart and I know it’s filling theirs as well.”