Catch Me, I’m Falling
Trust and Transformation in Trapeze Culture
By Trad Sevin | Photos by Tyler Boshard
There’s a moment of displacement in flying trapeze where you’re forced to fall in faith. It follows your jump from the top, after you’ve expelled every ounce of power and thrown your trick, when you hear the catcher shout, “Hup!” and you just…let go. In this moment, the sky holds you. There’s no turning back and the landscape swirls around so much you can’t tell up from down. If your hands are sweaty, the chalk consumes. This suspension is the push and pull that defines flying trapeze, and the reason we come back for more.
The first time I saw a trapeze act from the ground was at La Nouba, the Orlando-based show by Cirque du Soleil in Downtown Disney. It was December, and my Mom and I took a southbound trip to celebrate a birthday, balmy thrills, the Swan and Dolphin Resort, and cartoon rats. The trip itself was a treat; cinematic Orlando felt lightyears away from our pinewood hamlet of Hilton Head Island. The regality and thundering might of Disney was overwhelming, and I was more than content with a few rides and a visit to Animal Kingdom. But Mom had a special surprise that lingered all weekend. Friday morning, I glimpsed the first billboard for La Nouba featuring the colorful and beguiling Green Bird character, eyeing us from the interstate. By Sunday night, my 13th birthday was in full swing under the big top where I was hypnotized by the artistry, the intoxicating story — and, of course, the flying trapeze.
My youth was marked by movement. Every couple of years, Mom and I relocated around the Southern United States. We swung between Mississippi, North Georgia, New Orleans and coastal South Carolina, where we stayed the longest. ‘Displacement’ was just another word to me and something I embraced because it represented mobility; new places, new experiences. Even on Hilton Head Island, a tiny resort town painted beige, the need to lunge forward and steal the unknown was pronounced for all of us local kids, who couldn’t wait to leave after graduation.
Upon our return from Orlando that December, with a tote bag full of La Nouba swag and one clump of “real swamp” my Mom snuck into a ziploc on the drive back, I created my first resumé in Microsoft Word. I outlined my experience (had none), my education (average student), and special skills (‘Beyblade champion for homeroom, can also do a handstand for five seconds’). I printed one copy, stapled the two sheets together, and handed it to Mom in the kitchen one morning — I was running away to the circus.
Without an upward glance, she said, “No, absolutely not.” Naturally, I was crushed, and my circus dream was fiercely locked and stowed away. To be fair, the island had few resources for supporting this dream, and Mom was leading with the only impression she had of the circus at that point, which was Barnum & Bailey’s traveling hodgepodge. Even still, I watched our La Nouba DVD religiously and fed my cravings with local theater. One Halloween, I made a botched attempt at the alluring Green Bird character, whose outward gaze from the billboard in Orlando lived rent-free in my mind.
When I was 17, word got around that a woman had just moved to town and opened a “movement studio”, the first of its kind on the island. Move & Motion offered dance classes, as well as introductory lessons in aerial silks, lyra, juggling, and static trapeze. Our theater community was buzzing with excitement, for Suzette Michaud Springer, founder and squad captain, was a performer with Big Apple Circus and Cirque du Soleil. The circus had finally come to town, and I didn’t waste a second in reserving my spot on the roster. Luckily, I was the sole sign-up for static trapeze, a stationary cousin to what had bewitched me in Orlando years before. Static trapeze employs a unique blend of theatricality and body performance on a single bar suspended in air, uniting other aerial disciplines like lyra with the trapeze space. After a few months of training, Suzette approached my Mom with a progress report.
“Your son has the drive and could do really well with this, I’d like to bring him to Savannah three times a week to train and prepare him for Cirque,” was the gist of her proposal, to which Mom abruptly shut down. I was entering my senior year of high school, and the only place she expected me to prepare for was a college campus.
So much time had passed from that disappointing exchange…I met my husband, lived in a handful of different places and, in February of 2022, lost my Mom to a decades-long battle with cancer. At the time, we were living in Atlanta and, after accumulating years of ghosts and redundancy across the South, we were hungry for change of any caliber. When Mom entered hospice care, we had been mapping our move westward. She passed on a Tuesday morning, the same week we planned to drive to Las Vegas and start a new chapter. On the road, I was torn between guttural agony and the quiet anticipation of beginning a new life somewhere far away. I felt the gravity at both ends of the horizon, but it was strangely familiar — displacement, and the panic of leaping into the unknown.
Many consider Las Vegas to be the entertainment capital of the world. That being said, the move was a matter of family, not reputation. In fact, before relocating to Las Vegas at the top of 2022, I had only visited once in my life and most of that trip was spent in Summerlin. The rich labyrinths of art weren’t discovered until we arrived, plunging head-first into the city’s iconic luster. For many industries, Las Vegas is the main stage marquee, an international crossroads that rewards the risk-takers. The city is transformative, evolving and embracing new ideas before they grow wings and take flight on their own. With all that muscle, the kaleidoscopic terrain can be overwhelmingly cinematic in a Disney World capacity. Leaving the bare branches of home behind, what I craved more than anything was a sense of belonging, a lightbulb on the marquee to drive out the dark.
I know that if she were here today, Mom would be proud to see me swinging into my dreams, the whimsical ones from childhood. Those are the passions that keep us moving, if we can remember to never forget them.
So when I discovered that Las Vegas was actually a hotbed for circus arts, my inner child sprang at the opportunity to finally take flight at Trapeze Las Vegas (TLV), an outdoor rig that also provided training in other disciplines. In March of 2023, I climbed the ladder to the fly board for the first time, overlooking the Strip from the lot’s location off Sunset Road. As I gripped the bar with my right hand, preparing to jump off the platform and swing into the unknown, an airplane flew over the rig and landed on the tarmac just a few thousand feet away from us. The breeze was gentle, while down below the voice of Richie Gaona shouted “Hup!”, and I stepped off the board.
Renato Fernandes, founder of Mestre Trapeze Academy, mends a piece of the rig net, which is inspected before every practice.
As we worked to assimilate into our new home, my time at TLV became paramount in securing a sense of community in a new environment. I found that my story was not so different from others that flew next to me. Kahn Pulsipher, one of my aerial instructors and a comrade in queerness, found his own sense of belonging and self-discovery through circus arts. A native of Brigham City, Utah, Kahn left the oppressive and limiting environments of childhood at 18 and found solace in the circus in Boise, Idaho, where he joined the artists at Revel Movement (formerly Ophidia Studio) and uncovered a new passion for trapeze at Fly! Boise. We unpacked the queries of queerness over coffee one morning. For Kahn, finding the circus meant finding himself.
“The way I grew up was so extremist, we weren’t allowed to see anything above a PG rating and that included anything circus,” Kahn said.
In Boise, a small but mighty circus community was brewing when he arrived in 2016, revealing a colorful palette of individuals who were comfortable with themselves and their bodies. This environment created space for Kahn to explore his identity as a queer person and stretch his legs as an aerialist, two things that were wholly discouraged back home.
“I was allowed to be myself, which was so weird for me at that time but it started with circus,” he explained. “It was so different, I flew head over heels!”
By contrast, my understanding of the circus world was fueled by flamboyance. In many ways, I viewed circus arts as an extreme iteration of community theater, which was how I spent most of my time growing up. That included the costumes, the makeup, the drama. When I found the circus world in Las Vegas, I was surprised to call Kahn my only queer friend in the ring, despite the magnitude of talent that circulates throughout the city.
“It completely shattered my understanding of physics and how to move through the world,” Kahn said. “It gave me the freedom to be myself and to control what I can control, like my body.”
Trapeze in particular is a highly-intensive sport that demands discipline and commitment, with plenty of wear and tear on the body. It’s like the crossfit of the circus world. Different bodies require different approaches, and gender remains a focal point for trapeze acts where men are the overwhelming majority on the catcher’s bar.
“On the spectrum of sexuality, I’m all over the place,” Kahn said. “I didn’t know that was a possibility until I saw different people, and the circus community is home to all kinds of people, it’s where a lot of the weirdos of society gather, and it was home to me.”
Kahn relocated to Las Vegas in 2021, where he joined the staff at Trapeze Las Vegas as an instructor. The rig at TLV was fertile ground for newcomers like myself and the truckloads of tourists who descend on the valley looking for an adrenaline rush. The view at the top of the fly board was unmatched, with a special seduction in the twilight. Sadly, in September of 2023, Trapeze Las Vegas closed indefinitely, with plans to relocate in the new year. As I helped Richie Goana, a decorated stuntman and trapeze artist who worked on the 1956 film “Trapeze”, break down the rig one last time, I wondered if the curtain was drawn for my own trapeze journey. Las Vegas is playfully known as “Circus City”, thanks in large part to its robust catalog of stellar Strip shows, the free circus acts at Circus Circus, and mammoth-sized utility like the Las Vegas Circus Center (LVCC). With so many resources, it was unlikely that the road came to an end right there on Sunset. As I learned in my lessons, you fly as high as you push.
A clean, powerful swing is the foundation of flying trapeze.
“What other sport or lifestyle allows you to create your own gravity?” Kahn prophetically reminded me.
In the summer of 2023, just before the closing of TLV, I left a toxic work environment. The gravity of that decision forced me to look down, but I resisted. The uncertainty of unemployment, paired with the sudden dismantling of the rig I had learned to fly on, presented a unique challenge in the final months of 2023. Sometimes I would visit Circus Circus for cheap thrills; enjoy a small pizza from Big Top Eats, put a couple of dollars in the silver machines at Slots-A-Fun, and watch the free trapeze show in The Midway with a bag of popcorn. It was an easy escape from reality that served me the same way Circus Circus served the common person every day.
Just when I began to feel the weight of my own decisions, my circus sister, Saivi (V) Lara, who started flying at TLV the same time as me, spoke of another rig she had found in the city that could serve as a placeholder. The rig was owned by Renato Fernandes, a Gold Clown recipient from the Festival International Du Cirque De Monte Carlo (the Oscars of the circus world) and a former trapeze artist from La Nouba, the advent of my flying trapeze fascination. I was speechless.
That October, I began missing home. The fall season around the South is a remarkable sight, especially in places like Atlanta where apple orchards, hiking trails and autumn leaves speak to the soul. More so, I was thinking about Mom, and what she might say if I told her what was going on at that moment. I still watch the La Nouba DVD from time to time and remember how she planted the seeds for circus without realizing the impact it would have, and how the warmer parts of life have a funny way of circling back around when you need them most, like the falling of red leaves.
In the circus community, Renato has gained legacy status for his breakthrough performances in trapeze and for his work in Las Vegas. In La Nouba, Renato became the first man in history to throw a double twisting double layout and a half in 2016, a feat he fortified at the 2020 Festival International Du Cirque De Monte Carlo, where he was awarded the Gold Clown by Prince Albert II and Princess Stéphanie of Monaco. A sixth generation circus artist, Renato was born in Brazil on Sunday, Feb. 17 to a full-time circus family. The following Tuesday, he was on the road with his father, Adilson Fernandes, a trapeze artist, and his mother, Iragilda Fernandes, a showgirl and costume designer. In traveling shows, the amount of time a circus will stay in one city depends on the country. In Brazil, the family stayed for up to six months. In others, only two weeks. An array of factors contribute to this, namely the use of animals. Renato has fond memories of swimming in the pool used for the hippos when the crew would change out the water before a new city.
Growing up in the circus emphasized distinctly human necessities, like the importance of community.
Renato Fernandes, a Gold Clown recipient and sixth generation circus performer. Photo by Tyler Boshard, edited by Jomhel Tomas.
“The circus has a teacher,” Renato explained. It takes a village to run a successful show, and Renato worked from dawn to dusk bringing the vision to life. Elephants erected the poles for the big top, crew members alerted the city of their arrival by posting flyers, and Renato would set up the trapeze rig and tear tickets before running backstage to throw on his costume. Everyone helps, everyone wins.
“In the circus, even after the show, everybody’s together and hanging out,” he said. “It’s a lifestyle, it doesn’t stop when the tent comes down.”
Before he was offered a contract with La Nouba, Renato was planning to leave trapeze and begin anew. As fate would have it, he was in Orlando at the right time and began rehearsals immediately. Cirque du Soleil is known around the world for its theatrical approach to circus arts by way of storytelling and the omission of animals from their shows. The company has carved its own space in circus and earned a reputation for glittering performances and rapid production. Mystère in Las Vegas is the longest-running Cirque du Soleil show in the world, crossing a 30-year threshold as of 2024. However, bigger does not always mean better. As with any major corporation, Cirque du Soleil succeeds through precision, numbers, and a certain degree of professionalism that may sacrifice the bones of what circus has always represented: family.
“When I was performing in La Nouba I was a single dad with my two twin girls,” Renato said. “With Cirque, your kids can’t be there, they can’t hang around backstage. But when I went to Monte Carlo, I could ask the usher to watch the girls while I run up and throw my tricks. There, I felt home.”
Thiago Evans, a member of The Flying Poemas act at Circus Circus, made his professional debut in The Midway on May 5, 2022 to a starlit crowd mesmerized by his triple and rockstar energy. Circus Circus opened on the Strip in 1968 and changed the dynamic of Las Vegas forever, becoming the first family-focused resort in the city at remarkably low costs. Circus Circus held a middle finger up to the rest of the Strip, reminding everyone that Las Vegas is, in fact, for everyone. This vision was sewn into the sparkling leotards that studded the world’s largest permanent circus, a title it has held since inception.
“The shows are very different from a traditional circus,” Thiago explained. “It’s not a full two hours with many acts, and that’s good because we can do our show, rest in between, and our bodies don’t hurt with the high frequency.”
Renato brought myself and a couple of other students on a field trip to Circus Circus before practice one afternoon in October, where we got to formally meet Thiago and the rest of The Flying Poemas. Renato stressed the importance of accessibility in circus, showing us how much power a free show like The Flying Poemas can have on the public. Without the formalities and stuffiness of a mainstream stage, the free acts at Circus Circus present trapeze in its purest form: a compelling performance of artistry and athleticism designed to empower, inspire and entrance. I noticed that before every show, when The Flying Poemas are announced over the rumbling intercom, Thiago quietly animates the sign of the cross.
“It’s always been a race against myself,” he said. “I think some people compete too much over this, and I would like to see that changing, leaving their ego aside and helping those that need help, that way the trapeze community grows and everyone can do what they love in peace.”
The essence of circus is what makes it superlative, creating space for anyone anywhere to express themselves and find a network of support where they couldn’t otherwise. This type of camaraderie transcends borders, a shared experience for all circus performers coast to coast.
Saivi (V) Lara ascends to the catcher’s bar, a position that, today, is still overwhelmingly male.
“The core of circus, there’s no comparison,” Renato said. “Circus is forever, but in circus there is no corporate ladder. So what comes next?”
Shaped by mobility, Renato believes there is always good work to be done even when the show is over. Community is at the root of where circus began and what it continues to build today, and this materialized with Mestre Trapeze Academy (MTA) in 2018, Renato’s internationally accredited training program for athletes. Not everyone is born into the circus, and MTA is crushing the expectation that trapeze belongs to legacy families by inviting a new era for circus where everyone gets a ticket to ride.
“I’ve seen how much people love trapeze just as much as I do, both circus people and non-circus people,” he said. “It’s for everybody, no gatekeeping. I have daughters, right? I want them to be the first female catchers!”
Renato speaks passionately on the lack of opportunities for women and other marginalized groups within circus arts, specifically in trapeze where gender roles are heavily enforced in the name of “tradition”. With this in mind, the entertainment library of Las Vegas could use a little dusting. It’s no secret that some of the city’s most celebrated shows rely on routine, or “what works”, because that’s typically what makes more money (we’re looking at you, Chippendales). The circus world follows suit, but training programs like MTA seek more variety in trapeze that other outlets have chosen to ignore. Tradition is tired in the presence of progress, and people like Renato and Kahn are just two examples of where change is already happening for the advancement of circus worldwide.
When I first met Saivi at TLV, we celebrated our shared displacement and affinity for choosing a life well lived over something conventionally “stable”. Saivi carried the weight of expectations on her shoulders, but that weight gave way to wings each time she climbed the ladder to the fly board.
“My whole life was working towards becoming a surgical technician,” she said. “But growing up in a household where I was the only one who went to college, it was important for me and for everyone else that I succeed.”
The pressure to find purpose in life becomes a mockery in circus arts, which remind us that our bodies and our imaginations are the best tools for success. The fabrications of capitalist gain are dead up on the trapeze, where your next opportunity is within arm’s reach.
“Money is no question here, no matter how stable the surgical tech route appeared to be,” Saivi said. “I may not have a gymnastics background, but I felt damn good doing that knee hang the first time!”
Regardless of where we came from or how we got here, the circus community I discovered was more colorful than the Strip itself, cartography drawn from a quilt of perspectives. Despite any distinctions of pattern or place, it seemed we were all cut from the same cloth. Bring light into your circle by setting fire to expectation.
“I think that queer people are the natural harbingers of change,” Kahn said. “It starts with us, we’re the ones that have to lay the groundwork for abolishing those expectations.”
Las Vegas has upheld a model for success in entertainment that is familiar, but everything has to evolve in order to survive. Trapeze schools like MTA are working to revolutionize that space, starting locally and building out to all four corners of the globe. Looking ahead, Renato hopes to nurture the city’s circus community with the first International Circus Festival in Las Vegas, slated for early November.
“Something I’ve held with flying trapeze since I was a kid, you know, it’s my moment of peace, my get away,” Renato said. “When I’m up there holding the bar, I can escape.”
Photo by Tyler Boshard, edited by Jomhel Tomas.
MTA’s International Circus Festival, which will premiere beneath a blood red, three-ring tent courtesy of Circo Hermanos Caballero, will headline some of the most dynamic acts from around the world in a week-long competition of artistry, athleticism and global entertainment. The festival seeks to support and spotlight game changers in their craft and showcase tomorrow’s talents in a pageant of human potential. Running from November 1-10, MTA is currently filling the festival roster and hosting preliminary discussions with interested sponsors. Some of the confirmed acts include Duo Soma of Argentina, who recently took home Bronze at Festival del Circ Elefant d’Or in Spain, François Borie of France, Alexander Lichner of Spain, and aerialist Haley Viloria. Unlike anything Las Vegas has seen before, the festival is gearing up to soak Sin City with the panache of a world exposition. Even with this majesty, circus still belongs to the people.
Renato has a tattoo on his right arm that reads, “È Nóis”, a Brazilian phrase meaning “It’s us”. As the unofficial motto for MTA, È Nóis makes a regular appearance on social media. It’s a common call we hear during practice, second only to “Força!”, meaning strength or power. Yet, these words are understood in every space in every city. As we chalk up our hands, bloodied and calloused, we grip the bar with the strength and power to throw a planche, or a triple, or a back-end split, because we’re listening to our bodies and to each other. After a few weeks of training at MTA, every inch of me, from neck to foot, was brutally sore, like a tumbleweed skipping across the desert, prickly and constrained. But hearing my fellow flyers cheer me on from the platform softens that short-lived pain to make room for something greater; a moment of displacement that finds me somewhere better than where I took off from. Only a year into my trapeze journey, with a string of stumbles along the way, I think about that first leap of faith into the unknown. The one where I drove cross-country into unfamiliar territory and left everything I knew far behind. There were moments of panic, the jitters, the total misdirection. But I let myself hang in the balance and felt the wind pull me closer to the edge; hands sweaty, heart pounding. Then I heard “Hup!”
Quincy Azzario leaps off the fly board to throw a layout, one of the building blocks in flying trapeze tricks.
