Eve Diamond on Cloud Swing
Cirrus Circus coach, Eve Diamond, will be joining the Swiss traveling circus group, Circus Monti, as they tour Switzerland for their Summer tour. Get to know Eve and her tips for sticking to what you love, even if what you love doesn’t always come easily.
To do this work you really sacrifice a lot. In my last year of school, a big job came through and I gave up my house, missed birthdays and funerals. You really do give up a lot to be a part of this work, but it is hard to not do it if it’s something that is speaking to you so loudly.
The year Eve was born, her uncle suffered a terrible motorcycle accident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. The impact of this trauma left an impression on her mother, Marilyn, to get Eve involved in as many physical activities as a possible. Growing up in Boston, she took on everything from horseback riding, baseball, softball, soccer, to field hockey, and eventually circus.
At the age of thirteen, Eve’s mother, signed her up for camp at Circus Smirkus in nearby Vermont.
“I didn’t want to go to circus camp. I was like, ‘that sounds really stupid.’ But then I went…and I became obsessed. I absolutely loved it and almost immediately knew that I wanted to pursue circus.”
After the camp, she auditioned for Circus Smirkus tours for five or six years, but was never quite able to make the cut. So, she took to her own living room and continued to train independently as she prepared for college.
“Nothing existed like SANCA to train circus on your own where I was, so I took gymnastics and practiced in my living room. My dad made hand balancing canes, and I taught myself juggling.”
In her freshman and senior years of college she auditioned for École National de Cirque, but was rejected both times. She focused on her studies, graduating Magna Cum Laude from Keene State College in New Hampshire with a BA in English and a teacher certification. But she never quit training, and her passion for circus didn’t subside despite setbacks. Soon after graduating she was contemplating a career in academia when she got accepted into a three year intensive training program at Circus Center in San Francisco.
“I was in school six days a week from 9am to 5pm for three years and working with some of the most famous, well respected, internationally recognized coaches which was amazing.…[school] was really painful and terrible, but you knew that the coaches who were training you had so much information that you would do anything to get.”
Graduating in 2011, Eve started performing professionally in her specialty areas of cloud swing and rope. Cloud swing in particular was difficult to train due to the amount of space it requires in addition to a specialized technician. Deciding to pursue cloud swing further, she moved to Montreal in 2013 to train with Coach Victor Fomine, a world expert in cloud swing, at his studio, École Léotard.
Since then, she’s been working with SANCA and training Cirrus Circus students as she has continued to network and build her own brand.
“My job outside of coaching, which has been pretty full time, has been maintaining my acts – training, eating well, taking care of my body, sleeping well. And networking, emailing people, and researching companies I would want to work for.
No one in this business is just like here, this is what you do. It takes dedication and curiosity to continue to pursue it. It’s really only possible to do this if you have support because it’s lonely and no one is just giving out information. You have to prove yourself to yourself and everyone around you, constantly, so it’s hard. But it’s also rewarding because you seek out a company you want to work for, you open a line of communication and you keep staying in contact year after year, sharing new work you are doing.
“I’ve been maintaining an email correspondence [with Circus Monti] for the past five years. The Gentile’s did Monti, Ben & Rachel [Duo Madrona] did Monti. It’s important to stalk your friends and follow their path. If your friends have the jobs you want, you have to be good enough friends to have someone vouch for you. This industry is so cut throat and super competitive. Everyone is hungry for the same work. You have to just not give up and be consistent.
It’s my first experience touring and working in Europe. Hopefully it will lead to more work, but you don’t know. So you have to just start all over again. Stay in touch, send updated material, and be someone that people want to be around!
…The good part of working [at SANCA] is that they really support you in doing what you want, especially in an industry with such limited job security.
It’s cool teaching in Cirrus because it’s important to have people who are working in the industry. I am excited to have this opportunity and come back and share my knowledge with the future generation of circus artists.”
Eve on Rope:
via www.eveontheswing.com
Owner of West Coast Flying Trapeze in BC Canada and former SANCA coach, Chris Johnston will be back in Seattle this weekend! While at SANCA, he taught flying trapeze, tumbling, trampoline to students and staff alike.
at SANCA in February. On Saturday, February 13th from 5:00-8:00pm, he will get into 
I met Leslie Rosen, my aerial fundamentals trainer, in the summer of 2013. From the moment I met Leslie, I found her to be kind, accepting, and patient with me and all of her other students. No matter what kind of experience, body, or skill level her students bring to class, Leslie is uniquely adept at individualizing physical training so that it can be accessible to anyone. Leslie has truly been my ambassador at SANCA, and I’ve come to depend on her guidance and wisdom.
performing, hula hooping, belly dancing, and of course, passing that knowledge on to others as a teacher. Leslie leads two performance troupes, the belly dancing Sirens of Serpentine and Pyrosutra, her fire troupe. Additionally, she has the distinction of being the only Belly Dancer in the Cirque du Soleil database. Leslie truly exemplifies a modern artist embodying centuries of tradition in her work, and by teaching what she’s learned, she hands those traditions down to her students so the lineage can continue.
When Leslie came to SANCA nearly a decade ago, she brought with her a background in dance, but no experience with aerial acrobatics. This makes her current aerial expertise 100% learned in-house at SANCA. Leslie progressed from aerial basics, such as learning to climb the rope, to mastering aerial fundamentals and beyond. She was able to achieve this in part by having a diversity of trainers over the years, including Chuck, Alyssa, Chelsea, Jeff, Terry, Crystal and Rachel and Ben. Over time, through countless classes, workshops and trainings (and no doubt a great deal of commitment), Leslie found the techniques and skills that worked for her and continued to deepen her understanding of aerial arts. But circus is much more of a journey than a destination, and even though Leslie is a successful trainer and instructor, she continues to challenge herself by remaining a life long student of her various disciplines. I’ve seen Leslie stealing moments to study new aerial technique from videos, I’ve watched her dangle from the Lyra above me as she learned how to move her body on a new apparatus, and I’ve sweat and worked hard next to her when she’s dropped into my Strength and Flexibility class. Leslie is more than just my teacher, she’s my peer in the circus lifestyle, which is what being in a community is all about. It’s not about hierarchy, it’s about connection.
Just as Leslie has committed herself to the ongoing education of circus arts, she will be apart from us for the winter session so she can deepen her understanding of classical Indian dance. On New Year’s Day Leslie traveled to a temple school in Rajasthan to study Odissi, Vinyasa yoga and Belly Dance and fire performance with the Romani (also known as Gypsies) for three months. She will no doubt come back full of new experiences, techniques, and the multigenerational knowledge contained in this traditional art form.
I began to learn and see the great and superior potential within this beautiful work. I became more driven and filled with fortitude than ever. What an honor it was to be in a school where kindness, humility, discipline and hard work were all strongly encouraged. Shortly after I began training at SANCA I began teaching as well, SANCA became my second home and now as I am always many, many miles away I still feel that closeness.
Now I am finishing my time at l’ecole nationale de cirque de Montreal. I have had experience with Cirque du Soleil, and have performed at international performances such as the 2010 Olympics Opening Ceremony in Vancouver, B.C. I am now preparing for the 32nd Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain opening spectacle. I credit SANCA for starting my career. I would not be who I am today, or experienced the success I have if it were not for those welcoming doors and the people at SANCA who accepted me into their space. SANCA will always have a special place in my heart, and because of SANCA, I will never stop dreaming.
We are Ben Wendel and Rachel Nehmer, trapeze artists known professionally as Duo Madrona. We have performed our trapeze number locally at a variety of venues including the Moisture Festival, nationally with Circus Flora and Teatro Zinzanni, and internationally at Le Cirque de Demain. We have been proud members of the SANCA community since 2004. Over the years we have filled the role of student, instructor, camp counselor, volunteer, office personnel, van driver, tarp stretcher and birthday-cake baker at SANCA.
Fast-forward to January 2008, Paris. We waited anxiously behind the curtain, poised to present our act at the 29th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain. The festival is one of the top venues for new artists to show their work to the entire global circus community, and only 25 acts are chosen worldwide from thousands of applicants. Nervous, dizzy and disoriented, we struggled to hear the emcee above the pounding of our hearts. Such a mixture of terror and thrill, nausea and elation can make one feel quite alone. However out there in the audience, somewhere in that vast 3,000-seat circus tent was our SANCA family, including founders Chuck Johnson and Jo Montgomery, who had flown from Seattle to Paris in the winter to support us. In fact, this same family had been there for us at every single step, from our first days at the school as disaffected scientists discovering the joy of circus arts, through all the long hours in rehearsal, to representing SANCA as professional artists on an international stage.
For the entirety of our career, SANCA has been our most important resource, the center of our artistic community, and our home. SANCA nurtured us as we made a great leap of faith to follow our dreams and become trapeze artists, and they continue to be a vital force in the community and in our lives personally. Without SANCA we would certainly not be the successful artists we are today.
During my time with SANCA I was a student, instructor, and outreach coordinator. I taught circus classes to students ranging from toddlers to adults, helped to organize and orchestrate their blooming school outreach program, turned screws and bolts where needed, and constantly continued my own personal acrobatic training under the tutelage of Chuck and Jo. I loved my job, and my new circus community. My students were amazing, and the training I received as an instructor was invaluable.
I want to thank Jo and Chuck and all the staff at SANCA for giving me such a beautiful experience during my teen years. Looking back now I can fully appreciate everything I was given and how lucky I was to find an environment where I could train with other people who also loved circus in such a carefree, loving, and accepting space. I want to wish SANCA all the best in the future years and congratulations on opening the new flying trapeze program. This is a huge accomplishment for SANCA and all my admiration goes to everyone that was involved in putting it together. Thank you so much, you will always be in my heart.
