Tag Archives: aerial fabric

Lyla Goldman Goes to Circus School – in Finland!

SANCA gives a heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS! to Lyla Goldman, who has been accepted to Salpauksen Sirkusartistikoulutus — The Salpaus Circus Center in Lahti, Finland, and hopes to major in unicycle and aerial fabric.

Photo: Amira Silverman

Lyla was one of SANCA’s earliest students and members of Cirrus Circus (originally known as the SANCA Youth Performance Company). She practically grew up at SANCA over the past ten or so years, riding around the gym on her unicycle, often in the company of the Zuckerman twins – Anna & Leah — with whom she formed a unicycle trio act – Tricycle – that was a mainstay showstopper in Cirrus Circus shows over the years. Lyla also took to aerial arts early on, and has performed solo and group fabric, trapeze, and lyra aerial acts. She has performed at Cirrus shows throughout the Seattle area including at Moisture Festival, Seattle Center’s Winterfest, Teatro ZinZanni, and of course, at SANCA.

With Cirrus Circus Lyla has traveled and performed in Europe at the London International Youth Circus Festival in England, at NoFit State in Cardiff, Wales, and at Island Circus in Sylt, Germany. She has also twice toured with Cirkus Smirkus  along the East Coast and worked at the Smirkus summer camp.

Photo: Amira Silverman

Salpauksen Sirkusartistikoulutus – The Salpaus Circus Center is a vocational school in Lahti, and offers the only vocational circus degree in Finland. The school helps their students to become unique, creative, versatile, and technically highly skilled artists with a professional attitude. A healthy ratio of humbleness, respect, and self-esteem are valued highly in the educational environment, and the school feels one of the sources of success in the daily work is the powerful dynamic of group collaboration in aiming toward mutual goals. Salpaus Circus Center enables the training of almost all circus disciplines, and provides the opportunity to create shows and perform in a professional environment. One of the main annual events is a unique student-produced Kukko Festival.

Congratulations Lyla! We wish you all the best in your future circus career!

Meet Randi – Active, Fearless, Creative, and Curious About the World.

Randi Morrison 4Randi Morrison discovered SANCA—Seattle’s only nonprofit 
circus school—in 2010 when a friend invited her to come to a circus class. She’s always been an active person, but she’d never done anything like circus before. Randi was delighted with the openness of SANCA and the mixture of people of all ages and abilities learning and working together. The atmosphere was very fun and happy—people everywhere were smiling.

The teaching style of SANCA’s instructors also impressed Randi. They gave good instruction in a safe environment with an eye to detail, and were able to quickly help students learn new skills that many had never imagined that they would be able to do.

“I want others to experience the same joy that I have at SANCA.”

In her career as a hospitalist physician, Randi also teaches residents and students, so it’s no surprise that she noticed SANCA’s instructional style. She says it’s been a great experience to be a student again — it reminds her of what it’s like to be a beginner at a new skill. She’s taken examples from SANCA back with her to the medical setting, and says that one of the most important concepts she learned here is “to imagine what a situation would look like if you introduced kindness.”

Randi Morrison 2Randi’s growth as an aerialist wasn’t always easy. She repeated the Introductory Aerial class until she had the strength and skill to progress to more advanced classes. As her skills grew, Randi had a hunger for progress that outpaced her once-weekly classes. She began taking private lessons twice a week, which eventually led to working with SANCA coaches Tyler and Carey to create a personal, two-week, intensive-training program.

Randi credits her coaches with helping her to work though physical, mental, and emotional challenges while providing a safe, happy space for her—a sanctuary from the stress of her medical work.

“What really excites me about SANCA is that they make this opportunity available to anybody regardless of financial circumstances,” says Randi. “I am so proud to tell people that ‘no one will be turned away’ from SANCA — that scholarships are available to any youth who wants to take circus classes. It’s important to me to ‘put my money where my mouth is’ by contributing to SANCA’s Youth Scholarship Fund.”

Circus is for everybody, Randi points out. She says she really enjoys being an older student (she took her first class when she was 44) because it shows there is no limit to age or ability. Everyone should take a chance and try circus, no matter what pre-imposed limits you think you have, your coaches will guide you to build new skills and experience success.

Randi says that building circus skills provides great lifelong benefits. Students at SANCA learn to be active, fearless, creative, and curious about the world.