LOFT CIRCUS ARTS
THE VISION
By Shayna Swanson
When I was looking into circus schools , back when dinosaurs roamed the earth , there were very few educational opportunities in the United States . One could go to San Francisco or go back to bed , basically . I chose a third option , which was in England . When I returned to the US , I got my first job with a Chicago company , the Midnight Circus , and started teaching some classes and private lessons out of the space they rented from a Wu Shu School . Those were really relaxed and fun years ... staying out late , sleeping later and biking in to train with my best friends for eight hours . It was living the dream , really , but I had a show inside my head , gnawing at me .
So , in what would become Aloft ’ s modus operandi , I just did it , with little advance planning and $ 1000 in my pocket . There were almost no other aerialists in Chicago at the time because there were no circus or aerial schools — this was before the aerial craze took hold in the states . So , I had an audition and invited dancers , gymnasts , and theater people . I took all the theater people because they could tell a story , and I knew that would translate into their bodies with the right training . I trained them for several months and then created the show Rolling Blackouts , which I still think is my best show yet . I had only intended to do this one show , but then we got contacted for some gigs and I decided to keep going with this group of people and we took the name “ Aloft Aerial Dance ” ( which was changed to Aloft Circus Arts years later ).
When we outgrew renting from Midnight , we found our own space in an old autobody shop . We pressure washed the walls , had a rigging company come in and install some super solid rigging , bought an old spring floor and opened our doors . People didn ’ t really come . It took a special breed of badass to even find the place , which was located in an alley that was down another alley . You had to walk past dumpsters and drug dealers to get in . Rats would die under our spring floor and we ’ d have to tear it up and retrieve their rotting bodies . It was … not ideal . But it was home and we made several great shows there . Not having many classes allowed up tons of time for making art . However , there was a tension : we needed money to make shows and the way to get money was to teach more classes . We needed to move to a space that people would actually come to .
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