Performance
Claire Mann has worked in circus arts since the age of sixteen. She began her circus journey in the all aerial troupe, Les Aerielles, performing with them until 2018. She now is retired from regular gigging but enjoys performing at her leisure. Most recently, she traveled to Thailand to perform and coach. While her main apparatus was lyra, she now trains many different circus disciplines. Her skills include trapeze, silks, partner acrobatics, duo trapeze, flying trapeze, rope dart, and object manipulation.
Muti-Tasking for the Winter Show
While I have been performing aerial for many years, I had yet to ever perform flying trapeze. For the Circus Center Winter Show, I performed with the flying troupe while also stage managing. This meant, for the flying trapeze act, I had to run from the lighting booth to the stage, warm up, and perform while a friend stepped in to run the lights. I was so happy to be able to perform and debut my new trick in a show!
Silks in Thailand
This summer, I went to Club Med Phuket to exchange circus knowledge with the circus team there. Along with six other Circus Center coaches, I taught and performed flying trapeze and aerial arts while in Thailand. Here is a video of my silks act which I choreographed in an hour and performed that night.
Flying Trapeze
I have been training in flying trapeze for nine years and coaching trapeze for around seven. Doing trapeze is how I like to unwind. When you are up there, you can’t think about anything besides the trick in front of you. It reminds me to stay focused on the present because that is what you can control. Also, I recently invented my own trick I’ve entitled “the zombie.”
Practice for a flying act we did in Thailand. This is called a tandem split.
The Zombie.