Did you ever want to run away to the circus? Learn to juggle? Do a handstand or fly through the air with the greatest of ease? Well, P!nk is not the only Philadelphia native who can hang from a silk.
The Philadelphia School of Circus Arts teaches adults and kids myriad circus skills: trapeze, aerial silks, juggling, unicycling, tight wire, tumbling, you name it. If you’re the type who can’t stand traditional workouts, circus is a great way to get in shape and learn a cool skill at the same time. The school also offers corporate and institutional team-building and leadership workshops, social events, birthday and other parties, summer camp and special-guest performances and presentations. One of those presentations is the upcoming staff show where the teachers get a chance to showcase their skills. We spoke to Adam Woolley and got the 411 on what to expect.
PGN: Which was harder: coming out to your parents as a circus performer or as gay?
AW: Wow, that’s a tricky question! Honestly, neither was particularly difficult. I never dated girls and I was never really in the closet, but in ninth grade I came out publicly. I think that’s when most kids start to become aware of who they’d like to start dating. I went to a public high school in North Carolina and there were three out guys at my high school. This was in 1999 and the whole school was fine with it, but it was kind of funny; it was like there were only three gay slots so I had to wait until one of them graduated before I took his place, and started dating one of the remaining ones. Despite the crazy political climate there now, at the time, North Carolina was very socially liberal, very progressive. So coming out to my parents, not a big deal. Deciding to tell them that I wanted to be a circus performer was a little bit trickier. It was the summer of my sophomore year in college. I’d spent the summer in San Francisco where I was training in circus and called them and said, “Parents, I would like to stay here and be a circus performer instead of returning for college.” They were simultaneously very supportive and hesitant at the same time. Their opinion was that I could do it but I couldn’t use my college funds for it. I was free to study the circus arts and if or when I decided to go back to college that money would be there waiting for me. I did some soul-searching and decided to stay in school. But I transferred to a state school, which was less expensive because they agreed to let me use any leftover money for my own pursuits as long as I had a degree.
PGN: What did the parents do?
AW: My parents went to Duke University, which is where they met. My dad was in pharmaceuticals, a research toxicologist, and my mom was a pediatric nurse. She was one of the founders of the Pediatric Endocrinology Nurses Association.
PGN: When were you home last?
AW: Let’s see. I got married in October of last year here in Philly and I was home that summer. My husband’s parents have a place on the coast in North Carolina, and we visit there each summer. It’s only about an hour away from my parents so it works out well, makes holidays easy.
PGN: Is your hubby in the arts?
AW: He’s a writer for Bustle, which is a women-centric entertainment news site focusing on women’s and minority issues in the media. He, Jefferson, does a lot of movie and television reviews and things like that.
PGN: That’s interesting that, from what I gather, he’s not a woman or a minority (aside from being LGBT).
AW: I know, the CEO and founder of Bustle is a man too and he got a lot of flack when he first started, but he really made an effort to hire very prestigious female writers and gave them stock in ownership in the company, which assuaged a lot of the early ill will.
PGN: What were you originally in college to study?
AW: I started out going to Emerson College in Boston.
PGN: [Raises hand for a high five]
AW: What? No way! That’s so great … I went to Emerson to get a BA in theater, then I did their abroad program in the Netherlands, which was a big reason why I chose Emerson, plus I got into their honors program, which gave me a substantial financial-aid package. I wanted to travel and their abroad program was fantastic, really life-changing. When I came back, I transferred to the public college, the North Carolina School of the Arts, where I graduated with a BFA in directing.
PGN: What was a best moment at Emerson? I lived at 100 Beacon St. and we had some great times in that dorm.
AW: That’s where I lived! Oh man, I think the best moments I had revolved around living in Boston and around the friends I made at school. Growing up in North Carolina, I went to a majority minority public school after having gone to a private school that was pretty exclusively white. As a white 14-year-old out gay kid, it was my first time having to deal with race issues. My expectations were that it was going to be difficult and violent and that I was going to have to toughen up, which turned out not to be my experience at all. I wrote a lot of college essays about my racist expectations and how totally wrong I was. Being in Boston was fascinating because it expanded my horizons even further. In North Carolina, my entire racial experience was black or white but in Boston I met Native Americans and people from India and Asia, all over. It made me realize how limited my life had been.
PGN: What was your favorite toy as a kid?
AW: Ha! I’d say it would be my She-Ra toys. I watched the cartoon avidly and collected the toys. Jem was also pretty big in my life. I was big into female superheroes.
PGN: So I guess there’s no need to ask you for an early sign you were gay …
AW: [Laughing] No, that probably covers it. Though I also used to dress very fluidly until I was 6 or 7, which is probably why my parents put me into private school. I was the kind of kid to wear whatever I wanted to wear and they were the kind of parents to let me. My mom tells the story that when I was going into eighth grade I came to her and said, “Mom, I think I would like to have friends now. Can we buy some jeans?” Because up until then, I’d always worn sweat pants or tights; I’d never owned a pair of jeans. The first day I wore the new jeans, three kids who’d never spoken to me before said hello and I thought, Huh! This works!
PGN: So how did you get into the circus arts?
AW: I always found traditional theater fairly boring. Despite the prevailing feeling that live theater is the ultimate, I feel that when television or movies are done right, they can be amazingly powerful and impacting. It made me contemplate what it is about live performance that makes it different from television and film. I did a lot of research on it and the only quantitative data I could find to use was figuring out what live performances worked, what draws big numbers of people to leave their homes, because it’s not theater — not the upper-middle class, essentially elitist world of “The Thea-tre.” I found that rock concerts, magic shows, stand-up comedy and circus drew the biggest numbers. Pro wrestling was also hugely popular. This was exciting for me because our job as performing artists is to both send a message and to be arbiters of culture and community and teach things like how we should behave towards each other, how to question and how to respond when faced with difficulties. And we want to get those messages to as many people as possible. Pro wrestling does a great job of that — what message they’re sending may be questionable — but the idea of reaching masses of people is what drew me to the circus. I saw the Cirque du Soleil show “Quidam” and it had a big impact on me. When I saw it, I was specifically drawn to the aerial-silks act. I immediately knew that it was what I wanted to do. I wanted to revolutionize live arts and return their relevancy. In the 1950s and prior to that, live performances helped to unite and build community. I’d like to help us get back to that.
PGN: It seems that there’s a movement towards getting back to skilled arts with shows like “America’s Got Talent,” etc.
AW: Right! But those are still on your TV, though they are certainly awakening an interest in the variety arts. How do we get people to leave their homes, how do we get people participating? Because as good as they may be, film and television don’t build community because, well, you’re sitting at home.
PGN: Which brings us to the School of Circus Arts.
AW: Yes, I was hired last April to teach here. I was living in New York coaching acrobatics when they approached me. I wasn’t sure about moving but jobs as head coaches at circus schools are few and far between so I went for it. It’s been really exciting. This school is one of the largest of its kind on the East Coast.
PGN: Where did you learn your circus skills?
AW: I went to the New England Center for Circus Arts in Vermont for two years and then I traveled to San Francisco and trained another two years there before moving to New York. There I took private instruction from advanced coaches and studied anatomy and other relevant stuff. CrossFit training was starting to blow up at that time and what I think of as skill fitness: people who learn specific skills not just to workout but because they want to learn how to do this cool thing.
PGN: What are some of the things you teach here?
AW: My specialties as a coach are contortion and hand balancing but I teach most everything: trapeze and rope and silks, the aerial stuff, acrobatics, juggling and balance, which includes tight wire and globe.
PGN: What’s the most transformative moment with a student?
AW: My first thought is a woman in New York named Bethany. I was teaching a class in a gymnasium with glass walls. The first day of class she apparently looked in and was so intimidated by the other women that she went home without even coming in. She told me later that she just started crying and ran away. She emailed me to apologize but said she’d try again the next week. The next week she came and had a bit of a hard time but stuck it out and, by the time I left New York she sent me the sweetest letter about how she’d grown up never feeling empowered by her body. She’d been overweight and suffered from depression and nothing had ever made her feel happy and strong until she joined the class and that now she could do things she never thought possible. She’d been scarred by many things from her childhood and body-image problems but being in my class changed her life and how she thought about her body. I still have that letter and it still makes me tear up when I think about it. Doing circus all the time, you sometimes forget about the impact it can have on other people.
PGN: That’s lovely. OK, now for something different. What was the worse stunt you pulled as a kid?
AW: The worst was when my parents were out of town and I let a friend throw a birthday party at the house that turned into a kegger. It was a disaster! The cover on the hot tub got broken, a toilet was smashed, the carpet was soaked with beer; it was one of those moments where there was no way to put the house in order to cover it up in any way, shape or form. I was just totally busted when my parents got home, like one of those abashed dogs sitting in the living room amid a pile of rubbish.
PGN: What’s the funniest thing that’s happened in your circus world?
AW: I was performing on rope and part of my costume got caught in the rope during a trick where I was rolling down parallel to the floor. It literally started to unravel as I was spinning down, like pulling the thread on a sweater. I ended up on the floor with the costume still attached to the rope in tatters. I grabbed it and tried to make a dignified exit.
PGN: What’s the hardest part of running the business?
AW: Hmm, I think perception is one difficulty, how the public sees circus. Anyone who comes here, who even tries a circus class, already has a pretty substantial amount of gusto and daring to them. The truth is, especially for recreational students, this is a fitness discipline that is as, or more, accessible than yoga. It’s not about being super-athletic, it’s not about a certain body type, but it’s a specific culture and figuring out how to bring people in is challenging.
PGN: I guess as a public there are different categories of circus that come to mind, from your seedy “carny” scenarios to glamorous Cirque du Soleil shows.
AW: Yup, yup. Exactly. When in reality, circus is as broad a term as dance or theater is. If you say you’re in theater, are you a producer, an actor, a teacher, stagehand, what? Circus is just as wide; the industry encompasses circus education, circus for people with special needs, competition, training, fitness, recreational, Ringling Brothers, Big Apple, you name it.
PGN: Tell me about the upcoming staff show.
AW: It’s going to be fun. It’s a faux French cabaret-style show that we’re calling “Cabaret Pinot Noir.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek faux sophisticated circus. The staff has put together acts that underscore the idea of circus being a way to undercut the elitism of performing arts, deflating some of the conceptions of ‘Art’ with a capital A. We have a very talented staff and it’ll be a chance to connect with the community and show the skills that we love. There’s a huge renaissance in circus right now; there are more people teaching than we’ve seen since the ’90s and it’s really coming alive. The meaning of circus has changed. It’s now the circus arts and everyone can be a part.
The teacher showcase is 8 p.m. June 3 and 4 at 5900 A Greene St. For more information about Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, visit www.phillycircus.com or email [email protected].
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].