Courtesy of Shayna Swanson
Brave Space is a circus arts show, but it won’t be staged under a big top. In fact, the venue for Brave Space begins as a puddle of 250 yards of fabric on the ground before performers and audience members work together to transform it into a giant blanket fort that hosts aerial arts, acrobatics, juggling, and and acts that include balancing on 8-foot tall poles.
The show, which is the latest from Aloft Circus Arts, a contemporary circus company from Chicago, is coming to St. Louis’ Bumbershoot Aerial Arts (2200 Gravois Avenue) on March 29 for two separate hour-long performances beginning at 7:30 and 10 p.m.
“From a practical sense, I wanted to make a circus show that could be performed anywhere and sort of just appear like magic,” Aloft Circus Arts director Shayna Swanson says. With the show, Swanson was also “trying to imagine a world where everyone would say yes to helping each other and say yes to standing up for each other and supporting each other.”
Courtesy of Shayna Swanson
Because of that intimate, interactive, and immersive nature, the audience for each performance is limited to 100, and some spectators should be prepared to hold ropes, props, or circus apparatus.
“It’s very interactive,” says Swanson, who has performed with Circus Flora and was instrumental in the organization’s “Aloft Tent Takeover” fundraiser last year. “There’s no fourth wall between us and the audience. We talk to the people because the audience is so close to the performers in the show. They are physically in the performance space.”
Spectators should be ready to stand, walk around, or sit on the ground during the performance, and they may be asked to move aside to make room for an act. Those who need a chair or assistance should note their needs when purchasing a ticket, says Swanson, who suggests everyone who wants to attend purchase tickets in advance since Aloft sends ticket buyers a preview video about Brave Space.
Courtesy of Shayna Swanson
“It’s so different from what anyone has been to and from what anyone expects,” Swanson says.
As a result, spectators have rarely clapped or cheered during the show itself, which opened in the Chicago area in October.
“Everyone is so engrossed in the show that we don’t get a lot of applause,” Swanson says. Instead, awe-struck audiences have saved their reactions for the end. “The response has been so great.”
