Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast, hosted by Steven Karaginas and Yasi Ansari.
Speaker: Hello again, and welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast. I'm your host, Steven Karaginas, and along with Yasi Ansari, we welcome you to our show. We are very excited to welcome in a new sponsor for our show, On Call AI.
Speaker: This is a new app that helps doctors and health care professionals by using their AI engine to turn patient phone calls and clinical visits into medical notes that go right into your chart and to insurance billers.
Speaker: To learn more, go to app.getoncall.ai. So for our show today, we wanted to look into the wonderful world of circus performance.
Speaker: This is an area that's been often overlooked in the performing arts medical world. But in the last few years, a movement has developed to protect performers' health and well-being through research and education. Now, the circus industry as a field of performance dates back to the Revolutionary War era.
Speaker: We're talking like 1760. Now, the classic example of these kinds of circus organizations would be the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that I used to see growing up as a kid. These were your typical big top tent shows, ringmaster, various acts performing to music.
Speaker: They would roll into your town for a few days and then move on to the next. Now the circus form started changing in the late seventy s adding a more theatrical approach and fewer animal stunts.
Speaker: This was most typified by the Siegfried and Roy shows that dominated Las Vegas for years. In the 1990s, various circus disciplines or techniques moved into the new circus style, or Cirque Nouveau, that emphasized character-driven acts, complex stories, and integration of performance arts, dance, and visual arts.
Speaker: The most popular circus performance act today like this would be Cirque du Soleil. Yet, dozens of circus organizations tour North America frequently and entertain thousands of people all the time.
Speaker: Yet they lack any sort of union or government legal support or even baseline health care for their health and well-being. But you may ask, just what is a circus performer? Like, what do they do?
Speaker: Well, under the circus performance umbrella, the array of performers you may see include acrobats, aerialists, clowns, of course, trainers, contortionists, fire breathers, jugglers, magicians, tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, and stilt walkers.
Speaker: Now, the life of a circus performer can be very challenging, as you can imagine, as most are usually on the road all year round, constantly going into one town, performing, living out of their suitcase, leaving the town to go to the next town right away. Now, if you've ever seen a Cirque Soleil show, you also know how physically demanding this work is.
Speaker: With the diversity of shows being put on today, performers are under more pressure than ever to diversify their skill set to become more marketable for employment. So Yassi and I wanted to learn more about this fascinating world and how a movement is taking shape to help protect performers in the circus industry.
Speaker: With us today is Dr. Stephanie Greenspan, a performing arts physical therapist, the chair for the surveillance of injuries for research on circus working group, and co-editor of the sciences section for the Journal of Circus Arts, Life, and Sciences.
Speaker: She also created the concept of athletic science in 2021. Also with us today is Shania Stiletto, a two-time world champion acrobatic gymnast, a frequent Cirque Soleil performer, and founder of the Circus Arts Guild of America. All right, Stephanie, Shania, thank you so much for being on our show today.
Speaker: Thank you for having me. Yeah, pleasure to be here. So Stephanie, I was really fascinated by the idea that you named your practice, Artletic Science, ah since it does combine athletes and artists, which is exactly what our show is all about.
Speaker: So tell us how you got on this pathway towards advocating for performer health. Yeah, the the branding of my business with Artletic Science was really a collaboration with a colleague of mine and and thinking through how to pull together my background as a physical therapist, um my background as a researcher in the circus arts,
Speaker: and also as an educator, both as a physical therapy educator and an educator of um the circus arts community. And so, you know, artist identity is a ah frequent conversation in the circus arts.
Speaker: um Our artists often think of themselves not so much as an athlete. And i we see this a lot in dance as well. They consider themselves as an artist, even though and not so much an athlete, even though what they do requires hours and hours of intense physical training.
Speaker: And so bringing bringing those pieces together artists and athlete is a concept that we try to bring to the circus arts and to dance to help ah artists understand the need to think about how they structure training, um how they address injury, and in order to maximize performance.
Speaker: And so it it was a way to bring all of those things together and what I do and really melding also the ah clinical and the research aspects of what I do. When working with performers, what, I guess, how did they buy into the concept of athletics?
Speaker: Like, how did you educate them on the connection between performing arts and athletes? Because I think that there are two groups here. Some performers don't actually think of themselves as athletes, but then you have like directors of dance programs wanting clinicians to bring into the forefront that, yes, these athletes athletes are truly athletes so that we can get more support in the collegiate environment and professional environments for dancers and circus artists and and so forth i'd love to know what you're doing and what you're saying bring together those two concepts
Speaker: I think the first piece is asking um artists what what they identify with. And so sometimes when I give workshops, all I'll ask as a question, you know, do you when you people introduce themselves, do you identify yourself as an artist, as an athlete or both?
Speaker: And it's really interesting to see because it's often... mixed across the room. um And so some of it has to do with who their coaches were and their approach um their coaches had in the science. They integrate um people that are brought up in more traditional circus.
Speaker: um Sometimes that's where there's much more of an artist identity versus um people that are trained in more of a a gym setting, maybe alongside gymnastics or that come out of gymnastics, for example.
Speaker: um So it's it's first seeing where they are and what their perspective is. And it's not so much that I'm trying to change. You know, if their self-identity is an artist, I'm trying to get them to understand, yes, you're an artist, but what you do also involves intense physical training. And so you also have to think like an athlete and how you feel with nutrition, with how you recover, with how you ah condition in order to allow you to perform um at your best um so that we can see that artistry, because obviously it's affected if people are injured or undernourished or things like that as well.
Speaker: Have you seen benefits from a mental aspect as far as if athletes see themselves as an athlete more? Does that seem to have a positive effect on their esteem as a performer? Does that seem to help them handle stress and anxiety better?
Speaker: It's an interesting question. i think um it it allows them to access more resources. I think that type of artist that sees themselves as an athlete um seeks the information. They get really excited when...
Speaker: um Someone like a physical therapist comes in and talks about anatomy, talks about conditioning, um because they're eager for that information. They want to learn and they want to enhance their their physical ability to complement their artistry.
Speaker: Um, so how that affects them mentally. Well, I think if they're using those resources, then, um, and they are better prepared that can have a positive mental health aspect because they're able to handle the workload depending on the environment they're in.
Speaker: Um, but I will say, like, if we talk about mental health in circus, that's really a neglected area. We just did, um, a narrative review on all the research in circus arts on mental health and there is very little. And so it's not surprising that we don't see mental health care providers regularly also in circus spaces.
Speaker: Um, so, um Just to tell you a little bit more about the research and the background. So we have a working group called Surveillance of Injuries and Research on CIRCUS, um which we which comes out to the acronym CIRC. We thought we were very clever.
Speaker: um and You were very clever. But I can never remember the rest that goes with it, have to read it all. um the So that working group originally came together as a group of injury researchers.
Speaker: And um we what we found, which is similar to happens in sports and in dance, is that we were all using different methods in our injury research. So when we wanted to compare one study to another, you know, what was happening with injuries in Cirque du Soleil versus at a ah circus college.
Speaker: um Because the methods were so different, it was very hard to compare or even compile the information. So the first project we did together was putting together ah consensus statement um on how to surveil injuries in the circus arts.
Speaker: And the connection with sport, we used the International Olympic Committee guidelines as ah a leaping off point So similar to and the extension statements that exist for tennis and cycling and other sports, um we made an extension statement for circus. So we took that ah international sport guideline and what fit for a circus, but then our context of practice and um the multidisciplinary nature of circus. Circus artists don't play just one sport.
Speaker: They um are aerialists, they're hand balancers, they're contortionists, and it's all the same person. so um So the nature of their practice and um also when they can't practice is quite different than in sport.
Speaker: so And we did an extension statement. So um the mental health statement was also an extension statement, and there's tons of research on mental health in sport that And we tried to do the same thing as look at these different categories. What's the effect of concussion on mental health and sport, for example?
Speaker: And um we just we don't have the research in the circus arts. So and a piece of that, I think, is um that because circus arts, especially in the U.S.,
Speaker: we considered ourselves artists and not athletes. And so we didn't connect in to do that type of research that you would do in sport. Um, Another piece, um more so in the United States than in other countries, is we don't have college degrees in the circus arts.
Speaker: And so in a college program, faculty do research. and um And so in dance, in theater, in music, you have those college degrees. And so there's a lot more recognition in the United States.
Speaker: for other performing arts than for the circus arts, even though we've been around for a long time, even though, Sine can attest to this for sure, about what a contribution to the economy that the circus arts make.
Speaker: But if you look at our representation, if you look at the National Endowments of the Arts, we don't have a category. And this is one of the things that Sine is working hard to get. and So when we apply for grants in the circus arts for either performance grants or research type grants, there's not a category. where We're the other category.
Speaker: If you look at PAMA, when you join and you you talk about what area of performing arts you work in, circus is also not interested. category to check off. so So we're sort of this other category. And um thankfully, you know, um thanks to some advocacy and some work, like people with Emily Sherb of really bringing circus arts to the forefront and PAMA, um there's more of a voice and more of a representation. But this is kind of a battle that we we have as um
Speaker: even though you see us in every city as circus artists, we're just not well represented in those spaces. So you mentioned how there's no real like college program for circus arts.
Speaker: But Shania, you've been a performer in this world for a long time. You've been a headline performer. um How does someone like you doing gymnastics growing up, how do you make that jump? How do you jump into circus arts? Because like you know my high school didn't have circus arts as a class.
Speaker: So how did how did you find your way into this world? It's a great question, Stephen, about how do you get into circus? um You know, it's a challenging thing. And I want to say it's been ah embarrassing the majority of my career. People ask you, do you have a degree? Did you go to college? And, you know, I'm a two-time world champion, honorary Olympian. I've been working for all the top companies for over 20 years in circus now. And I can't even say i have a bachelor's degree.
Speaker: In what I do. I mean, I can go and get something else, which, you know, folks end up sometimes doing, but then the majority of your experience and expertise is in a field that is still, again, unaccounted for within that degree. And so, so many folks end up being, i would say, ushered into the circus industry. i was fortunate, you know, competing for USA Gymnastics.
Speaker: Cirque was recruiting me. Cirque du Soleil was recruiting me from when I was really young. So when I was still a teenager, they were coming to competitions And they were scouting me and um offering me contracts before I even got out of competition.
Speaker: And that's something that they started to double down on and do more within the industry at this point in time. But, ah you know, so that was my buy into it. Other folks are circus families.
Speaker: um Or then you, again, become maybe a hobbyist. And that's how you get into the circus. um That's, I think, probably one of the biggest things nowadays where you can go into a circus studio.
Speaker: um It's much more readily available and it's much more accessible. But the issues surrounding the fact that you cannot, um you know, go to a higher um institution of education and get a normal degree, just like so many other other ah art forms out there, is something that hurts us throughout the rest of our careers. It hurts our resumes. It hurts our abilities to go into other industries.
Speaker: It hurts our abilities for promotions. It hurts our abilities to retire. It hurts our abilities to get out of jobs that are exploitive and that lead to medical issues and injuries. I mean, I always say you can't imagine how many artists are here in Vegas that are still just staying in shows that they don't want to be in because they don't have a degree and they don't feel like they can they have anything to fall back on. So it's a quite complex relationship that we all have with, um I would say, like the normal road.
Speaker: And something that we're heavily ah pursuing within our legislative pieces and our legislative policies to fix this issue that also too el leads it leaves us out of so many things. It leaves us out of, you know, NCAA, for example, with so many circus disciplines are vying for recognition in those spaces and wanting to be competitive and getting scholarships, you know.
Speaker: The folks that are not able to get a scholarship, but again, are working for Cirque du Soleil for five to 10 to 15 years. And imagining that, you know, these, you know, high level experts that, you know, have these amazing backgrounds.
Speaker: um But, you know, again, can't get just a basic scholarship to go to college for what they do. What would you say is the age group for those artists that are competing and performing in Cirque du Soleil?
Speaker: Well, in in what in what exact way that are performing? um you Maybe like the median demographic of folks that are working for Cirque du Soleil? Well, more the more so the performers. So so so what something that came up for me when you were talking about they don't have degrees to fall on.
Speaker: What are the ah are a lot of these performers starting earlier in life? Is it later in life? I'm trying to better understand how one gets into Cirque du Soleil and how um like, let's say, you know, you were in gymnastics.
Speaker: That was something like, how did you get how did you shift over to that side of performing? Because I'm curious to see how we can what we can do to better support the artists.
Speaker: Yes, well, again, for me, um it was scouting. And so most folks are getting the Cirque du Soleil by way of scouting. Cirque du Soleil is now, I would say, very invested in the competitive spaces. It wasn't like that before as much, but now it's pretty embedded into the fabric of the competitive spaces where they're going to competitions and they're seeking you out before you retire.
Speaker: And um I would say most of the coaches are trying to hold on to their athletes as long as possible before they retire and kind of run away with the circus. So it's kind of a challenge. But um I would say the demographic is probably, you know, starting at 18.
Speaker: Cirque used to hire, well, since we're focusing on Cirque du Soleil, because there is so much circus work out there. And I do want to be very clear about that. Cirque Soleil is the leading, most popular company, but there are thousands of opportunities that you can get into. for a Circus. And this is also another part of our conversation that we're consistently trying to remind folks, your only goal is not to just work for Cirque du Soleil. And that also, too, again, is what leads to all these iffy policies that we need and the support that we also want Cirque to put into this. You know, they should be supporting wanting folks to be able to get a degree while they are, you know, starting in Cirque du Soleil. Wouldn't that be amazing?
Speaker: If you could get a degree and Cirque could support that in certain ways um where they could you know do buy-ins with different universities and schools where you know you're 18 to 22 is when you are in your you know your fertile years of Cirque and just starting out and getting your feet wet in your first contract.
Speaker: Mostly green. That's another issue. Folks are coming into Cirque or into Cirque with so little knowledge you know, they are coming from backgrounds that are not heavily focused on circus because so many so much of this is about who you know. And it still is, a lot of it is about who you know, even though there's a lot less gatekeepers, I would say, at this point in time within our industry so that you can, again, go through the hobbyist space, start out in a circus studio, start out in a circus school. Our circus schools in America are not as prolific as they are in Europe.
Speaker: So in Europe and in Asia, Most of the circus schools is where you're going to be able to get your career generated from. You also have that like, you know, in Canada and Montreal, you have the huge circus school up there. That's also too pumping out a lot of students that are ah getting recruited straight out of graduation 18, 19, 20.
Speaker: at eighteen nineteen twenty 21, and then you're going into your first contract and you don't really have a lot of information and a lot of knowledge about what it takes to exist in this industry.
Speaker: And then people find themselves 10 years later, five years later and thinking, wow, I don't really have much. um I've gotten this acute injury and now I actually can't even do my starring role.
Speaker: I can't do contortion anymore. and Now I have to try and do aerial work, but maybe I don't want to do aerial work. Maybe that's not my my my my my my specialty. It's not really what I want to go into. And so they find themselves at these different ah you know stages of their careers and of their lives feeling like um I've done so much, but I have so little to show for it um in the terms of what we what we use as status um in the real world, or I would say as you know, ah you know ah kind of currency of um of negotiating the rest of the world.
Speaker: So the circus arts world seems like everybody you know knows Cirque du Soleil and that has the broadest name recognition and brand recognition, but the circus arts world is pretty broad.
Speaker: So when you go to a circus arts school, like how does that work as far as like the array of skills that you learn? Are you able to choose at a certain point? Is it a very broad array of skills that you learn as a performer, as a graduate?
Speaker: Are you expected to have certain skills when you go out and perform? I think one of the things that most folks don't understand is when you see thousands of circus performers everywhere and at shows, yeah what does that exactly entail outside of what we see at Cirque Soleil?
Speaker: There are so many different ways that you can do that. There's so many different disciplines and pathways um on the road to graduation. You can become a specialist where you can become just an aerialist, just a trapeze artist. um you know You can become just a hand balancer, just a contortionist, a hand-to-hand duo, an adagio. Or you can become more of a multifaceted artist where you're doing a little bit of juggling. You're doing a little bit of all of the disciplines um you know that we would call circusing. And so that's the other thing as well. And that's when it comes back to kind of how the schools um support you in your journey. and And that's something that we're also looking to.
Speaker: Are you prepared to go into the circus industry after you've completed this particular program in circus school? And are you so highly specialized that you are locked out of so many other positions where there's only maybe two shows in America that can hire you? There's one show in Las Vegas that can give you a job?
Speaker: Or have you diversified a little bit more? You're maybe not the best. You're more of a generalist and you can go into a lot of other shows. But then do you understand... how hard that's going to be on your body, how you're going to be a part of a troop, how you're not going to have a strong identity, even if maybe came in as an Olympian, how you won't be like the main person on stage.
Speaker: um How is that going to help with your mental health? How is that going to help you ah in terms of how you feel about yourself every single day? And then again, the pressures of having to be on on stage for two hours versus someone who's a specialized artist who's only on stage for six or seven minutes.
Speaker: And then we see again, the difference in care, the difference in injury, um You know, and then the difference in the complex health care that each person needs to make. So why aren't we looking at that when we're setting folks up to become, you know, participants in this industry? Because those are very long term implications of how you set yourself up to do something very aggressive and very hard.
Speaker: Or you do something that's much more moderate on the body in terms of a skill that it can keep you in a show for 10 to 15 years and you'll do pretty well. So, Stephanie, ah in the dance world, we see that dancers who try to learn many disciplines at one time have a higher injury rate than those who focus on one or two disciplines.
Speaker: Do you see a similar problem in circus where circus performers who are learning multiple skills at one time get injured more often than those who focus on one or two? i I don't think we necessarily have a clear picture of that. I mean, if you look at a lot of um the research, we haven't done as good of a job of defining um what someone's discipline is when we when we look at it. So, for example, the research that did come out of Cirque du Soleil.
Speaker: They grouped people by acrobats and non-acrobats. um And so so that those are very diverse groups within it. um the The research I did and another huge group of artists in the United States are our freelancers that um that aren't you know in a show that that where they have a contract for the year and they're doing eight to 10 shows a week, which is the Cirque du Soleil environment.
Speaker: um but they're constantly searching for a job. i mean, we have this a lot in the dance industry too. So they might have a short-term contract where they're doing a summer show with one company and maybe they're doing something in the winter with another.
Speaker: And then they're performing in maybe a nightclub setting on various weekends. um And those folks ah often are also coaching and maybe having another job to survive. So that's a whole nother set of challenges, both mental health, financial stresses,
Speaker: um and just irregular physical training patterns, that that's really challenging. um And that's actually the group that I so i studied. So I did a um longitudinal injury study of American circus artists looking at pre-professional and professionals.
Speaker: um And we did it in 10 different cities across the United States. So coming back to your question about The individual discipline versus multidisciplinary.
Speaker: Most of those artists, we try to even classify people a little bit by like, are you an aerialist versus a ground acrobat, which is still quite broad. And and you know What happens is most people cross over, even if they're maybe not performing, they're doing some ground training to sort of balance themselves out. But often people, um especially in the freelance world, feel like in order to be competitive, they have to have multiple disciplines because...
Speaker: Sometimes shows don't need an aerialist, so they want someone who can juggle or they want someone who can do a hand-to-hand act or things like that. So many of our artists are training multiple disciplines, or if they're an aerialist, they're doing multiple apparatus.
Speaker: um So we we really had a hard time. ah We couldn't really define people as... um just a single discipline people or even just as an aerialist oftentimes, you know, and we were tracking in the study, we tracked what they trained every week. So by by discipline. So we had a lot of data on that.
Speaker: and And so that's that's where the complexity comes in ah studying injury and and looking at rehab in the circus arts is because there are so many disciplines that are under that umbrella and many people cross cross across more than one.
Speaker: And so what we were able to look at was based on their exposure to the different disciplines, what had a higher injury risk. um And so at least in our study, it was a category we called aerial with injury.
Speaker: With ground elements, um so aerial is a lot of hanging and pulling and inverting um on apparatus. And when it comes to Chinese pull and dance pull, there's more weight-bearing pushing type movements and floor-based movements.
Speaker: And so aerial with ground movements is those type of apparatus. um And so those had the highest injury rates when we looked at an injury that was attributed to training that discipline.
Speaker: um And we looked at the number of hours um or sessions and training were performing in that discipline. um But again, that was in pre-professional and professional circus artists in the U.S. But we also see Different disciplines are practiced. We don't see as much teeter board, for example, in the United States as you might see in Europe.
Speaker: and So sometimes we're practicing different disciplines. So if we had a larger representation of that, you know, the results could have looked different. So that's the importance of having our injury research be consistent across the world when we're doing it so we really can better understand and all this complexity.
Speaker: So what would be the field or the aspect or the discipline in circus arts as the most physically demanding? Like the one where like, okay, we get people coming through after a couple of years, they're just out. They can't handle it.
Speaker: Or it's just way too dangerous. What field or area would that be? Well, so the good thing about the circus arts is it's not as dangerous as it seems. um Certainly, we have some big traumatic accidents that happen.
Speaker: um And, you know, those make the news for sure. um But thankfully, those are very infrequent. If you look across um time, if you look across total injuries in the circus arts, so more of what we get tend to be things that just happen from repetitive exposure, just like you would in musicians or dancers, like this repeated hours and hours of training, repeated doing skills over and over, leading to those types of injuries. um Certainly our impact athletes and artists, but, you know, that are doing like tumbling, that are they landing um from, you know,
Speaker: high heights, those sorts of things. We'll see ah more often some traumatic injuries, sometimes certainly falls from aerialists, often apparatus. um But but we're we're not more dangerous than most sports um from what we know from our injury research, which I think sometimes surprises people when they just think about what comes to mind. Usually it's the most extreme thing they've seen in the circus arts. Sure, that stands out.
Speaker: Yeah. So, I mean, i think the other thing, and this is happening across sport too, is as we get smarter about training, um people can have longer careers. and So even, you know, with someone who, for example, we have a A fair amount of people that are hypermobile, not as much as in dance.
Speaker: um But for those folks, um you know, say, you know, contortion is an exception because it's all about the bend. But but say they're an aerialist, you know, teaching people to like do some of your bendy things, but also do a lot of other skills that aren't that way. So you're not overusing that one aspect.
Speaker: um of your body and things like that, learning how to be smarter about how you create an act for a longevity for your body so that you're not, and you know, overusing a certain part of your body um or um kind of abusing certain abilities that can also lead to future problems. So I think getting smarter about that, getting smarter about um you know, conditioning and and wellness practices. Unfortunately, we don't know a lot about prevention yet in the circus arts. We borrow most of that from sport and from dance.
Speaker: um But until we better understand injuries, it's really hard to systematically study prevention. Um, and also injuries are multifactorial. So I, you know, we often sell like, you know, do these three exercises and you're not going to have any shoulder injuries.
Speaker: And the reality is there's all sorts of things that go into it. It has to do with the environment. It has to do with your, your workload. It has to do with your nutrition. It has to do with, You know, how well you slept last night. It's not just about the the physical conditioning.
Speaker: So it's it's it's complicated. And there's certainly not one one group that's like dropping out um early early on, per se, I think.
Speaker: a lot of A lot of circus arts are are physically demanding, certainly in our acrobats versus, say, are manipulate you know our our clowns. or um We see our clowns um performing into well into their...
Speaker: They're golden years. um You won't tend to see that with your acrobats. um So it's I think it's more of that. The the injury rates are a bit lower in the manipulative arts.
Speaker: So things like juggling and hooping and Diablo. Makes sense. um Then the acrobatics. so So we're not dangerous per se. No.
Speaker: Stephanie, what does your collaboration look like with other disciplines like mental health professionals, dieticians and physicians? um I would say it is um lacking um because we have so few circus informed practitioners out there.
Speaker: and And so when we went to, for example, write this mental health paper, um We wanted to pull in all the mental health providers that focused on the circus arts.
Speaker: um And we really couldn't find anyone. And this was a worldwide look, you know. And so, you know, we had and we had some researchers. We had a mental health practitioner that um had been hired to for Cirque du Soleil as a company part time.
Speaker: So um and there's that's a lot of people. So it tells you like and these other providers aren't in those spaces. Unfortunately, healthcare care providers in circus spaces um is not the norm. So you would expect in a professional athletic environment that you have an onsite healthcare provider.
Speaker: That is not the norm in the circus arts, except in the biggest companies. and And so and if you have that, it's generally ah physical therapist, maybe an athletic trainer.
Speaker: and You might have a consulting physician, but you rarely have a mental health provider or a dietician, and they're very much needed.
Speaker: um so what kind of support staff does CERC travel with? They have, and Sinead can talk to this better than I, but they they have what they call their PMED team, which is generally made up of um physios and athletic trainers.
Speaker: ok um And then they generally have sort of consultant physicians. um And then they also have some of these other resources as far as mental health and dietitian, but they're not on site and they're not readily available as far as my understanding. And Sine can certainly talk from personal experience.
Speaker: I second that. I second what you're saying, Stephanie. That's that's pretty much what you have access to on a Cirque tour normally. And if you need a physician care, would you just go to a consultant in town?
Speaker: Yes. I mean, yes and no. I mean, it depends. and Most of the things that you're dealing with are going to be on site. I wouldn't say that you're really going to anybody off site, really. That's not really something that would come up. Everything would be done ah more or less in-house on tour with Cirque du Soleil.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense. So what about animal performances in the circus? i mean, that was a staple of circuses in years past, but not very much anymore. What happened to the animal performance in circuses?
Speaker: Well, yeah I mean, there's been a lot of bills and there's been a lot of advocacy around that. And it's interesting that you ask about the animals, Stephen, because I have often said that if folks advocated as strong for the artists within circus as they have for the animals.
Speaker: we That's so true. I mean, people will spend thousands of dollars for the care of their animals and ignore health conditions of their own for years. Yeah, they never ask. And exactly they're just out there. They're just trying to get all sorts of bills passed and all the animal rights, which again, for someone who has performed with animals um in shows over the years, I am one of the biggest proponents as well of animals not being in shows. It is not fun having a tiger stalk you on your way to the stage.
Speaker: Let me just tell you that. I mean, it's actually horrifying. It's horrifying. It's horrifying. And I have experienced that more than once where there's a bear, there's a tiger. I mean, this is real. A lion. um So, you know, and... It's almost insane.
Speaker: it's it's it's really It's really quite something. So again, you know there's this again there's this there's this conversation because I also know incredible families that were incredible um animal trainers in circus. And they have been, you know for generations, very, very good to those animals um and and and beautiful to them and and taking very well care of them. But again, for someone who has been around that, but you know there's still dogs, as you're saying, there's still cats.
Speaker: So for all the big the big game that they've gotten out of the circus, they have for some reason still allowed for the smaller animals to still be a part of the circus. So I'm not sure how long that's going to last, but that's still there. But again, coming back to the fact of, I wish i wish that folks would be as riled up about the artist plight within the industry as they have been about condemning these companies about how they treat the animals in the shows and not asking any questions like you guys are asking us in terms of your care, in terms of your day-to-day rights, in terms of your basic labor rights, which so many shows don't even have those.
Speaker: So many shows, you don't have your essential basic rights of or necessities in doing your job. um So many people are underpaid. So many folks are going without health insurance.
Speaker: And then also, too, when it comes to the health insurance um aspect, how much you of your policy can even really help you with the injuries and the difficulties that you have in your day-to-day. Most of the things that you're paying for are out-of-pocket.
Speaker: Most of the things that providers don't understand how to help you, how to take care of you. um sure even if you know And then if you're lucky to be in a bigger show, most folks are hiding or um you know playing down what's wrong with them because they don't want to lose their job and they don't have unionized protection.
Speaker: ah There's no union for the circus arts industry in America. um So we don't have any voice in there outside of the privatized company that's making all of those decisions. They're the ones giving you your breaks. They're the ones telling you about your days off.
Speaker: They're the ones telling you how many shows you can perform. They're the ones telling you how many tricks you can do. And these are actually things fundamentally that a show or a company shouldn't really be telling you. that you can do. Folks hear the 10 shows a week, the two, three shows a day, and they think, oh, it's normal.
Speaker: Like, well, who who set that up? Who said that our bodies were able to handle that on a you know a yearly basis where we don't really even have off-season? Some folks are working repetitively without any days off. wow There's so many shows that they don't offer you and any PTO. You don't have any paid time off for the majority of the shows that you're doing, while traveling in and out, being an independent contractor.
Speaker: being a W2 performer, um you don't have um the ability to rejuvenate or to recoup. And then many times as well, when they do send you out, they don't cover you for anything. So it's it's your money. It's out of pocket. If you need to go see a physical therapist, if you need to go do something where it's specialized, again, It's not covered under your insurance.
Speaker: Or they want you to do something that's maybe a little bit more experimental. experiment experimental And that would probably be something that's not covered under your insurance as well. And even if you are insured, with a lot of the shows, you're very underinsured. So I like what you were speaking, Stephen, about going out of the show to use a doctor.
Speaker: You'll find that those insurance policies hardly cover anything. um And it's unfortunate. And you don't want to, um you know, you don't want say anything bad because I always say there's great things about the corporatization of circus.
Speaker: There are fantastic things about how far circuses come in terms of everyone's just not riding around on the train all day. um You know, and you really had so little rights way back when. You have so many more rights now.
Speaker: But the lack still continues. of how the policies actually work for you because they're not circus specific is majoritively the major problem when we get to any of those insurances or any of those health practices or any of those benefits.
Speaker: We're locked out of so many of them, especially if not a part of a group policy, which we find that within a lot of the performing arts, but they double down when it comes to circus. And so many times, even within certain policies, it says specifically We will not cover circus arts or acrobats in this policy. And I, you know, I find that just I think disheartening is is is not even the right word with how many um you know battles we encounter with ah things like that. Sure. It's devastating.
Speaker: So then what are you doing to help change this? I know you're very active in the advocacy realm and trying make a difference because it sounds like this is so far behind even musical theater, like equity versus non-equity. It's pretty much all non-equity type work. So what kind of initiatives are you pushing forward here?
Speaker: Thank you so much for asking and you know just in collaborating with um other fantastic circus art advocates like Stephanie and Athletic Science, you know we were pulling together um you know advocates from everywhere to push for three pieces of legislation and policy. um And that took us to the White House even last year. you know was approached with the White House last year, the other administration, I say, I don't think we'll be back.
Speaker: um But they were very open to us 2024. And we were supposed to be doing a series for the Circus Arts, which you know completely dried up and was devastating for us. But we got there. And um you know they invited us to perform And, ah you know, I said, no, we deserve a conversation like you're having with all the other industries that you're inviting. Why are we invited to perform, but they're invited to have conversations around labor rights and union rights?
Speaker: You know, i was like, why don't you want to have any conversations around policy and legislation for us? But you want us to perform. That's right the extent of how we're invited into any space. And obviously we love it. i mean, obviously all of us would be absolutely honored.
Speaker: But, you know, around that conversation, I said, you know, we deserve to have panelists there that can represent different facets of the industry that can support the policies that we're pushing for. And because we know that it would probably be very challenging to unionize the industry. That's why we've come back to policy. So a lot of the things that Stephanie is discovering and um pursuing through research, which is so fantastic, those are the things that we want to legislate.
Speaker: um Because at this point in time, we need to have minimums in this industry. We need to have folks that are doing minimum wages for our industry where there's set rates. of how much you know circus performers shouldn't be making less than people that work at Starbucks or at McDonald's, for example. like Why are performers in those tax brackets when they are doing high-level skills, when they are risking their lives, ah many of them majority in in a show?
Speaker: um And again, sometimes can't even collect health um unemployment benefits. So we're looking towards the, we've been pursuing the Circus Workers Act, and that would be our Union Rights and Protections Act. um We're also pur pursuing the Circus Arts Category Recognition Bill.
Speaker: And yeah we do have a sponsor from that for that from a representative in Congress um out of Nevada, which we're very fortunate. And that would be an individual category recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Speaker: um Again, it would take us out of that multidisciplinary category that like locks us out of getting so many access to grants, um into funding. um And then, you know, again, not having that representation as actual circus arts industry workers, because we actually essentially don't even have a title as workers in America, which is, again, is insane to think about that when you see so how much circus there is out there. And then our third act is the Safe Art and the Safe Circus Act.
Speaker: And this would be a branch or division by the U.S. Center for Safe Sport. And as a survivor of you of USA Gymnastics, along with the survivors of Dr. Larry Nassar, our cases led to the creation of the U.S. Center for Safe Sport, you know, about eight or nine years ago. right And so I've been working on legislation and policy to amend the center for these past several years. And throughout that, i have thought many times, why don't we have...
Speaker: the arts included in this because the arts has so many issues very similar in terms of abuse, in terms of misconduct, in terms of underreporting. um And so we've been working with the center.
Speaker: We've been working with members um of the house. um and and and different um ah members of the Senate who are part of the oversight committee to see how we can expand into the arts without necessarily arts art forms having to become sports.
Speaker: Like we saw with Breaking for Gold went to one Olympics and is now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Center for Safe Sport. But we also know that a private dance studio that has a breaking program is not under the center's jurisdiction. So there's all these different gaps here. And I think for, you know, circus schools, for circus programs, after school programs, for festivals, all of those things in that wheelhouse, those are things that can be under the center's jurisdiction. And we can have an actual reporting protocol for the arts.
Speaker: um and also too specifically for the circus arts. So we can get some increased regulations, actually some increased benefits. And when you get these things, it also increases funding that you can have for your industry, which sometimes folks don't really connect those two.
Speaker: In terms of how do we get more for what we need, it's like, well, we need to become a part of the fabric of some of these institutions so that we get those recognitions that Stephanie was speaking so eloquently about before.
Speaker: Perfect. Yeah. I mean, you have to be able to recognize that it is an actual thing before you can actually help protect that thing. Right.
Speaker: Right. Yeah, and I think, you know, if you compare what's happening in the United States um to Europe or Canada or Australia, you know, circus arts training, circus arts productions, um circus arts research is funded by the government.
Speaker: And um when I talk about half of my life is doing research and work for the circus arts, that's a hobby because there there isn't grant funding or support for that work.
Speaker: um But all the people I collaborate with that are in institutions in Europe and Australia and Canada, um it's part of their job and it's um funded by the government that work. So it crosses over. So it you know it means that we have much less resources to...
Speaker: and We're behind and we also have less resources to catch up um and do this work um to have the research to support what we're talking about, to to um improve our practices, both for, you know, preventing injuries as well as rehabilitating injuries in the circus arts. um Because right now we rely on what we know from sports, what we know from dance, but it's not the same.
Speaker: But you're also heavily involved in this as well, right, Stephanie? I mean, you're doing um circus arts medicine, documentation, research. What other things are you doing in the background here? The most recent thing that we published was a new guideline for return to circus after concussion.
Speaker: um Again, we we leapt off from the sport guideline. um So the concussion and sport group guideline that published their sixth consensus statement on concussion and sport.
Speaker: And we took that and again, adopted what made sense. But then... you know, part of the return to sport guideline is return to non-contact and contact sport. Well, that doesn't really help us in circus.
Speaker: um And so we developed a guideline for returning specific to different discipline categories. So what an aerialist needs to do is going to be different than someone who's mainly a hand balancer, for example, um and and developed a progression so that both um rehab professionals, but also circus arts coaches would have Something ah to go to to help guide them as how to safely bring people back, because we we know people are, first of all, not getting pulled out after concussion from participating in circus because we don't have as much awareness of concussion.
Speaker: um People are also afraid of learning losing their their job or their position their role in a show. So they might mask the symptoms of concussion. So people around them need to be able to recognize it and pull them out.
Speaker: um But we also, you know, as rehab providers, you know, we're sort of guessing as to what we need to do for progression. So now we have some guideline, but again, it's based on expert opinion. So we really have to apply it now.
Speaker: and see how it works and and then update it based on how that goes. and So that's that's one of the most recent things. So it's it's a mix of trying to study more injuries, mental health in the circus arts, as well as um develop guidelines to for rehabilitating injuries and that sort of thing and lots of education. I mean, one of the nice things that's happening is we're starting to get more asks for circus arts education for the general education physio for example and pama just uh emailed yesterday nice and they're updating their essentials and performing arts medicine course which um included dance and musicians and theaters and vocalists and nothing on circus um and they want to develop a module for circus so that's exciting um but um you know for for the
Speaker: average education, you know, they might get some exposure to the performing arts, but but usually nothing on circus. so So being able to provide some education um so that because we have circus really in every city, you know, when people go to provide or even if they're not an expert, that they have some understanding of the artists and the special considerations around the performing artists and the circus artists.
Speaker: um so So it's a mix of doing the research and try to have better understanding and putting out guidelines um for better practices and then beyond publishing, getting the word out um in a variety of ways like this.
Speaker: Perfect. um So... I'm a dietitian and i have worked with athletic trainers that if they had ah connection to someone in circus arts, there were opportunities for them to work in circus arts and with those performers. And I'm curious for those who may be listening,
Speaker: how do you get into the field of circus arts as someone who is interested or wants to learn more or as a practitioner wants to help these athletes who are reaching out on and out, like reaching out to those who may locally be available um as dietitians and mental health professionals and so forth.
Speaker: What recommendations do you have for those professionals who want to get more experience? Yeah. Yeah, I think naturally, both in dance and circus arts, a lot of the practitioners that go into that um have in some way participated themselves.
Speaker: um But that's not enough, right? um You know, if every sport's physio or a sports, you know, athletic trainer had to play that sport in order to work with that sport, we wouldn't have enough providers.
Speaker: right um So I think, you know, part of it is getting in those spaces and going to shows, getting to know your your local training centers, going and observing, getting a sense of understanding the movement and the training. So part a piece of that is just getting to know the community,
Speaker: um and and understanding the the world of the circus arts. and And people are very happy to have people interested. um So they will be very much welcomed into those spaces.
Speaker: um And then I think seeking out, um you know, you know, we now thankfully have a little bit more literature, you know, we, we want to be practicing as best we can evidence-based care. So, you know, looking at the literature that we do have published in the circus arts to have some understanding around injuries and management, um, we published, uh, uh, independent study course, um,
Speaker: it with the American Physical Therapy Association two years ago, maybe. um That's like ah a course on um addressing the circus arts.
Speaker: And it really applies to more than just a rehab practitioner, um And so that's another nice resource for people. And then you have a ah variety of practitioners um that are providing, so you know, um providing workshops and and seminars um around the circus arts. And that's another piece um um that people can look out for.
Speaker: so one last question to Shania. How does one become the face of a wine brand? How does that work? Hmm. I know, right? Because that seems like a circus arts adjacent type of activity.
Speaker: When I need to know that because that sounds like When did they start doing wine? Right? I mean, i was like, but with wine and circus performers, i don't think that mixes very well. So speaking of mental health and the arts there.
Speaker: You know, the hilarious part was, too, is that, like, when we were shooting that commercial for Cirque du Soleil when they did their first wine collaboration this past year, there was so many roles around our interaction to the wine.
Speaker: my gosh. That was not allowed. And we had to be super careful. I can only imagine. yeah Like, we couldn't be, you know, like, wine adjacent. There was no glass. Right.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So Stephanie, Shania, I hope that everybody who goes to the circuses and to all the circus arts performers out there, i hope they realize what wonderful advocates you are. This has been so enlightening for us, and I can't tell you how appreciative I am to have you on our show.
Speaker: From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for coming on, and I hope to talk to you very soon. Thank you so much. yeah Thank you for having us. It was a pleasure. We appreciate it. And we come to the end of another show.
Speaker: We want to thank Stephanie and Shania, as well as our sponsor, On Call AI, for making this show possible. If you like what you hear, please feel free to leave a review. For Yasi Ansari, I'm Stephen Karaginas, and this has been the Athletes in the Arts podcast.
