Circus School Gets Children to Step (and Flip and Juggle) Right Up

ITHACA, N.Y. — With traditional circus organizations like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey winding down and the Big Apple Circus struggling to make ends meet, the outlook for aspiring performers might seem dim, but Amy Cohen sees a very different future.

“This narrative that the circus is dead is so confusing because every art form evolves,” Ms. Cohen, the founder of the Circus Culture school here, said. “I foresee a huge increase in quality of the new circus that can be created.”

And to help her vision along, Ms. Cohen, 30, has outfitted a former newspaper plant with wall-to-wall exercise mats, turning the space into a school. The 24-hour practice space allows young jugglers and acrobats to train into the wee hours. Beams that once supported a printing press are rigged with trapeze swings and glossy ribbons of fabric for aerial maneuvers. The perimeter is adorned with unicycles, bins crammed with juggling equipment, and a spectrum of hoops and batons.

Ms. Cohen has spent a lot of time figuring out how learning the acts and tricks of a circus can benefit children. Since 2012, she has served as the executive director of the American Youth Circus Organization, which monitors and supports hundreds of circus teachers across the country and organizes a biennial youth circus festival. Recently, her group commissioned a study to examine how circus training can contribute to the physical and mental development of children.

But in starting Circus Culture in 2015, Ms. Cohen, a graduate of Ithaca College, hoped to have a more immediate impact.

“In Ithaca, people say yes to things, and I wanted to be in that environment,” she said. “I never really considered doing this anywhere else, to be honest.”

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Circus Culture offers 35 classes covering a variety of specialties, including contortion, unicycling, juggling and acrobatics. More than 150 students — as young as infants — are enrolled, including some from Rochester, nearly 90 miles away.

“People are definitely gravitating here for whatever reason, and I try to really listen and figure out what will make people come,” Ms. Cohen said.

Kristin Dutcher said her daughter Zoe has been interested since she was a toddler and now takes classes in acrobatics and handstands at the school.

“We showed her Cirque du Soleil when she was 3, and her jaw dropped,” Ms. Dutcher said. “Ever since then she’s been pulling out my yoga mat and doing this contortion thing on it. Now she’s 9, and it’s been an ongoing dream.”

Zoe agreed. “My dream is coming true,” she said. “It’s so much better than gymnastics.”

Looking ahead, Ms. Cohen hopes to prepare her students for the next generation of circus performances that can be staged in big top tents as well as in theaters and cabarets and on city streets.

In addition to traditional circus skills, the school offers a variety of acrobatic training useful in the more athletic, contemporary style of circus, with the sort of high-flying maneuvers pioneered by modern companies like Cirque du Soleil. And Ms. Cohen routinely enlists professional performers with innovative acts to conduct workshops, master classes and casual meet-ups.

At her request, the members of a Swedish juggling trio, Water on Mars, stopped at the school to mingle with students after the troupe’s performance at Ithaca’s State Theater. Their original routine featured one member juggling while another circled him, taping his arms to his torso. At another point, the three, in unison, juggled open bottles of water.

“I think the whole world of entertainment is changing,” Wes Peden, one of the jugglers, said. “It used to be that you had to know the right people and get really lucky or get on TV. Now you can just make a cool Instagram account and all of a sudden you’re the most famous person ever. There’s no one guarding the gates.”

“A show like ours is much easier to travel with,” added Patrik Elmnert, another member. “Our show can fit in suitcases, and we can go anywhere in the world. With shows like Ringling Brothers, it’s a much larger operation to keep going.”

Between the exit of older companies and the easy visibility that small troupes (or even solo performers) can attain through the internet, some say schools like Circus Culture are well positioned to define the future of circus performance.

“Certainly with big players having noticeably left the scene, I think that creates a place that other people can step into,” said Jen Agans, a research associate at Cornell University who studies youth development in out-of-school activities. “Youth circuses and community circus schools are already poised and ready to fill that gap.”

Dr. Agans also sits on the board of directors of the American Youth Circus Organization.

“What’s next? More companies, for sure,” she said.

At Circus Culture, a number of students are serious about turning professional.

“I think at this point there’s no turning back. I don’t think I’d want to do anything else,” said Kevin Flanagan, an Ithaca College student.

Ms. Cohen said: “There’s circus as an art form and circus as a life tool. I believe in them both really equally, and they inform one another. But they have specific paths.

“I’d like to develop both of those here,” she continued, “and perhaps make this a hub that can be replicated in other parts of the country.”