Pop-Up ‘Solstice Circus’: Where Anything Goes and the Venue Doesn’t Matter
Picture a night at your favorite bar: Your drink of choice in hand, an upbeat tune floats through the air from a live band. A crowd has swarmed your watering hole to imbibe after a long work week. But something is different this evening: two masked acrobats are suspended above the chaos.
Conjoined on a suspended hoop, twirling in a web of human limbs, they rappel from yards of silk, spinning and tumbling from the rafters as mesmerized patrons watch from below. A clown appears to join them in their athletic feats. A juggler emerges. A gymnast is doing headstands and back-bends on the bar.
No, this isn’t a dream— it’s Solstice Circus.
A Solstice acrobat performed on silks at Plough and Stars.
The pop-up show is an unpredictable labor of love that emerges every few months: two equinox and two solstice shows per year, plus a midsummer and Valentine’s performance to mark the pagan calendar holidays. The motley crew of Cambridge-based performers has proven that the only thing a successful circus experience really requires is the right troop and a bustling city bar.
Featuring a live band, acrobats, “Happy’’ The Sad Clown, a juggler, gymnasts, and lead comedian “The Sun,’’ Solstice aims to create a freakshow you can enjoy without going to the Big Top. They’ve been entertaining Cantabrigians since 2010, but this year’s autumnal equinox came and went without their usual tomfoolery. Now they’re plotting their comeback.
“Being a physical performer, body injuries are part of it,’’ Solstice trapeze artist Christine Newsham told me when I asked why the September T.T. The Bear’s Place show was canceled. “But we’ll be back.’’
The pop-up circus last appeared to mark the Pagan holiday of Litha (midsummer) in June 2014. This winter they’re returning to the spotlight at TT the Bear’s Place on December 21.
“The idea of putting on the show at Plough and Stars came about when my former training partner and I wanted a place to perform. I was working at Plough and the owner suggested we try performing there,’’ Newsham said. “It takes a lot of time to plan each show.’’
Instead of a traditional trapeze, acrobats perform on bars and hoops rigged to the venue’s exposed beams. Newsham trained with formerly Acton-based Ringling trapeze artist Tito Gaona almost 15 years ago, and formed the troop with her trapeze friends in June 2010.
Acrobat Christine Newsham
“We’re performers, but we have other jobs too,’’ she said. When Newsham isn’t hanging (literally) at a local bar, she’s travelling. As a tourism coordinator at a resort in Panama, she is using her years of acrobat experience to establish a circus arts program for children there.
The rest of the troop also have normal day jobs: teaching English, writing Bitcoin software, entertaining at Boston Children’s Hospital, working as personal trainers. But the seasonally-themed performance revolves around a Solstice troop member who’s also in a less traditional line of work. Comedian Andy Ofiesh, a software developer known for his monthly nude performances at Improv Boston, is Solstice’s (clothed) “Sun.’’
Andy “The Sun’’ Ofiesh
“Usually, I make my entrance in the show as The Sun and let everyone in the audience know that [it’s] all about me,’’ Ofiesh said. “I might be bright and sunny during the day, but when the Sun goes out at night, I drink and become a little obnoxious. In other words, I Bieber it up a bit.’’
Ofiesh says the love and camaraderie he found with Solstice Circus makes up for the extra effort of having to wear sun-themed garb. His stand-up sans clothes can be seen at Improv Boston on the first Thursday of every month. But the sometimes-naked Sun is only the beginning of the spectacle.
Wendy Kinal as “Happy The Sad Clown’’
Performance artist Wendy Kinal is “Happy the Sad Clown’’ in the Solstice spotlight. Kinal, whose day job is entertaining Children’s Hospital patients with Big Apple Circus’s Clown Care Unit, clowns around using jokes and acrobatics. Kinal is so dedicated to theater arts that she’s also designed a graduate program at Lesley University called Master’s Degree in Play: Clowning, Ritual, and Transformation.
“I’ve done a little bit of trapeze and other aerial performing. I just love to be on stage,’’ Kinal said. “I love clowning and other circus skills. It found me.’’
The Solstice Circus seems to also have found the musician at the center of its show: Cris Driscoll. The bartender turned teacher is now also the lead singer for the circus’s band, made up of Plough and Stars bartenders. The group, aptly named “The Startenders,’’ joined forces when Newsham convinced Cris to croon seasonally-themed tunes for the pop-up circus.
‘Startender’ Cris Driscoll
“Christine can be very convincing,’’ Driscoll said of his hesitation to join a troop that almost never rehearses together before the big performance.
“I became entirely hooked,’’ he said. “The task of trying to anticipate what everyone was doing kept us on our toes but [I’m] thrilled with the outcome.’’
Driscoll, an English teacher for Boston Public Schools, said he and the Startenders play covers, original songs, jazz standards, even classical opera pieces to aid the show’s progression of acrobatics, clowning, gymnastics and juggling. “We often try to include a bit of pop culture: honoring the Tro-lo-lo Guy, or transforming Miley Cyrus’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ into ‘Cause I Love Singing Deck the Halls!’’’
All the while the acrobats, jugglers, gymnasts, Kinal, and The Sun do their things. “That’s what I love most about the Solstice Circus,’’ Driscoll said. “Anything goes.’’
“It’s a way for both the performers and the audience to collaborate and celebrate life,’’ Kinal said. Everybody is good at something and we get to shine in different areas.’’
To join Solstice Circus at T.T. the Bear’s Place on December 21, purchase tickets here.
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