POPFest – Bex and Con talk Circus Life with the Cast of Cirque Du Soleil’s BIG TOP ACADEMY

POPFest – Bex and Con talk Circus Life with the Cast of Cirque Du Soleil’s BIG TOP ACADEMY!!!

What’s the best circus trick you can do? Bex age 8

Ellowyn Stanton – The best/coolest trick I can do is probably juggling knives. (Just to clarify, these are prop knives that are specially made for juggling. (PLEASE do not try this at home!)

Cameron Andres – Hi Bex, hmm let me think….I think the best circus trick I can do is a back double twisting layout on the floor mats. It’s a gymnastics skill that translates to circus really well!

Ava Ro – The best circus trick I can do is probably ball walking and Poi! I love Poi the best because the scarves on the ends of the poi look so colourful and artistic when they are flowing through the air! You can be creative and free while you’re using the Poi and it’s so much fun!

Madison Brydges – The best circus trick I can do is the Aerial Silk Triple Star Drop. Although I love doing my hoop tricks, this was definitely my best one!

Riley O’Donnell  – The best circus trick I can do right now is a drop to my legs on the trapeze.

What’s the hardest trick you’ve learnt and why was it so hard to master? Con age 13

Ellowyn Stanton – There are so many tricks that are very challenging to learn. But I think the hardest trick I learned was juggling! It took me a long time to simply learn how to juggle balls. It really is a brain twister to learn the throwing pattern, and you need a lot of patience! So it was very hard for me to learn, but the hard work paid off because now I can juggle balls, clubs and knives!

Cameron Andres – During rehearsal for season two I learned a new apparatus called the “Cyr wheel”.  It’s a big metal ring that you can spin around in and do tricks in.  It’s super hard to balance and quite heavy so it hurts when you make a mistake!

Ava Ro – The hardest trick I ever had to learn in circus was a drop on the silks! I’m very tiny so it wasn’t easy to get up onto the silks and you had to have a lot of upper body strength. 

Madison Brydges – The hardest trick I have learned was the Aerial Silk Triple Star Drop. It was hard to master in the beginning because during this drop, you are falling forward and need to keep your body engaged and very stiff, and at the same time you are directing your body to stay in the star position. It was hard to master for sure, but I had amazing coaches and with lots of hard work and training, it came together and ended up being my most favourite!

Riley O’Donnell – The hardest trick I have learned was a drop on silks. For me, the preparation before the drop wasn’t the difficult part, but getting over the fear of dropping from so high took a little bit of time. 

Q3) What’s the best trick you’ve ever seen in a circus and why was it so good? Bex age 8

Ellowyn Stanton – The coolest act I’ve seen in the circus was an aerial, hotel cart act performed at the Tohu in Montréal. The performer used a hotel cart as an aerial apparatus. She was doing such amazing skills, showing her strength and flexibility, all while the luggage cart was spinning around her. 

Cameron Andres – The coolest circus act I’ve seen was in Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza. It’s called the “Wheel of Death” because it’s so dangerous!  It looks like a big (like three stories) lever that rotates with a wheel on either end. The acrobats use the inside and the outside of those two wheels to jump and do crazy flips while the whole apparatus spins.  Crazy right? Check it out:  https://youtu.be/tD-risqRgME

Ava Ro – The best trick I’ve ever seen in the circus is definitely the flying trapeze! It was really amazing because you have to have total trust in your partner to catch you…or else…you FALL! Yikes! 

Madison Brydges –  I think the best circus trick I have ever seen was a trick that was done during La Nouba, Cirque du Soleil show that I saw in Florida. The performer did a “Double Double Layout to the Legs,” I think that’s what it t was called, where they did a backwards layout with a twist. Then the performer was caught in the air by their legs. It was amazing!!!!

Riley O’Donnell – One of the best circus tricks I’ve seen was hand balancing on a Russian bar. This means that there are a few people on the bottom holding up bars that can bounce, while people on top are doing handstands on each other while balancing and jumping on a thin bar. I thought it was really cool because it would’ve taken a lot of strength and overall, it amazed me! 

Q4) If you could have one superpower to help you make the show what would it be and why would it be so useful? Con age 13

Ellowyn Stanton – If I could have one superpower to help make the show, it would be endless creativity. Because to make a circus show you need creativity! But sometimes you run out of ideas. So, an endless amount of creativity and imagination could really help produce amazing ideas for an incredible circus show!

Cameron Andres – Cool question Con. A superpower that would make our show better would be super healing for all of the cast members. Then we could take all of the risks we want in rehearsal and never worry about injury!

Ava Ro – If I had to have one superpower for Big Top Academy it would be to NEVER get nervous! There are lots of performances in a circus school, so it would be amazing to always feel totally confident on stage! 

Madison Brydges – Hmmm…one superpower for the show. I think for April it would allow her to be invisible when she wanted to be. This way, April could be anywhere she wanted and would be able to hear and see things that were going to happen in the future. If April had that power she could change any bad things that were going to happen and protect her friends and BTA from anyone trying to hurt or ruin the reputation of her friends and her school, Big Top Academy.  She would already know what the rivals were planning and she could stop anything before it happened. April has a huge heart and loves her BTA family.  She would do anything to help and protect them.

Riley O’Donnell  – I’m not sure what super power I would use to help the show, but If I could have one super power I would choose invisibility because it is a very versatile power that could be used for  many things. 

You can watch Big Top Academy on @POPUKTV as part of POP Fest, airing from Friday 17th July to Sunday 30th August. You can find POP on Freeview 206, Sky 616, Virgin 736 and Freesat 603.

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