HOUSTON – You don't have to run away to join the circus. Why? Because Houston has its very own!
“Circus for me began in early 2000, Houston. I was a student a Lamar High School and I was interested in the world of circus arts but there was no circus around in Houston,” Reyie Delgado said.
Perhaps you didn't know it, but Cirque La Vie has called Houston home since 2014. The "first Houston-based contemporary circus company" was founded in 2010 by Delgado with the motto "Dare To Be Different."
“I felt like I needed to come back to Houston because I remember when there was nothing for me at that time and so it made me think that maybe there was a lot of people here in Houston who were struggling through that as well and so I felt like it was a calling to come here and just give it back,” Delgado said. “Hopefully I would find all those people that remind me of myself and give them the place that I didn’t have growing up ... . I found lots of them.”
So many in fact that the group already has its very own training ground.
“I saw it as a seven-year thing ... . It’s only been three and it’s big. It’s way big, yeah, and it’s just people keep coming in through the door wanting to be circus artists,” Delgado said.
What does it mean to be a contemporary circus troupe?
Delgado and his band of performers use the stylistic principles of dance, theater and acrobatics without the use of animals. What’s more, all are welcome.
“People think that you have to be completely fit to do circus arts," Delgado said. "They think that you have to be like a ballerina. Long and limber, and like, no! Circus arts is for anyone that has any kind of type of body. You can be a juggler, you can be a clown, you can be a contortionist, you can be a dancer, an actor, acrobat, aerial artist, the possibilities are endless."
And the circus offers classes for all of it.
“Kind of see myself like Xavier from X-Men, the man in the wheelchair. I’m just going over there looking for mutants, you know, hiding. They got their super powers and I just need to find them. I need to see them. I’ll find them and I’ll give them a headquarters, a home, where they can come and I guess make their powers more powerful,” Delgado said.
So what’s in store for Cirque La Vie’s future?
“It’s so obvious for me. We want to go on tour," Delgado said. "I have a whole bunch of artists who want to experience the circus life but they’re from Houston and I want to do that with them, travel with them, be a traveling circus with them but I want to do it starting in Houston. Not have them have to go to Canada or California or New York. Not having them leave their homes and their loved ones behind just to live the life you know? I want something to be from Houston, be from Texas and just everybody to be proud that it came from here."
While the group does perform frequently around the Houston area, much of its focus is on teaching others the art of circus. It offers classes in aerial techniques, acrobatics, silks, trapeze, hand-balancing, contortion and more at its training facility in northwest Houston.
In addition to the classes, you can catch Cirque La Vie's free weekly show at Avenida De Las Americas on Fridays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, visit CirqueLaVie.net.
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Want to see something impressive? Watch this. Cirque La Vie
Posted by FOX 13's Chip Brewster on Tuesday, August 15, 2017
