BRATTLEBORO — New England Center for Circus Arts invites the public to enjoy the extraordinary circus talents of its graduating ProTrack students before they move on to perform in the professional circus world. Upon graduation, they will join previous NECCA graduates who have gone on to work with Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Bros, 7 Fingers, Cirque Eloize, and Circa, among others, as well as on European cabarets and circus cruises.
The show, “Wayward Ladies' Finishing School - A Circus Show,” features trapeze, contortion, juggling, cyr wheel and other high flying talents, according to a news release. Afternoon and evening graduation performances for NECCA's highly selective ProTrack program are May 19 and 20 at NECCA's studio at the Austine Campus, 209 Austine Drive.
All NECCA ProTrack students train in the fundamentals of contemporary circus - dance, theater, acrobatics, and circus arts. Each student chooses two acts to develop, a major and a minor.
This year, working with Director Aimee Hancock, a NECCA faculty coach and acclaimed aerialist who toured internationally with Cirque Eloize, the students have created an audience-pleasing show around their graduation presentations.
This year's graduation features 11 international students who were accepted after an audition process that narrowed students down from more than 80 applicants in the initial round.
Performers include Suzon Gheur, who trained from the age of 12 in Belgium. Gheur, who will perform on the dance trapeze and cyr wheel, says she “has never forgotten to listen to her inner child” and bases her work on playfulness and truthfulness. She has traveled internationally to train, coach, and perform, and moved to the U.S. in 2016 to further her training at NECCA.
A duo trapeze act will be playfully flown by Cherie Jacque with aerial partner Miranda Kent.
Kent discovered circus while in college through the University of Puget Sound circus club. At first, she was a prop manipulator, but found her true passion in trapeze. Before she was flipping through the air, Jacque says she was flipping onto and off of her parent's sofa - until they decided a better outlet for her energy was needed. Competitive sports gave her the athleticism she craved until she found circus.
Jacque has been training in duo trapeze with Kent for the past nine months.