Each at the tender age of 15, Emma Rogers and Bekk McGowan are partners in circus acrobatics and in a circle of trust, which they are taking on the road this summer with the Circus Smirkus tour, an international traveling youth troupe based in Vermont.

Rogers, a Peterborough resident, and McGowan, a Wilton resident, were chosen from among a pool of 200 applicants to travel and perform with the troupe as it stops at 15 venues throughout the Northeast to perform 70 shows between July and mid-August.

The pair trains together at the New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro, Vt. They are among a handful of students from the center who are joining Circus Smirkus this year. According to Circus Smirkus, it was their skills in partner acrobatics that won Rogers and McGowan their places in the 10-week tour that will include 30 youth performers as well as adult coaches and crewmembers.

They will perform with fellow students from New England Center for Circus Arts at Saturday’s 18th Annual Children and the Arts Festival in downtown Peterborough. (See story, page 15).

In addition to partner acrobatics, Rogers also specializes in solo-fabric performance, which requires a lot of strength and memorization of wrap techniques. But it’s the partner work that she says is the most challenging.

“People would think fabric would be dangerous, but I don’t really think so,” Rogers said Friday. “Partner acrobatics, when you’re suspended above someone’s head, that’s the scary part.”

When she’s doing fabric performances, Rogers is depending on the strength she’s acquired in her upper body to keep herself in the air.

“You just kind of get strong from doing it,” she said, while practicing the techniques at a space in the barn attached to her home. “Lots of practices where your arms are on fire.”
Partner work is a different story.

“When you’re relying on someone else, there has to be a lot of trust,” she said. “I think I have learned a lot about working with other people. You have to make compromises and trust someone. ... And, communicate and encourage.”

Between the two, there’s a stabilizing dance that happens on many different levels when they work together, Rogers explained. “We kind of balance each other out because I can be intense and he’s more laid back about things.”

During training, McGowan explained in a phone interview, that Rogers is suspended from a belt around her waist, which takes much of the danger out of trying something new. It’s during a performance when the training wheels, so to speak, come off and the two really get put to the test.

“There’s some tricks I drop her and then catch her right before she hits the ground,” he said. “I think she’s trusting me a lot, but I’m also trusting she’s not going to let me drop her.”

McGowan, a freshman who boards at High Mowing School in Wilton, began studying circus arts at Pine Hill Waldorf School in the fifth grade. He got serious about it three years ago and has been studying in Brattleboro for two years.

“I love doing it,” he said, adding that it’s the one thing, in his estimation, that he really excels at.

Going on tour this summer is his opportunity to try out the life of a circus performer full-time, something he hopes to pursue professionally.

Rogers, a freshman at ConVal High School, said she’s been studying circus arts for just over two years.

“I used to be a competitive gymnast,” she noted. “Then I took up an interest in circus arts.”
She described circus performers as “people who want to do something like dance or gymnastics, but with a creative twist.”

McGowan and Rogers both expressed surprise at their good fortune in being selected for the summer tour with Circus Smirkus. McGowan’s mother, Michal Noer of Wilton, said the application process was intimidating.

“We never believed he would get in,” she said. “I will be, with bated breath, following his progress in the circus.”

Rogers’ mother, Deb Heath-Rogers, said having her daughter away for the summer wouldn’t be easy.

“It’s that letting go. But, if I was young again, to have this opportunity, I mean it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. How could you not encourage her to go?” she said.

The danger Rogers faces is something Heath-Rogers said she tries not to think about. Noer isn’t as worried about her son being away for the summer or about the dangers he faces while performing.

Rogers and McGowan have bumped heads, said Noer, and one time Rogers’ heel came down hard on McGowan’s collarbone, but there have been no major injuries.

“So far, the circus is the safest thing he’s been doing,” Noer said, noting that McGowan had previously broken his wrist while snowboarding.

Both mothers said the joy their children have in doing circus performances is what matters most.

“Once he caught onto this thing,” Noer said of McGowan, “you see in his eyes that he’s found something he loves doing.”

For tickets and scheduling information on Circus Smirkus’ summer tour, visit www.smirkus.org or call 1-877-764-7587. “The Front Page Follies: Big Top News!” show, a circus-style look at old-time journalism, plays in Brattleboro July 19 and 20.