Interview By: Brian Kane

Dani Caldwell, one of our very talented, younger students recently completed a week-long program for kids at the National Circus School in Montreal, Canada.
This was an amazing opportunity for Dani, and we are very proud of her for making it into such a prestigious program. The National Circus School is known
for it’s elite performers, many of whom go into work with Cirque du Soleil after graduation. I spoke with Dani about her experience at the school. Here is what she had to say.

So, what was your first impression upon arriving at the National Circus School?
I was nervous, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t like how I thought it would be.

What did you expect?
Different groups with specialties, everyone practicing what they’re good at. We didn’t practice specialties very much. It was very general.

What kind of groups were you broken up into?
It was random, people weren’t divided into different skill levels like I would have expected. The only time we were divided up was for acro
because of strength and flexibility.

What was the school itself like?
Big, really big. They had three separate gyms. A lot of cool stuff, harnesses. I had seen some of it before, but there was also a Chinese
pole, which I hadn’t seen before.

Did you stay in a student dormitory?
No, I stayed in nearby hotel with my mom.

What did you think of the other kids who were there?
I expected a lot more rhythmic gymnasts, but it seemed like there were a lot more dancers.

Were the classes hard?
Yes, they really challenged us. Also, the instructors all had heavy accents, which
made it difficult to understand what they were saying.

Out of everything you did, what was your favorite moment?
My favorite moment was probably the end when we did a performance to show off what we had learned.

 What did you do for the performance?
We did Hip hop, Chinese pole, and rolla bolla, which is a cylinder with a plank on it that you had to balance on. I didn’t do the rolla bolla, but it looked really cool, definitely requires a lot of balancing. We also did silks, lyra, and trapeze.

 When the time comes, would you like to attend The National Circus School?
Yes. The training is good; it could definitely help me get to Cirque du Soleil.
Cirque is a big goal of mine. I want to perform with them and incorporate silks
Contortion.