Circus school comes to Whitehorse

The circus has arrived in Whitehorse. Sort of.

Every Sunday afternoon in October, a group of up to 15 people gather to take part in the Yukon's first circus school for adults.

Circus Sundays is organized by the Yukon Circus Society, and held at Avalanche Athletics downtown. Participants learn and practice a wide range of circus activities including juggling, aerial hoop acrobatics and silk work.

Graham Rudge is a member of the Yukon Circus Society. He's also one of the trainers.

"For years we've been travelling around the communities and doing circus camps for kids," Rudge said. "Once we found this place, we thought that we should do something for adults as well because adults need fun too."

Rudge calls himself a 'mathlete' of the circus world.

"I am not an aerialist," he explained.

"I do stilt walking, uni-cycling and various juggling and prop manipulations. I'm not very good at climbing the silks or getting all of those lovely bruises from the hoops but I am very good at hand-eye coordination."

The program is funded by the Yukon government. Rudge said the funding goes toward renting the facility and hiring coaches for "self-directed studies."

"People come here and we do warm ups," Rudge said.

"We do stretches and then they can go to whichever station they want to learn about. We'll have a person on staff who can teach that piece of aerial equipment or how to juggle or how to climb the silks without giving yourself serious rug burn."

Rudge said he hopes to keep the program going even after the funding runs out next month.

"We'll just have it as a drop-in class," he said.

"There won't be instructors on hand to give specific direction. We'll probably still be here but we'll be working on our own stuff and hopefully other folks who are interested in circus will come out and practice their stuff as well, and there will be some great collaborations."