Rosalinda Rojas trains people to join the circus and make it a career.
"I come from the era where, if you're not born in the circus, it's really hard to break in," Rojas said.
She founded the Albuquerque School for Circus Arts, at 1001 Yale Blvd. S.E., in 1999 to train her daughter, Gabi, who is in the UNM Dance Department. Gabi was accepted into Cirque du Soleil.
The academy teaches flying trapeze, Russian barre, Spanish web, juggling, spinning plates, unicycling, rolling globes, acrobatics, aerial silk, tumbling and the basics of circus performance.
She takes 10 students a year who are serious about a career in aerial arts and students up to 19 for her summer circus camp. The camp costs $375 for three weeks, and lessons at the studio cost between $25 and $45 a session.
"I'd prefer to produce 10 good aerialists than 100 mediocre aerialists," Rojas said. "I don't usually commit to a student right away. I let them go away and think about it. It's also for my threshold, because there are some students who don't have the propensity to be aerialists at the level they think, and I've had to turn some people away."
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Summer camp runs for three weeks in June and July, with a full circus show at the end of the three weeks.
"We do all kinds of skill levels, and then we have our rehearsal," Rojas said. "We have our circus video where we sit and watch different types of circuses - new world and old world. They learn the language of the movement but also of the artistry. They also do dance. They have to be able to move with some sense of aesthetics and strength."
Rojas requires her students cross-train, and she said she can tell if they haven't been doing it by their muscle development.
"The more you cross-train, the easier it gets," UNM senior Meghan McHenry said. McHenry trains mostly on the lyra (a circular trapeze) and the Spanish web.
"I take yoga as often as I can, and I attend ballet," she said. "I go to gymnastics outside of training. It's what I dedicate my spare time to. All the time that I'm not doing homework or working on school, I'm usually doing circus things."
Rojas buys state-of-the-art equipment to ensure student safety.
"Thank God I've never had anyone fall," she said. "I teach everything from triple trapeze to flying trapeze, and I'm very safe. I have galvanized wire running through my ropes. That simple trapeze is close to $1,000. Circus equipment is very expensive, but it's your life you have to think about."
She also has a circus company that performs at nightclubs Downtown at midnight, as well as for workshops, corporate events and fundraisers.
McHenry has participated in Midnight Circus Experience performances at Sauce/Raw.
"It's really fun," McHenry said. "I do spin poi (spinning weights on the ends of chains) and contortion. I've done some other things, like at the Nob Hill Shop and Stroll, I did a sort of ballet with fire poi."
Rojas said everyone in the company juggles.
"As an aerialist, I thought, 'What do I have to juggle for?'" Rojas said. "But when you're waiting hours behind stage to go on, you get bored, so I picked up juggling equipment and I taught myself how to juggle. And believe it or not, because I did that, I landed my first Broadway show."
It also got her jobs doing commercials and print ads.
"I had to juggle a dishwashing liquid, a bottle of bleach and something else," Rojas said. "Why juggle these three objects when you could have one? That was back then. It was a great career.... You have to learn how to juggle if you come to my place. I will feed you, but you will learn to juggle before you leave."
Rojas grew up in Harlem, New York, where she studied dance until she was 19. A gymnastics course changed her career direction.
"My circus career started at 22," she said. "My father used to take us to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus every year. At the age of 7 and 8, I sat there at the end of every show and cried because I didn't want to go home. I felt that's where I belonged. I felt, 'I belong here. I belong here. I belong here.' It's my destiny to have been a circus performer and a teacher. If I didn't have this, I'd be missing a huge piece of myself."
She plans to move into a larger building this summer, where she will add teachers and up her student roster to 100 or more.
Albuquerque School for Circus Arts
1001 Yale Blvd. S.E.
For more information, call 459-3385
