Starlets duo take off with ‘street-style aerial show’
The Silver Starlets are back in Saskatoon, and bringing their sparkle to the Saskatoon Ex.
The acrobatic duo is based in Toronto. The show was created four years ago, but Molly Keczan and Glory Dearling have been collectively doing circus performance for 10 years.
Keczan said the idea behind the Silver Starlets came from wanting to create “a street-style aerial show” they could travel around with easily.
“We wanted to create a show that had a portable rig, so we could just be able to move around between stages, between shows, between cities,” she said. “And we really wanted to create a show that was family friendly and fun and comedic.”
During the show, audiences can expect to see three aerial acrobatic acts, including the aerial net, the aerial silks, and then a duo trapeze act as the grand finale.
People can also expect to see “lots of smiles and sparkles,” and sometimes the Starlets even get the audience dancing along as well, Dearling said.
Keczan is from Beamsville, Ont., and has a background in dance and gymnastics, competing for Canada as a rhythmic gymnast.
Dearling is from New York City, with a background in competitive acro dance and theatre.
Both women fell in love with the circus arts, the circus arts community, the ability to perform for audiences everywhere, and the physicality and artistic ability it takes to perform.
“We’re athletes and artists. That’s what’s amazing about it because you can prove to yourself that anything is possible if you work for it,” Dearling said.
Although they ’ve been performing for years, both said they still get scared.
“But we train very meticulously, and we make sure that we use all the safety precautions, like we always practice low before we take things up into the air,” Dearling said.
“Some of the stuff we do is actually more mental training than physical training,” Keczan added. “We’ve worked up the strength and the physical ability; sometimes it is just a bit of a mental thing.”
Dearling said the Starlets are used to pretty extreme weather conditions, and this week’s heat doesn’t really bother them, but they want to make sure their audiences are comfortable and have fun.
If you missed out on The Silver Starlets’ performances at last year’s Fringe Festival, you can catch them daily at the Saskatoon Ex, performing at 3:30 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.