Smiling Silver Starlets glam it up with ‘splits and sparkles’ at PNE
They call themselves the Silver Starlets but you can expect a gold-medal performance that sparkles like a diamond.
This year, for the first time, Molly and Glory brought the “glam, glitz and glitter” of their travelling act to the Fair at the PNE, performing three times daily and delighting fairgoers with their mix of comedy and aerial acrobatics.
On Saturday, the duo sparkled in the afternoon sun, launching into aerial net and silk acts set to pop music before their grand finale, a dual-trapeze performance to “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.”
The Starlets launched their act four years ago. Molly and Glory became good friends while working in the Toronto circus community and both now perform full time, travelling across North America for festivals, fairs and corporate events. They even plan to take the show to Australia and New Zealand this winter.
Getting invited to join the PNE’s street-performer program — alongside Magic Brian and the Checkerboard Guy — was exciting, they said.
“In the corporate world, we always joke, people just want splits and sparkles, so that’s why this show is all about splits and sparkles, and then it’s a little bit of a cheeky nod to that, making fun of that and having fun with it at the same time,” Molly said.
“We’re also kind of nodding to traditional circus and where circus came from, which is why we have the vintage-style costumes and perform to Diamonds,” added Glory.
Each performance offers something a little different and a big part of that is how the Starlets interact with the audience — particularly the random male audience member they pick out to help during the finale, they said.
“It changes the show every time which is what I like about it, because he’ll offer us different gifts and we’ll just have to go with them,” Glory said.
“The whole show is always in constant development,” Molly said. “It changes, sometimes, from show to show, or festival to festival, just because something will happen, and we’re like, ‘That was amazing, it was hilarious and unplanned — let’s try doing that again.’”
The Starlets perform on a sixmetre-tall trapeze rig that folds up into three road cases and fits inside their minivan. They can set it up in just seven minutes and tear it down in five.
Rolling and spinning on a shared trapeze, five metres above hard concrete, takes a lot of trust, they said. They’re constantly communicating their concerns to each other mid-performance, like when a toddler (“Kid!”) suddenly rushes toward their rig, which happened Saturday.
“We kind of have to be aware of that,” Glory said with a laugh.
Molly, from Beamsville, Ont., grew up competing nationally in Canada as a rhythmic gymnast, before studying dance at Ryerson and doing circus professionally for a decade.
Glory, from Manhattan, N.Y., grew up doing artistic gymnastics and competitive acrodance before studying theatre and then circus arts for the past five years.
For people hoping to get into aerial acrobatics, the duo recommends a foundation of gymnastics and dance, though they know people who have jumped straight onto the trapeze.
To take it to the next level, they suggest schools like CircusWest, which trains on the PNE fairgrounds, and the Vancouver Circus School in New Westminster.
“They’re really great for kids if anybody’s wanting to do this, or do this professionally,” Molly said.
“It’s a really fun form of fitness as well,” added Glory.
Catch them sparkling at Festival Park at 12:30 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. today and Monday, the final days of the Fair.