CIRCUS MAN BRINGS SHOW BACK HOME
AWELSH trapeze artist has told of how he quite literally ran away with the circus – just to bring it back with him almost 10 years later!
Trystan Chambers took to the stage for the NoFit State circus in their immersive big-top show in Bangor on Friday night – his first ever North Wales performance.
Trystan, who has lived in numerous locations across Wales, including Ruthin and Aberdaron, said he always knew he wanted to perform and tried to get involved with music and dance, but never quite knew where he would fit in.
It wasn’t until he travelled to Bangor to see NoFit State in the summer of 2007 that he finally realised where he wanted to be.
Trystan said: “I always knew when I was really young that I wanted to perform. I had been to see traditional circuses before but there weren’t really any in Denbighshire.
“I’d never heard of NoFit State before, but I went to see them in the exact location that we’re at today.
“It was like that penny-drop moment – watching them I just knew that I wanted to join the circus, I had never seen anything like it.
“After my A-levels I went on to circus school in Bristol. I did everything it took to get my qualifications.”
Trystan eventually became a professional trapeze artist and decided to make contact with NoFit State in Cardiff.
“It was then that he really began flying the flag for Wales within the circus industry.
He added: “I initially came on board to teach, this is the first year I’ve actually performed with them. NoFit State is just this great, exhausting, manic, beautiful thing – I’ve performed with other circuses before and with them it was like you’d do your act and that was it, but now we all have a role to play throughout.
“It’s a cliche but I am living the dream and I’m super happy. It’s been amazing coming back to my homeland, we have performers from all over Europe in our group and I feel so proud to get to show them around, it’s as if it’s unlocked a new love for my country.”
Tom Rack, the last remaining founder of NoFit State, which was set up in 1986, says their show has developed dramatically since they started as street performers in Cardiff.
Tom, who described himself as the grandfather of the group, jokingly said: “We were just young, free radicals doing our own thing and it got a bit out of hand. It was around the time of the birth of the contemporary circus movement and we were inspired.
“We have all of the skills of what a circus was, all of the skills and comedy, but we are so far removed from what circuses used to be, we’re more contemporary.
“Rather than a series of random acts, we work towards one whole, coherent show.
“It is a way of life, it’s not just a job, it’s under my skin.”
NoFit State will be on Beach Road in Bangor until June 11. To find out more, visit nofitstate.org