A BALANCING ACT
INGLEWOOD’S LE PETIT CIRQUE, WHERE YOUNG ARTISTS AIM HIGH WHILE HONING THEIR SKILLS, IS DOING WHAT IT CAN TO STAY OPEN DURING THE PANDEMIC.
ON E B Y O N E , three girls in colorful unitards and fluffy red headdresses grabbed the two-bar trapeze. Twisting and spinning, bending and lifting, they contorted their slim bodies like red, sparkly pretzels, as the stage filled with dense fog.
“Can we spin faster? It was just a little stale,” director Nathalie Yves Gaulthier yelled from the front of the stage on a Saturday afternoon. “Smile. Watch your legs. A little higher. Form,” she reminded them before lying back on the floor, iPhone in hand, recording the young performers from below.
Charlene Hoover, 13, and identical twins Brinkley and Brooklyn Baker, 15, spun faster and pointed their toes emphatically. Their smiles beamed wider.
“Seventh time’s the charm,” murmured Bixby Baker, the twins’ little sister, sitting nearby.
In a typical year, the young professional circus artists of Le Petit Cirque would be coming off a live, holiday-season performance frenzy, awing audiences worldwide. But the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans. Cancellations in Norway, Portugal, Canada and Italy turned into dozens of others. The troupe lost more than $150,000 in revenue.
“All of a sudden, we went from being on top of the world … to poof, the plug was pulled,” said Gaulthier, 54, who was a child performer, gymnast and trapeze artist in Quebec before moving to Los Angeles in 1997 as a talent agent. In 2012, she founded Le Petit Cirque, a sort of mini Cirque du Soleil for gifted youths ages 6 to 18.
Indeed, about 20 Le Petit Cirque artists have gone on to join Cirque du Soleil, and others have been featured on the NBC shows “America’s Got Talent” and “Little Big Shots,” as well as at corporate events and galas, including the 2017 Nobel Peace
Prize concert and a birthday celebration for the Dalai Lama.
Yet like countless other acts and venues in Los Angeles and beyond, the Inglewood-based troupe and circus training program is scraping by. “We are fighting hard to keep it,” said Gaulthier. “Every penny is going toward the rent.”
From a glance, the studio inside an industrial plaza on Aviation Boulevard doesn’t pique much interest. But inside, the two-story, 10,000-square-foot space is a wondrous, colorful playground. Hula hoops, chandeliers and aerial silks dangle from the ceiling, along with swings and trapezes. Unicycles, crash pads and gigantic bouncing balls abound. On a wall hangs a bejeweled golden cape once owned by Flea, bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
To maintain the studio, where much of the training has moved outdoors and instructors and performers are regularly tested for COVID-19, Gaulthier was forced to lay off most of her staff and come up with new ways to bring in money. She started an online fundraiser, virtual classes and ads for other businesses to use the space when it’s empty. She’s also turned the studio into a full production company, capturing performances on video, then selling recordings customized for clients such as JPMorgan and PayPal Global. Appearances on shows such as Fox’s “Game of Talents” and Netflix’s “Family Reunion” have also helped.
A socially distanced fundraiser in October at the Montage Laguna Beach resort was the troupe’s first performance with a live audience since March. It was followed by a December drive-in show of “Santa Saves Christmas” in Del Mar, Calif., where performers shared a stage with the Broadway leads of “Jersey Boys” and “Les Misérables.”
These were welcome but strange experiences for the young performers. For Bixby Baker, 11, it seemed as though “everything had just paused and then played again.” Her older sister Brinkley had grown used to the virtual performances, “so it was kind of weird to have actual people again.” Adding to the weirdness, she said, were the masked spectators: “It was almost hard to tell if they were reacting.”
Gaulthier had been working as a talent agent and manager — Ryan Gosling, Hayden Christensen and Elisha Cuthbert were among her clients — when actress Christine Lahti noticed the trapeze bar hanging in her office. “Can you teach my daughter?”
Gaulthier’s “yes” prompted requests from other parents, including drummer and composer Stewart Copeland. The growing demand encouraged her to open a circus school in Santa Monica. By the time she moved the studio to Inglewood four years ago, it had transformed into a production company. Currently, there are performers training with the Le Petit Cirque curriculum in Las Vegas, Norway, Uganda and Canada. Outposts in Miami and Montreal are in the works.
The transition, Gaulthier said, happened organically. “I’m very demanding, and my coaches are very high end, so we started churning out some really high-end athletes,” she said. “This is more than little Sally sitting on a trapeze and holding a pose. These are actual athletes who will lift their bodies 30 times in a row ... so it became a natural progression.”
She’s brought on board well-established trainers and creators, including aerialist Dreya Weber, who’s worked with such stars as Christina Aguilera, Rihanna and the late Michael Jackson, and longtime Cirque du Soleil choreographer Debra Lynn Brown. Aguilera’s songwriter, Heather Holley, writes the troupe’s music.
Still, to develop that high-level talent, you have to start with untrained kids — which is why Le Studio LA, the home of Le Petit Cirque, offers classes for all levels.
Performers who make the cut to the professional troupe are paid $50 to $150 per show.
“I’ve seen kids come in all stuck, like their arms are close to their bodies and their arms are crossed in front of their tummies and their heads are down and their gaits are down, and within six months, we transform them,” Gaulthier said. “It’s literally like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. It’s amazing to see this transformation of confidence.”
The Baker sisters of the “B Hive” family are living proof of that metamorphosis.
Identical twins Brinkley and Brooklyn remember their bashful, pre-circus days. It’s true confidence comes with maturity and growing up, but they swear the circus helped them emerge from their shells.
“It definitely helped me to be less shy, because I used to be like, really awkward,” Brinkley said at her house in Playa Vista, where a framed image of a pooping balloon dog hangs — a gift from the sisters to their mother, Brigitte. Their rescue dog Mr. Bumbles, a white “cockadoodlemoo” (Cockapoo and Maltipoo mix), lay nearby.
Brinkley is older by a minute and wears a pink wristband to distinguish herself