Longfellow students perform under the Circus Juventas Big Top

By JAN WILLMS

It has been 150 years since Lewis Carroll penned his quixotic book “Alice in Wonderland.” And what better way to pay homage than for Circus Juventas, the largest circus arts school in North America for youth ages 6-21, to present its summer show titled “Wonderland”?

Circus Juventas will be presenting performances July 28-Aug. 14 under its Big Top at 1270 Montreal Ave. in St. Paul. And several of the young performers hail from the Longfellow neighborhood.

Sisters Lillian and Juliette Kline, daughters of Shanan Tolzin and James Kline, will both be flamingos in the Summer Show. The two young women started participating in Circus Juventas a couple of weeks apart. “Juliette started first, and I decided I wanted to do it, too,” Lillian said.

Photo right: Juliette (left) and Lillian Kline (Photo by Jan Willms)

“One of my first dance teachers was a carny and circus person himself, so I always grew up thinking that was really exciting,” recalled Tolzin. So when her daughters were little, she took them to a performance of Circus Juventas. And eventually, they began to participate.

Juliette, 14, said that some of the acts she is doing for the Summer Show include theater, dancing, and table comedy. “You have a large table, and you slide across it,” she explained.

Lillian, 16, said she is performing theater, croquet dancing in England, and contortion. “The main thing about contortion is that you want to stretch your back out really well first,” she noted. “And then I ice it afterward. You want to be careful not to injure your back.”

Photo left: Juliette and Lillian Kline perform as part of a spinning cube act. (Photo by Bill Raab) 

She and Juliette “keep up the circus spirit” for each other, Lillian said.

The most challenging act for her right now, according to Juliette, is the table comedy. “You have to work as a team, so you have to have a lot of trust. You work for yourself, and you have to work together.”

Lillian said the performers have a month off after the summer show ends, then start training again. She plans to continue performing indefinitely.

Tolzin said she considers this experience for her daughters to be fabulous. “Number one, it is such fun; number two, it is very athletic and number three, it is very artistic,” she said. “And they are actually working toward a goal.”

She finds that Juliette and Lillian have developed a strong confidence in themselves, and she also is happy for the friendships they have developed with other Circus Juventas students.

Longfellow resident Matisse Bolstrom, the daughter of Sandy Muellner and Chad Bolstrom, is 14 and has been a participant in Circus Juventas since she was in first grade. “One of my friends told me about it, and I have been doing it ever since,” she said. Bolstrom said she started out with Circus Experience, in which a child gets to explore all the different kinds of acts in the circus. “Now I have worked on contortion, Moroccan pyramids, and acrobatics. I am doing contortion for ‘Wonderland’.”

Photo left: Matisse Bolstrom (Photo by Bill Raab)

Since Circus Juventas is a year-round activity, Bolstrom fits the classes in around soccer and schoolwork. “Last fall was hard,” she recalled. “I had soccer every day and circus right after.”

She explained that it is challenging for her to wrap her head around being in the big show this summer. “It is part of something big, and there is a lot of pressure but a lot of fun at the same time. The choreography is hard, too.”

Bolstrom said performing is fun for her, and she likes seeing the end product of all the work resulting in a show.

“My sister Hanna, 17, does the Wings program for people with special needs,” Bolstrom said. “She likes the circus experience and really seems to enjoy it.”

Bolstrom said she plans to continue with Circus Juventas at least until she is 21.

“Participating in Circus Juventas, I have learned a lot about working with group skills,” she stated. “You have to learn to know about people and yourself. It helps with memorizing skills, too. It has taught me how to be prepared for anything.”

Wanting their students to be the best versions of themselves that they can be, not just in the circus but life, has been a goal of Betty and Dan Butler, who co-founded Circus Juventas in 1994.

After meeting each other at a youth circus in Sarasota, FL, and graduating from the Florida State University Flying High Circus, the Butlers worked in other professions. But 14 years after their marriage, they opened a circus afterschool program at Hillcrest Rec Center in Highland Park.

Photo right: (Photo by Bill-Raab)

“We were there five years,” recalled Betty. But starting out with 30 students and soon growing to 100 with a waiting list of 400, they knew they needed something bigger. So they took a hiatus in 1999 and set about planning and raising money for a bigger school.

On July 9, 2001, they opened the doors of the Big Top on Montreal Ave. They had 270 students and classes continued to increase. They have served over 2500 students and have an annual audience of 50,000 viewing the performances. There is a Spring Show for beginner and intermediate students, and the Summer Show for more advanced students. The school has also done international performances.

For the summer shows, there is one month of intense training, according to Betty. She said the students work on their performances individually and then all the acts are put together.

Betty and Dan performed in a circus youth program from 1972 to 1976. “I did high wire, a lot of acrobatics and tumbling. Dan did flying trapeze and balancing. We have done over 20 different acts between the two of us,” Betty said.

She said this summer’s “Wonderland” is one of the biggest shows they have ever done. They are using 40 coaches, and a team of theater artists and choreographers. Eight designers are creating costumes; they are located in New York, New Orleans, and the Twin Cities.

“The goal for the show is to have circus acts that support the story line and weave it together to make a cohesive story,” Betty said.

Betty serves as artistic director for the company, and Dan is executive director. They have five children, who have all tried the circus. “Three of them are very involved,” Betty noted.

She said having a nonprofit can be extremely challenging, and huge increases in the number of students and staffing and tripling the size of management has not been easy.

“But the best part of Circus Juventas is following your passion and dreams, something not many people can do,” she said. “It’s the joy of doing what you did as a youth.”

For further information on tickets, go to www.circusjuventas.org.