Shana Carroll never thought about the circus arts — until she saw this one trapeze artist

Q23:56Shana Carroll: How to see circus as an art form

The first time Shana Carroll saw a trapeze artist up close, she was 18-years-old and it changed something inside of her.

Carroll had only viewed the circus as a place with glitzy outfits and fancy tricks. But when she saw Sky de Sela practicing on her trapeze in just sweatpants and a bun, she saw the humanity behind the circus performers.

"I could feel my muscles contracting as her muscles contract," Carroll says in an interview with Q's Tom Power. "It suddenly was just the most beautiful art form I'd ever seen and completely changed my life to be a trapeze artist that day."

Carroll is now the co-founder and artistic director of the Montreal-based contemporary circus company, The 7 Fingers.

Carroll is originally from Berkley, California, but moved to Montreal in 1991 to attend the École nationale de cirque.

Ever since then, Carroll has found a way to tell stories through the circus arts way beyond a ring-side show. She worked with Cirque du Soleil. She co-designed the first segment of the opening ceremonies for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. And now, she's brought her creativity to Broadway, where she is the circus designer for the musical adaptation of Water for Elephants.

We literally need to … put our lives in each other's hands.- Shana Carroll

The story of Water for Elephants is one Carroll can relate to: Jacob Jankowski decides to join a travelling circus. Carroll used the circus arts — juggling, trapeze, contortion — to showcase the wide-range of emotions in this story in the same way that musicals use a song to convey this.

For instance, there's a scene where the characters are putting up the circus tent. Carroll created an acrobatic sequence to show how Jake is starting to integrate himself into this circus family and creating community within the circus world.

"You understand the interdependence just by seeing the mechanics of the movement and watching someone fly through the air and be caught by someone else," she says. "We literally need to … put our lives in each other's hands."

This kind of storytelling is not what regular theatre-goers are used to. Musicals have characters break into song or a tap dance, but they don't typically break into juggling or contortion.

Carroll understands that many Broadway regulars might be a bit distracted by how she brings the circus arts into Water for Elephants.

"I feel like the imagery of the storytelling is so clear, but instead their brain goes to like, 'Oh my God, how did they do that?'" she says. 

But the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec gets what Carroll's doing. In 2023, she became a member of the Order, whose honour is only bestowed upon people who have advanced artistic development in the province. 

"I was beyond words when I found out," Carroll says. "It's tremendous … what it means for the evolution of circus arts and its recognition as an art form."

The full interview with Shana Carroll is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Shana Carroll produced by Kaitlyn Swan.