#dad who is a clown teaches you cool circus tricks
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can I request headcanons or a scenario of Bakugou (If just a scenario and you only want to write one) Deku, Mirio, and Kaminari where they like s/o who actually come from a family of entertainers, like circus level so theyknow how to juggle, do diabolo, walk on stilts and all that fun stuff and likes entertaining little kids or just randomly starts a show anywhere?
I mention Ty Lee from Avatar but I don't ever explicitly state that the reader is female. I figured I would put that up front just in case it was important to anyone 💖
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Bakugou Katsuki
He doesn't really... get it. At first, anyways.
But he does greatly respect the athleticism required to perform such a thing
So he very gradually begins to respect the craft.
The stuff he sees as "gags" or "party tricks" are cool but he'd never tell you that.
But then he watches you do some Ty Lee shit and he's instantly smitten.
Now he actively goes out of his way to be around you. Talk to you, pair up with you for group projects, work out with you.
He invites you to group outings with his friends and at some point he stops pretending to be annoyed as he watches you juggle the objects on the table at your favorite diner.
He laughs as you pull stuff out of your bag and start performing for a group of kids on the street.
He hears you mention that you and your siblings would be performing at a small festival and he gets all his friends to go to the festival with him, but it's totally not so he can watch you, okay???
And while he's watching you in motion he's thinking to himself "what is this feeling??"
He's so dense with his own emotions that it takes Kaminari explaining to him that he has a crush on you to realize that he has a crush on you.
Kaminari of all people
But he does ask you out on a date eventually
Midoriya Izuku
Will totally ask you to teach him how he can be as agile and flexible as you.
You do your best to teach him a thing or two, and in the process he totally falls in love with you.
So you spent a lot of time together.
(Flexibility, agility, sharp perception, and quick reflexes are all huge skills that don't develop overnight, after all...)
I mean a lot of time together.
Before school, during school, after school
He takes you to meet his mom over dinner at his house
And Inko immediately presumes you're his partner because of how her son talks about you.
Which embarrassed the fuck out of him, and he can hardly bring himself to look at you during the bus ride back to the dorms.
But when he walks you back to your dorm, instead of telling him goodnight you kiss him.
And immediately panic. Closing your door before he even had a chance to react.
He's totally frozen on the other side of your closed door while he tries to process what just happened.
*knock knock knock* "wait, (y/n)!"
Watching you entertain Eri warms his heart.
It means the world to him when you show that you care about her like he does. He loves seeing her smile and knowing that you're the reason behind it.
Hearing his laugh as you start performing gives you the warmth of a thousand suns.
You support each other so much.
Kaminari Denki
"babe teach me how to juggle knives"
"okay let's maybe start with rags or scarves first, and then we can work our way up to knives."
He's so curious about everything.
Wants to hear all about your family's traveling Circus stories. He's so captivated by it all.
He tries to juggle baseballs after watching you do it so easily and he definitely gives himself a concussion.
"see baby this is why we start with rags or scarves instead of flaming knives. You've gotta earn it. Work your way up to it."
He asks so many questions but I promise you that it's out of love. He can't get enough of you and that includes your background in the entertainment industry.
"(y/n) how do so many clowns fit into that tiny car. What's the trick to that?"
"there is no trick. They take out the entire interior of the car save for the driver's seat, and they all pile in. My dad started out in the industry as one of the 14 clowns in a traveling circus. They all just pile in and grow to be accustomed to the tight fit."
He's very disappointed when you expose to him the fake aspects of performative arts.
Tells you that when he discovered knife jugglers use blunt knives as props rather than real machetes it felt like the adult version of learning Santa isn't real.
"you've broken my heart"
"why would they use real knives? When you juggle with something other than a ball it has to have a nice spin to it. So they use prop knives made for juggling with a point that appears sharp. No need to put the performer at risk for something that doesn't add any aesthetic benefit."
"I'm devastated. I'll never see another circus again. It hurts too much to bear..."
Togata Mirio
At first he doesn't know you very well but after the Hideout Raid he went out of his way to ask if you would be willing to entertain Eri
However you definitely knew who he was and also maybe harbored a huge crush on him since the entrance exam your first year.
But everyone had a crush on Mirio. You thought you couldn't possibly stand a chance.
Until he pulls you away from your friend group and asks if you're willing to help.
The moment you met Eri, she broke your heart. And you promised yourself that you'd do anything at all to make that little girl smile.
And in spending more time with Eri, you spend more time with Mirio.
Watching you make Eri happy makes him happy.
You were practicing standing and walking on your hands alone one evening when he calls out to you.
"How long have you known how to do that one, (Y/N)?"
You fall
Or at least you almost do
If it weren't for the strong arm around your midsection.
He starts to thank you for helping him and tells you all about how much your kindness towards Eri meant to him.
"-Anyways I can't thank you enough. I don't know if it was weird for me to just approach you like that because you mentioned to me once 3 years ago that you come from a family of entertainers, but I really appreciate all that you've done for her."
"It was nothing. And I can't believe you even remembered that I told you about that. Hey, can you put me down now? I'm still upside down and I'm starting to get light headed."
#i love ty lee 💖#bnha imagines#bnha x reader#mha imagines#mha x reader#midoriya izuku#midoriya x reader#midoriya izuku x reader#izuku midoriya#bakugou katsuki x reader#bakugou x reader#katsuki bakugou#bakugou katsuki#kaminari denki x reader#kaminari x reader#kaminari denki#togata mirio x reader#mirio togata x reader#mirio togata
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Elliana Grace, aerial hoop and hula hoop artist, Circus Harmony
Elliana Grace is a multi-skilled circus artist from St Louis, Missouri, who specialises in aerial hoop and hula hoops. She was born into a circus family and started in the ring at just two weeks old. Her mother is former trapeze artist Jessica Hentoff, who founded and runs the non-profit social circus performance troupe St Louis Arches and Circus Harmony, where Elliana trained. She is the older sister of our recent interviewee Keaton Hentoff-Killian and of the juggler Kellin Quinn.
Elliana has performed and taught from a young age, both across America and internationally, and had further training at the École de Cirque de Québec. Her credits include Circus Flora, Circus Harmony, Cirquantique, Amazing Grace Circus and Lighthouse Entertainment. In 2013, when she was 20, she became Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey’s youngest-ever female human cannonball in its show Built to Amaze. Elliana is taking a break from bareback riding in a tour with Circus Zoppé and will be performing her one-woman show Heartbreak, Humor and Hoops! at Circus Harmony’s City Museum, St Louis, until the end of 2017. She chats to Liz Arratoon.
The Widow Stanton: What was your first experience in a circus ring?
Elliana Grace: At two weeks I played the baby sitting on the back of an elephant. [Laughs] I was really typecast, you know. Then I did my first trick when I was about six months and I’ve been in the ring pretty much since then, doing everything.
What was the trick?
We call it the ‘baby balance’. When babies are pretty young they lock their knees out automatically and you can balance them on your hand. The clown was Nino Zoppé and I’ve just been on his show again now.
Keaton said the same; he played the baby…
In the circus it’s very normal if there’s a baby lying around you put it in the show, kind of the cute factor. Everyone when they’re old enough pretty much goes in the show. I was two weeks because that was the length of my mum’s maternity leave.
Did you ever see your mum perform?
Sure, and I actually performed with her, which is something I cherish. When I was very young we did a double trapeze act, like two times, for some sort of special event. I was six or seven… I still have the costume!
Tell us a bit about your life growing up in the circus.
When I was young my mum was still travelling a very little bit but by the time Keaton was born we’d stopped. We settled down in St Louis, which is where my dad is from as well. My mum settled here because it was the centre of the States so it was easy to travel places. When I was growing up we were based down at the City Museum. We started there when my other brother, Kellin, was a baby, so we’ve been there almost 21 years. I started performing and teaching for my mum when I was about eight. I would get put into a class and my job was to make sure that the kids who didn’t listen paid attention. Also it was a form of training me in skills; I was learning the same things over and over again, as well as leaning how to teach them, and about crowd control.
My first real aerial act was a Spanish web act [a vertical rope, with a loop at the top] very, very simple. My mum started me on that that when I was about six. I kind of went back and forth for a long time between that and the trapeze. I would play around with the big kids a lot but I was always really drawn to aerial work. I liked trapeze mostly because that’s what my mum did professionally and taught mostly. I ended up with a partner, her married name is Claire Wallenda, and we did aerial stuff. We started doing duo trapeze when we were seven or eight and then developed a duo lyra act later on. We worked together until we were about 18 when she graduated and went to college so I became more of a soloist. That was my favourite, performing with her. She’s my best friend. She’s performing with her husband’s family now, The Flying Wallendas.
I saw them in Monte Carlo. The seven-man pyramid was so beautiful and emotional.
That’s what we aim to do; make it emotional and for people to feel what we’re expressing. So somebody was doing their job!
When did you graduate from Quebec?
I didn’t graduate, I only did a year there. I did their prep programme and then I actually didn’t make it into their three-year programme, because I was American and a girl and an aerialist. They are limited with the number of foreign students they are able to take and still have government funding, and being an aerialist didn't help since the discipline is already over-saturated with girls. Surprisingly though, three months after I came home I got offered a job with Ringling Bros because I was American, female and an aerialist, so it kind of worked out.
You have so many skills, why did you choose your specialities?
I focus mainly on lyra or aerial hoop because I love to spin. [Laughs] I always wanted to be the pretty one on the flying trapeze, ever since I was itty bitty. It’s always been that I wanted to just be sparkly and in the air. I kind of stuck with it. Some would call me… I like the idea of doing something that hurts a little bit and has results. It doesn’t always come easy, you have to really… it takes blood, sweat and tears for it to work. There’s something so satisfying about that. That’s why I’ve stuck with aerials, for sure.
And hula hoops…
When I picked aerial as my first discipline, my mum said… it’s an old-school thing, that if you did an aerial act you had to have a ground act, and I fought her tooth and nail about it. But eventually I learnt hula hoops, and now my hula hoop act is almost a vaudevillian comedy thing, which I love to do. I lipsync the entire thing and just have a lot of fun with it. I want to explore it more and have been in the process of seeing where it takes me.
Any particular advice you’d give to someone starting aerials?
Don’t give up. [We both laugh]. It’s gonna hurt a lot at the beginning. Circus hurts in general, you know, you’re making your body do extraordinary things. You have to have some sort of tenacity and a lot of persistence to get where you wanna go, but it’s totally possible. It is so totally possible and worth every second of it. Really… a little hurt goes a long way.
Let’s go through some of your other skills. You could perform a whole circus on your own…
[Laughs] I’ve dabbled a lot…
But things like upside-down loop-walking… how hard is that?
I learnt it in the traditional way without any gimmicks, so I was barefoot when I did it and it’s really hard. I mean, once you get it, it’s just a pain-tolerance thing. There’s a lot of timing and technique that goes into it but once you start to learn that, it’s more overcoming the fact that your ankles are going to be [cracked] open the whole time. They don’t ever heal really… fully, so you’re a mess and… you use lots of Band-Aids.
And the bareback riding!
I first learnt bareback riding through a programme with Circus Flora. They wanted a youth bareback act. So they brought in a coach. I would have been about 14 and did it until I was maybe 17. Keaton did that for a little bit, too. He plays down a lot of the things he’s done. He’s done some cool stuff, too. Just recently I was invited to to learn some more bareback stuff and I jumped at the opportunity.
Have you also had dance training?
In the programme at Circus Harmony my mum stresses a dance element now. I’ve always had fun with it so I took quite a few ballet classes growing up and jazz and swing, I did ballroom dancing when I was younger for fun, because I was that kind of nerd. [Laughs] I like to learn new things.
That brings us on to the human cannonball. How did you even begin to learn it?
That’s the job I got right after I didn’t make it into school. Somebody called my mum looking for a girl to do it. My mum goes: “You should try out for that.” I go, ‘Oh ma, I’m so bad at math’, because one of my coaches used to be shot out of a cannon in the seventies, like forever ago. Back then there were a lot of calculations involved, so I thought to do it, I would have to do math and I was horrible at math in school, just horrible.
But I got talked into going and for the audition they do high falls. So you stand up on this crane kind of thing and you jump into the airbag to kind of simulate how you land. They couldn’t actually shoot you out of a cannon until you signed the contract, that’s how crazy this was. I signed without ever having been shot out. You start with short and low shots, so the first one I did was only about 20 feet in length and you just gradually raise the angle and go farther and higher. In the act I went about 75 feet lengthwise and 40-45 feet high.
Was the sensation wonderful?
Oh, the flying! I have never experienced a similar adrenaline rush… ever. It’s kind of a hard high to top. I would come off the air bag and my hands would literally be shaking because I had so much adrenaline going through my system.
youtube
So tell us about your solo show.
I was really resistant to putting together a one-woman show. My brother Kellin has his own show and he has a show with Keaton, when he’s home. I never thought I had enough material to do it. I was doing a show with a friend, who is with Circus Monti right now with their dinner theatre. She was going for that contract and we still had shows left on the calendar so I ended up putting my show together to fill those spots and realised I did have enough material. It’s kind of centred around me and an empty chair… the waiting for somebody to fill that chair, whether that be a boyfriend, a husband or a parent, whatever audience members connect to that. For me it changes daily. The show’s very different when I’m in a relationship personally, or if somebody’s passed away it changes quite a bit emotionally. The acts don’t change but what I’m expressing as a performer has so much to do with my personal life. I put it together and it’s kind of taken on a life of its own.
I do a comedy bit, so I pull a guy out of the audience and we lipsync an entire song together. For me that’s always fun because I get to interact with the audience. It’s always different. You never know who you’re gonna get; if he’s gonna sing, if he’s gonna sit there embarrassed. I had a guy come up and he was deaf and I didn’t realise it. His wife or girlfriend was in the audience signing the entire song to him. It was so incredible and he wrote to me on Facebook later thanking me. So that was really cool. A few months ago I got a guy who’d just beaten cancer. I picked this guy and his daughter told me afterwards that they were out celebrating. It was fantastic. To hear those stories and to be able to touch lives is incredible. It’s something I will never be able to get over.
Which of your many, many skills are in the show?
I do a hula-hoop act, a static trapeze act and my lyra act, and a sort of dance routine-thing – it’s like a movement piece essentially – and I do some comedy.
What are your hopes for your future?
I would love to take this show on tour around some theatres in the States and Europe. I’m always interested in going different places and teaching. I find that really rewarding. I’d love to work on a company; 7 Fingers and Eloize are two of my favourites. Circa is a little more contemporary than I where I am professionally. It suits Keaton very well but it’s just not cup of tea. So, yeah, I would love to travel some more. The highest priority on my list right now is just to see the world and to share my art with as many people as I possibly can.
Was there ever any other career you had in mind?
In 25 years, I’ve taken two years off circus. One was for an injury when I was 15 and then again after I got off Ringling, I was burnt out and I stopped. I worked a lot of regular jobs; in a restaurant… I was the assistant to the director of the Psychoanalytic Institute. But the thing that really interests me, which is so weird in a weird way is that I really like forensic pathology. I don’t think I’d ever go into it because I love what I’m doing so much but, you know, the study of dead people and the diseases that take their lives and figuring out how somebody was killed, I find that stuff very fascinating.
Can you pick out a couple of career highlights?
Oh, that’s a hard one. One would be performing at the Spoleto Festival with my partner, Claire, when I was 15. It was the same festival my mum had performed at with her partner. That was really amazing. Going to Israel with a group of children, we did a partnership there, that was incredible. Getting shot out of the cannon and getting to ride the elephants was another highlight. There are so many, but for me the biggest thing is that I’ve gotten to perform with my family and my friends and I really feel that I’ve brought joy to so many people. I know that sounds so clichéd but to bring some sort of escape to somebody is really what I want to be able to do and to offer them an experience that they can’t get anywhere else, or even if they do come and see the show again I hope it will be a different experience. That’s the highlight for me.
vimeo
Elliana Grace performs at Circus Hamony’s City Museum on various dates until the end of 2017. For show dates and times click here
Elliana Grace’s website and Instagram
Twitter: @circusharmony
Follow @TheWidowStanton on Twitter
#elliana grace#circus artist#interview#aerial hoop#hula hoop#circus harmony#ringling bros. and barnum & bailey circus#keaton hentoff-killian#kellin quinn
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