Blasting into Orbit with Hercinia Arts’ Aerial Space Show!

For the third year in a row, Hercinia Arts Collective once again brought the community together to showcase another free, imaginative circus performance: HASA The Aerial Space Show. On Friday, August 27. The group of highly skilled dancers, aerialists, and theatre performers transformed the northeast side of Flagstaff Park into a 40-minute family-friendly cirque-style intergalactic show where no circus had ever gone before!

Thanks to Co-Director/Producer Sandra Crljenica (@scrljenica), Co-Producer Natalie Parkinson (@acrowithnat), Stage Manager Vanita Butrsingkorn, and Outreach Coordinator Zita Nyarady (@zitabird), and of course, the comedic aerial acrobatics show would not have been made possible without the HASA aerial astronauts themselves – Kirsten Leila Edwards (@mesonic98) on hoop, Madeleine Seignoret (@carmenthespectacular) on straps, and lastly, Meg Boland (@megsb87) on yellow-gold-colored silks. Each of these women were able to pull off an incredible outdoor, physically distanced event that provided an experience some might not have otherwise had the opportunity to enjoy.

With pre-registration fully booked, audience members came ready with their own personal lawn chairs and blankets to watch this Toronto-based multi-disciplinary and contemporary circus company create and present a performance that was out of the ordinary. As the aerial explorer’s seatbelted into their chairs on the spaceship, the three female artists or “commanders” in white full body jumpsuits, blue shoes, and helmets with a visor that read HASA, prepared to launch into space! As the music started, the aerial astronauts slowly unzipped their jumpsuits and reveal their multicolored bodysuits and black tights and perform a variety of highly skilled aerial acts from a 20ft freestanding aerial rig. 

Hercinia Arts enriched Flagstaff Park through their specialized form of circus arts. The aerial space show not only animated the park but designed a space that supported and met the need for community engagement that has been missing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Towards the end of the show, as people were still in awe, we saw some familiar faces come again the next day to see the aerial space show again. Unfortunately, due to a sudden thunderstorm, Hercinia had to cancel the event. The risk was too great to put up the large metal structure and the bad weather continued into Sunday also cancelling their rain date.

The good news is you can still catch a Hercinia Arts performance on September 15 at Memorial Park in Etobicoke (click here to register) or on September 29 at Edgeley Park in North York (registration TBD).