Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen MacQueen.
Jen, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I was younger (think 1985), I was an internationally competitive gymnast. That resulted in numerous stress fractures in my lower back, which did not make themselves known until I was 3 weeks away from giving birth to my son. I was 34. Then….pop pop pop pop! The transverse processes of my L4 and L5 broke, causing the vertebrae to shove forward by about 65%. Over the next few years, my ability to move around deteriorated (since I was still technically mobile, insurance wouldn’t cover surgery), and by 5 years later, I was largely bedridden. THEN I could have surgery! So at 39, I went in for back surgery.
They went in through the front, and I had a metal cage placed around my spine filled with synthetic bone protein that morphed out and around the cage forming a complete bone bridge between my upper and lower spine. Then they flipped me over and put in metal rods and 14 screws…I’m a regular party at the airport! They stitched me up, I came to, and they told me I would probably never walk properly again. Well…challenge accepted. They obviously didn’t know me very well.
I took myself off the prescription pain meds so I could drive and started going to the gym 2 times per day to “walk” on the treadmill…which was me taking my walker to the treadmill, transferring over, and walking at 0.2 mph (haha yup! try it sometime…) for 20 minutes at a time. Then I would go home and collapse. It was already more than I was supposed to be able to do. I continued to push myself until I was able to get rid of the walker for a cane. (My cane was iridescent lavender with racing flames on it!) This further inspired me to continue working until I didn’t need that either.
So about 6 months after my surgery, I walked (like a normal person) into my doctor’s office, handed him cane, and said, “Now what?” He said he wasn’t sure, but he thought I should find an activity that worked my core, which would further strengthen my back. I asked if there was any way for me to mess up my surgery, and he said that if I got into a plane crash, everything else would break and mess up before my back got even scratched. This was all I needed to hear.
So after I had quit gymnastics, I became a dancer and choreographer. I really missed dancing, and it was largely how I supported myself, being a single mom…through performing and choreographing. My legs still didn’t work overly well, and my back no longer arched at all. (You know the game “Stiff as a Board”? I’m a PRO!) So the lower body (think below the rib cage) didn’t work well yet. But my upper body did. So naturally (?) I thought, “Well, I’ve always wanted to try Aerial Silks…”
So I enrolled in Aerial Silks classes and started training. A month or so into that, I was introduced to the Cyr Wheel, and well, I was hooked! About two months later, I went in to the doctor for a check-up, and I had lost 30+ lbs., put on 10+lbs of muscle, and well, I was walking, running, jumping, EVERYTHING normally! (Well, maybe not arching my back, haha!) The doctor was surprised, to say the least! He asked what I had been doing. I told him about how I started training in the Circus Arts. He laughed and said, “When I said to work your core, I meant yoga or Pilates!” He obviously didn’t know me that well!
Well, time went on, and my love of all things circus deepened and grew. I began teaching the art of the Cyr Wheel (my favorite apparatus, and the app I currently perform) at a gym called Cirque Freaks. I only taught a couple classes a week (I was also back to performing and choreographing musical theatre around Atlanta). One day, the owner called me into his office and said he wanted out of the business, and did I want to take it over. I thought about it…and said, “Yes.” At that time, the gym had a total of 19 students.
Well, I opened up the following summer as Akrosphere Aerial & Circus Arts, with a new mission statement, a new location, a largely new staff, a new target clientele…basically a new EVERYTHING. I completely re-invented that old gym into something new I could believe in. We now catered more toward youth (and the young at heart, of course!) Multiples of each apparatus were purchased so students wouldn’t have to wait in line to train. A variety of crash mats and landing mats were brought in, and strict safety policies were enforced for each apparatus and throughout the gym in general. Highly qualified coaches were teaching each and every class, (with well-thought out curriculums using skill progressions and strength training) to prioritize safety at all levels. High-quality rigging was purchased, classes were added…and sleep was non-existent, but I didn’t care. It was worth it.
Skip forward to 15 months later and the gym is flourishing and thriving. We serve 150+ families with some of the most interesting young people we have ever had the privilege of working with. Our students range from 5 – 60 in age, at a variety of levels. We have classes for newbie and beginner levels all the way through advanced levels of training. In addition to our previous offerings of Aerial Silks, Static Trapeze, Lyra, Cyr Wheel, and Tumbling, we now also offer classes and / or workshops in Aerial Rope, Spanish Web, Swinging Trapeze, Duo Trapeze, Partner Acrobatics, Hand Balancing, Chinese Pole, and “Generalist classes” with unicycle, juggling, diabolo, and more. We are also proud to have a full a performance company which competes and performs everything from individual acts to full contemporary circus shows at galas, circus competitions, Fringe festivals, and theatres.
Akrosphere Aerial & Circus Arts is also now a proud member of American Circus Educators, and the American Youth Circus Organization.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Haha…we have a saying in Circus: nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
Circus is hard; otherwise everyone would do it. And it’s not just the training.
Finding clientele is oddly difficult…circus is a “niche sport”, for lack of better words. It’s hard. It takes hours of training and practice. Dedication. And with my priority being on sharing the circus arts with children and young people…well, it’s certainly not for everyone. (But we believe it can be!)
Even marketing a circus training school is oddly difficult. There aren’t “drop down” boxes for us. We teach the beauty and grace of dancers. We teach the athleticism of elite level athletes. We teach the artistry of poets. Yet we are not a dance studio, a gymnastics facility, a performing arts studio…it’s hard to market your product if no one knows where you fit in.
And of course money was tight. To get the right equipment is expensive. We need to go above and beyond when it comes to safety, and that costs money. Rigging equipment, from spansets and carabiners rated to 11,000+ lbs. (yes, it’s a 100 lbs. artist on the equipment, but one drop can generate over 1000 lbs. of dynamic force, and we always shoot for 10x that amount to consider ourselves “industry safe”) cost considerably more than the ones rated for 200 lbs. Most of the circus equipment is custom built by trained artisans to fit the safety and performance specifications needed. Mats (good ones, at least) are expensive, ranging upwards of $1000 each for mats 24″ thick or more. And AT LEAST one mat is needed for each piece of equipment, if not more.
There were other troubles as well…”inherited debt” from the old gym, finding suitable performance venues (most ceilings will not support aerials), etc.
Please tell us about Akrosphere Aerial & Circus Arts.
Akrosphere specializes in teaching Aerial Silks, Lyra / Aerial Hoop, Trapeze, Cyr Wheel, and Tumbling. As of Fall 2017, we will add Aerial Rope / Corde Lisse, Chinese Pole, Spanish Web, Hand Balancng, Partner Acro, and more to our repertoire. Akrosphere offers circus classes, camps, and workshops for students from beginner to advanced levels. Their highly-trained staff of instructors have been seen around the world in circus shows, professional theatre productions, and concerts, and have also worked on “the other side of the table” in the fields of directing and choreography. Akrosphere serves families in the Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek, Cumming, and Roswell areas of North Fulton, Forsyth, and greater Atlanta.
What sets us apart from other circus studios in Georgia is that we specialize in teaching children and young people. There aren’t many circus facilities in the United States that cater almost entirely to the young. 95% of our students are under the age of 17. We strive to be what our students want us to be: whether they are looking for an enjoyable after-school activity, or they are planning to go career and shoot for Cirque du Soleil, we want to walk through their circus journey with them.
More even than that, though, our gym is a family. Our students are wonderfully creative young people with brilliant artistic and athletic sides. And our coaches have been chosen for much more than their performance and teaching skills alone. They believe that happiness and joy play a huge part in a successful learning environment, and are dedicated to hosting a positive environment for all students. We believe that creative exploration is crucial for learning, therefore we encourage our students to think for themselves, to take what they learn and expand on it, making it their own. Through these core values and many more, we strive to raise the bar when it comes to circus training for youth. We truly wish for success and growth for our students in the circus arts and in life. We become role models, mentors, confidants to our students.
When you get down to it, we specialize in nurturing kids / young people into high-level circus artists; mixing elite level athletics with creative artistry, while keeping the joy and love alive in the process.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Haha…hard to pick just one! Hmmm…traveling to Yellowstone National Park with my entire family? I loved that. Seeing the colored Sulphur pools with my Dad, and sitting on his shoulders to see Old Faithful spew water.
I hope to take my son there one day.
Contact Info:
- Address: 390 Winkler Drive
(inside the Performers Warehouse building)
Alpharetta, GA, 30004 - Website: www.akrosphere.com
- Phone: 678-782-2762
- Email: info@akrosphere.com
- Instagram: @akrosphere_circus
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/akrosphere
Image Credit:
Akrosphere Aerial & Circus Arts
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