Over the past week, the National Circus School of Puerto Rico and Circus Harmony’s St. Louis Arches have been collaborating on a circus tour to go to some of the parts of Puerto Rico that have been most devastated by Hurricane Maria and bring joy and wonder to the lives of the people there.
Circus doesn’t just impact the lives of those who see it–it has changed the course of the young performers’ lives, too. Two different circus students, growing up across the world from each other, had their lives changed because of who happened to be their neighbors.
“Okay, so, I was at a block party,” said Malik Leeks, 13, of the St. Louis Arches. Finn, the boy whose family was hosting the block party, would become Leeks’ best friend, but he didn’t know that yet.
“As a kid I was kind of shy, even though now I’m more outgoing,” Leeks said. “I was maybe around eight, nine. Then I saw Finn. Across the street, they were flipping. And I knew how to flip, so. It took me a while to go over there, I was so shy, I was just looking at them like, oh, they’re flipping! I can flip too!”
Eventually, Leeks got up the courage to approach the other kids. “But then I went over there, and I started flipping with Finn. And Finn was like, ‘you’re really, really good,’ and I was like, ‘yeah,’ and then he was like–his mom came outside, and she was talking to me. And then his mom told my mom to sign me up for circus classes. So then I did, and I worked my hardest to get where I am now. I told my mom I wanted to keep doing it, and I got a scholarship for circus. That’s how it started.”
Leeks says that circus changed the course of his life. “I feel like, if I wasn’t doing circus, I would be doing other bad things in life, around my community, stuff like that. But this is why I chose circus, because it’s a really good path, and because it’s really easy to get out of St. Louis from circus.”
Ariana Rubi Ruíz, 14, of Dorado, Puerto Rico, has a similar story. She lives one house over from the backyard where the National Circus School of Puerto Rico practices, and started watching them practice as a young child.
“At first, they weren’t giving any classes, and they were putting up a structure where the trapeze and the silks would be,” Ruíz remembers. “I was like six at the time. One night, we heard a lot of noise, and it was unusual, because nobody lived in this house. So when I looked out the window, there’s this man, climbing on the structure like a monkey, and it was Jafet. And I was like, ‘how can a person do that?’ I had never seen anything like it.”
She had to find out what they were doing. “So the next day, I started watching from the window all day, watching them practice,” she recalled. “And then I went out to play with one of my dogs, and I threw a ball, and it went over the fence into where they were. And so Jafet”–one of the coaches of the circus school– “Had to give it to me.”
Eventually, they opened up a summer camp, and Ariana, like Malik, was offered a scholarship to attend.
“That’s how I got introduced to circus. That was about seven, eight years ago, and I haven’t stopped. I’m fourteen,” she said. Now, she hopes to continue her circus education by coming to St. Louis to study with the St. Louis Arches after meeting them in Puerto Rico.
Ariana is grateful to the circus for helping her become more confident. “I was really shy when I started, I didn’t have a lot of confidence, I didn’t want to speak in public,” she said. “I think it has changed me, like, my life. I think it matters, because no matter what your race is, no matter what your size or height is, it’s something where people can come together, all shapes and sizes, it’s an equal place for people to come and do what they love.”
Malik Leeks agrees. “If I was still that shy person, and I didn’t go over there, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d probably be staying in the house, actually. And now I’m in Puerto Rico, enjoying myself.”
Now, both students are touring together as part of the Revolution for Harmony circus, all because of who their neighbors happened to be.
