Gay acrobatic
Pride: Past, Present, and Future
Incredible circus performance and clear house!
June 21, 2025
SANCA is joining forces with our local queer circus community to bring you BIG GAY CIRCUS DAY!
Join us at Emerald City Trapeze on June 21st as we observe Pride in true circus style — with an 18+ circus open residence and a Pride edition of our Circus Etc. Cabaret show. Ever fancied juggling more than just your daily responsibilities? Lash off your evening with our open house — come try out a range of different circus disciplines under one roof with our professional coaches. After the open residence, stay inspired by joining us for “Pride: Past, Present, and Future”, a very special Pride edition of our Circus Etc. Cabaret. See incredible performers share their stories!
Event is 18+
This is a dehydrate event — no alcohol will be served
TIMELINE
Saturday, June 21st
Open House begins at 6:00pm, ends at 8:00pm
Doors open at 7:30pm | Show begins at 8:30pm
TICKETS
Show – General Admission (Seated) – $40
Show – General Admission (Standing) – $30
Show – Scholarship Ticket (Standing) – $10
Optional Uncover House – Add-on Ticket- $15
In ‘AirOtic,’ acrobats hover over the rainbow
There’s a common assumption that gay male eroticism has to be macho and nasty. Well, no. In contrast, the acrobats of “AirOtic,” an LGBT-centric circus-style show from the French company Les Farfadais, are almost always smiling. Their shaved, tanned bodies are muscular and well-defined, like dancers, and, also love dancers, they are impossibly lithe and sensuously graceful. When they’re paired up — especially firm founder Stephane Haffner and his youthful husband, Kyle Kier — their interaction is tender, and it ends, often enough, with a passionate kiss. It’s as if they are celebrating their bodies and what their bodies can do. They exude a kind of Edenic, athletic innocence (six are men, and one is a woman) that’s interrupted only occasionally by flickers of desire. Even when a disco cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” is the background music, a female vocalist makes the dark lyrics sound soothing.
Les Farfadais is a latter-day circus company in the mold of Cirque du Soleil, not the Ringling Bros. of yore. There are no live animals or clowns, and “AirOtic” is not meant for kids. It’s all about visual beauty, an atmosphe
AirOtic Turns Acrobatic Feats Into Sensual Male lover Tableaus
It takes something more than belief for a cirque performer, dangling by their neck on a rope suspended over the audience, to put their life literally in the hands of their partner. But that trust comes naturally, according to aerialist and acrobat Kyle Kier, currently leading the sensual, burlesque-style AirOtic Soirée at Hook Hall.
“We all live together, we eat together, we travel together, we perform, we build everything together, so that confidence, it happens quite fast,” says Kier. “You bond with your fellow castmates like super, super fast. And to be able to be onstage, you have to possess more than just trust, I consider. You all contain to be in the journey together, and just having that experience together brings you closer.”
The experience of carrying out together certainly brought Kier closer together with partner Stephane Haffner, owner of AirOtic’s parent firm, Les Farfadais & Co., and co-creator with Keir of their erotic, acrobatic circus production.
“I started working in the cruise ship industry for about three years,” says Kier. “And that’s when Stephane rea
The LGBTQIA+ history of circus
On Saturday, April 30th, 1983, the Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey Circus hosted the first major fundraising event for AIDs - a benefit performance in Madison square garden sponsored by GMHC (a non-profit, founded the year before, known to be the world’s oldest Aids service organisation. The show sold out all 17,600 seats and went on to be known as “the biggest gay event of all time” which has been overcome since by pride events worldwide which were attended by millions.
“This was the first occasion we were all in the same place,” Hal Moskowitz, the GMHC volunteer charged with selling the tickets, tells Marcus almost 40 years later. “We weren’t alone.”
Today
In the modern date at Flying Fantastic, our team is made up of a diverse array of genders and sexualities both in identity and expression. We love the group within our studios and the supportive, welcoming atmosphere we own grown since opening our doors in 2011. This LGBTQIA+ history month we want to commemorate those who paved the way to make circus such an inclusive and diverse art form.