For several years, Circus Juventas, a St. Paul-based youth circus school, has maintained a partnership with a local orthopedic provider, where therapists and M.D.s provide medical support and follow-up care for performers at shows and practices.
“Twice a week we have an athletic orthopedic therapist from TRIA here for two hours in case something happens or follow-ups are needed from previous injuries or a kid hurt themselves at school,” said Rob Dawson, Circus Juventas’ executive director. “At every one of our shows we also have 2-4 orthopedic therapists or an M.D.”
This kind of support for performers’ physical health is essential, Dawson said. But recently he and other members of the school’s executive team decided that they also wanted to provide support for their performers’ mental health.
Since 2021, when gymnast Simone Biles went public with her own mental health struggles and stepped out of the Olympic Games, a growing number of athletic organizations have expanded the mental health services they provide for their participants. Staff at Circus Juventas, the largest youth performing arts circus school in North America, knew they wanted to do the same thing for the 820 young people who participate in their programs.
“There are a lot of stressors that come with doing this kind of work,” Dawson said of circus performances. “Some of the skills we perform are high above the ground or you have a partner and you are trusting them or they are trusting you. A big thing we want to touch on is the mental health side of things. It is that important.”
This spring, Circus Juventas announced a new partnership with Twin Cities-based mental health service provider People Incorporated. Starting in the fall of 2025, People Incorporated will provide mental health support to Circus Juventas instructors, performers and their families through in-person and online workshops and training and help with building connections to outside therapists.
Jill Wiedemann-West, People Incorporated chief executive officer, said that when Circus Juventas staff approached her nonprofit with the idea of establishing a collaborative partnership, she immediately understood the benefit that could come from the two organizations working together.
“Like so many of us, Circus Juventas realized that we all have mental health,” Wiedemann-West said. The school already provides other support for performers and their families, she explained, so it only made sense that they’d offer mental health support as well.
“We’ve done partnerships with a lot of other organizations, organizations that serve unhoused populations and kids in schools,” Wiedemann-West said. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had a partnership with an organization so focused on entertainment, but, honestly, as we started to talk about it, we thought, ‘Of course. This kind of activity carries a lot of pressure for the adults and the young performers.’ We can help provide the mental health support they need.”
‘This stuff creeps into your head’
While high-flying, acrobatic circus shows like those staged by Circus Juventas or Cirque du Soleil are fun and thrilling for audiences, they are hard work for performers, who spend hours perfecting the sometimes hair-raising stunts that, if not done correctly, can put their physical health at risk. And the stress of physical risk aside, the sheer commitment required to stage a show can also take a toll on performers’ mental health.
“When we do our summer shows, we have a three-week run,” Dawson said. “We’ll do 15 full performances and five half performances, so fatigue — both physical and mental — is a big issue.”
For some young performers, Dawson said, this fatigue can start to add up: “Some students can go all year long and not notice anything, but when they get to showtime, a week or two weeks into it, the fatigue and the mental health and the doubt starts to creep in. We want to have some tools in our pocket to help with those issues and get ahead of them.”
In demanding sports like gymnastics and acrobatics, the physical and mental fatigue that performers and athletes experience can be dangerous, Dawson added. Biles had what she called “’the twisties,’” he explained — an insidious inner fear of physical harm that caused her to step out of Olympic competition. This is a feeling that many circus performers and acrobats have experienced themselves.
“That happens at every level,” Dawson said. “Being in acrobatics my whole life, I’ve known a lot of acrobats who get in these situations and find it hard to admit that is what’s happening to them. All of the sudden this stuff creeps into your head.”
Dawson said he and his colleagues hope that by providing a mental health support resource like People Incorporated, the circus’ young performers and their families will be able to build a strong, solid base of mental wellness that can carry them through stressful times.
“We needed to find a strong, respected partner that could come in through the years and give us good information to help students get through these situations,” Dawson said. “The more we can help these students understand it and help them get through these times and know that we’re here for them and want to be a partner, the better. It will be helpful for the kids — and also helpful for their families.”
Though this is the first time that People Incorporated has built a partnership with an arts and performance-focused organization, Wiedemann-West said she is confident that her staff will be able to provide the support these young acrobats need.
“We don’t understand everything as it relates to the experience of a gymnast or a circus performer, but the thing of it is anxiety happens in all of our lives,” she said. “So this is translatable to other partnerships that we have.”
It will be important to make sure that this mental health information is translated to meet the specific needs and experiences of circus performers, Wiedemann-West added. “When you are a performer and you do this in front of people, it is fraught with transient anxiety that could turn into something more severe,” she said. “These are talented youngsters taking on something quite spectacular while they are still developing a sense of themselves. We will keep this reality in mind.”
A collaborative partnership
The partnership between People Incorporated and Circus Juventas will be focused on support and education rather than on providing actual one-on-one therapy for performers.
“We are not doing therapy or any kind of therapeutic intervention,” Wiedemann-West explained. “We will be there for support and education.”
Her staff’s role will take the form of leading workshops and meetings, as well as providing informational articles and referrals for psychotherapy if needed, she said. “If we happen to be there for a workshop or informational session, a student might say, ‘I need to talk to somebody,’” she said. “Then we can help them make a connection with a therapist.”
In separate sessions, Dawson said People Incorporated will train Circus Juventas staff members on “proper responses to certain situations,” including supporting a student who is experiencing stress or performance anxiety. There will also be separate workshops for parents who have questions about supporting their children’s mental health.
While Wiedemann-West said “this kind of partnership is fairly new to us,” she believes that much of what People Incorporated has learned from supporting other community organizations like schools and nonprofits that serve kids who struggle with their mental health will translate into their work with Circus Juventas.
She also thinks that this partnership may be a sign of something bigger, of other local performing-arts organizations devoting more time and resources to supporting their participants’ mental health. This, Wiedemann-West thinks, can only be a good thing.
“I’ve got to believe that when you start thinking about everywhere from the Children’s Theater to Penumbra and all the theaters in our area that other people must have thought about this,” Wiedemann-West said. “There is a lot of potential here. If these kinds of organizations haven’t given it a thought, they should take a page out of Circus Juventas’ book and see what they are doing to support their performers’ mental health. This will make their shows even stronger.”
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