In 2007 the twins aerial performances were doubly honored with a Special Prize at the Wuqiao International Circus Festival in China, and a Bronze Medal at the 1st International Festival of Circus in Albacete, Spain. Serenity has taught and choreographed for many companies including Pilobolus, Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Imagination and Circus Smirkus. Serenity helped found San Francisco’s Circus Center and was Pilates captain for Saltimbanco where she worked with physical therapists to promote injury prevention.
Serenity maintains teaching, coaching and performing careers and currently is director, performer and producer of her own cirque touring show called MIRAGE (www.miragecircus.com). Serenity performs many aerial arts as well as partner acrobatics with her husband, Bill Forchion and works with disabled dancers in the AIM to FLY project. She resides in Vermont, USA where she is a human jungle gym for her 3 children.
Serenity Forchion is an Exceptionally Talented Aerialist, Acrobat and Trapeze Artist. She is in conversation with Namita Nayyar, President Women Fitness.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: You must have started learning skills as an aerialist, acrobat and trapeze artist at a young age. You have done numerous theater, television, corporate and world class circus performances. You have studied at University of Massachusetts Amherst. We all wish to know your professional journey from your childhood to reaching this stage of professional excellence?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: Actually, my twin and I grew up on a farm, physical but not athletically trained with no dance or acrobatic training. We did occasionally got to see a show on Broadway with our grandmother and would dance around the living room and entertain our family with long theatrical productions at home. We discovered circus when we were 16 and got to swing on a flying trapeze at Club Med. We embarked in circus careers when we were hired to work at a summer camp where we worked in a circus program whose main focus was the empowerment that circus arts provides to young people.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: You reached the pinnacle of success by being a professional leading Trapezist & Aerialist artist when you did various performances for Cirque du Soleil’s Saltimbanco, Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus, Circus of the Kids, the New Pickle Circus, Cirque Productions, Cirque Voila, Sandglass Theater and many more. What factors do you consider were responsible that made you achieve that?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: We are very hard working people – I believe our upbringing in a rural farm environment brought us to understand that nothing ‘comes for free’ that hard work is the only way to gain or learn or accomplish anything, and that if you want something you must go get it yourself, not expect anyone else to teach you or give you what you yourself must gain. We are grateful for the accidental moments in our lives that led to connections and contacts that we were able to foster on our path.
Full interview on Next Page!
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Ms. Namita Nayyar: What exercises comprise your fitness regime or workout routine you shall like to share?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: We primarily train together on our apparatus – both of us run regularly for aerobic fitness, but neither of us goes to the gym though that can be a very good way of keeping in shape. I believe knowing how to stay in shape without a gym is important for anyone traveling for work, as we do. But generally it is important for anyone in this industry to treat their training as sacred and important and part of their job so they don’t let it slide for ‘tea with friends’. We are very careful to separate our fitness training from our creative training so that we are constantly assessing our level of fitness for injury prevention. Creative training can be so much more fun than doing pull-ups and so many people forget to keep paying attention to the fundamentals.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: Do you take some special diet or have a strict menu that you follow to remain healthy and physically fit?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: Not at all! We both like good wholesome home cooked food. A healthy balance of everything, including chocolate! That’s it!
Ms. Namita Nayyar: You have glowing skin and gorgeous hair. Do you take some kind of skin treatment to keep it young and glowing and secondly what you do to your hair to make them look so stunning?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: For our birthday once a year we try to get a facial! Besides that we don’t do much but moisturize every night. No soap. Splash some water on in the morning. We don’t wear makeup regularly and living in the good clean country air is definitely good. But we pretty much have to thank our parents for good genes!
Ms. Namita Nayyar: Advice and motivational words to the inspiring and budding professional aerial artist girls who all are your fans and shall like to know from you for their climb to ladder of success in the field of being a professional aerial artist?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: Work hard, work harder, dream big, be patient, don’t be patient, be honest about what you are asking your body to do, be honest about how much you want to work on it, adapt to fit your body, embrace who you really are, don’t be like everyone else, don’t settle for less than you want. Many conundrums exist in how to rest and relax and cross train and adapt to be yourself while also not settling for the here and now. I think it is helpful for some people to understand that we were slightly pudgy, sedentary bookworms when we were 15 years old. Growing up and growing older and growing smarter has been the best thing for our physical and creative abilities. Embrace age!
Ms. Namita Nayyar: Tell us about your memorable experience of working on the Aerial dance project with disabled dancers “AIM to FLY: disabled dancers in the air”. How you have been able to achieve and quench your thirst of giving back to the society through this endeavor of your?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: The ability to adapt to unique bodies is something I believe I have always done as a teacher. But I am especially challenged and inspired by working with people who have incredible talents and who don’t sit back and act ‘disabled’. But biggest learning from working with Aim to FLY is that the ‘disabled’ are often far less disabled than many people who suffer greatly from being unmotivated, unfit, unhealthy, unmoving. I regret greatly when I meet people who are ‘able bodied’ but don’t care for their body.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: Who has been your inspiration and motivation in choosing to be an aerialist, acrobat and trapeze artist as your profession?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: I wish I had an answer, but I think this profession chose me. I feel like Elsie and I have been each other’s motivation and prompting, and yet there have been people in my life as I look back who I realize had a great affect on me that I was not aware of at that time. Wendy Parkman, mother of 3, teacher of Circus arts in San Francisco who I had the honor of learning alongside as her assistant. At the time, I had no idea how much I absorbed from being with her. Tandy Beal and the ensemble of the Pickle Family Circus – how much I absorbed by being on stage and directed and taught by her and the others I was thrown in with. At the time, I had no idea, but looking back I see how my own creative sensibilities are colored by their ideas and values of inclusiveness, community, ensemble creativity. Lu Yi who was patient and taught me a handstand when I was 22 even though he was accustomed to working with hand picked young people.
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Ms. Namita Nayyar: You choreograph and teach for circus, dance & theater companies and schools. You founded San Francisco’s Circus Center & was Pilates captain for Cirque du Soleil where you worked closely with physical therapists to promote injury prevention & rehabilitation. You also offer an array of Workshops as well as progressive Aerial Teacher Trainings. In 2007 you founded the New England Center for Circus Arts ( NECCA) for recreational and professional students. Tell us more about these endeavors of your’s?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: For now, the two things I am most connected to are my creative performances that Elsie and I still do through our own company Nimble Arts, as well as our circus school that is now a not for profit entity and the largest circus school in the USA, the New England Center for Circus Arts. I am proud of being able to share what we have experienced and hope we can inspire others to embark on a creative and physical life whether they want to be professional circus artists or just creative and fit human beings.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: You have won many international awards and honours like Bronze Medal: International Circus Festival, Albacete Spain, Special Award: Wu Xiao International Circus Competition, China, Winner: Business Plan Competition: Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and Mexico International Circus Competition: Circus Atayde and so on.. What additional responsibilities these winnings bestow upon you towards the community and the profession on being an aerialist, acrobat and trapeze artist?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: I don’t think that any of these have added any responsibilities, except a recognition that others perhaps look to us for guidance and inspiration. We hope we have been innovators of the creative world, and most certainly hope that we have helped others realize that art is important for business and economic development.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: With exceptional hard work you are credited with all your achievements. Do you believe that the hand of Providence (Supreme Being) played a role in your success?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: Oh goodness! I believe that my personal spirituality is a very private thing. I do hope that anyone watching me perform might come up with their own interpretation of this question, and I prefer to let each discover their own answer.
Ms. Namita Nayyar: What you wish to say about the website Womenfitness.net and message for its visitors?
Ms. Serenity Forchion: Everyone can find fitness in their life, to the extent that they wish. My mother always said ‘God can’t drive a parked car’ and this means that if you want to be fit, you don’t have to get to Cirque du Soleil, but you do need to get your own self up and out of your chair and do a little something and then a little more! I hope I can inspire, I am a 45 year old, mother of three, but in the end, inspiration only gets you part of the way, you have to do the rest yourself!To know more about Serenity Forchion: Check out at: www.necenterforcircusarts.orgTo get all the latest news follow her on her social network:
Women Fitness Team thanks Serenity Forchion for giving us her valuable time for this interview and quenching the thirst of her fans to know more about her and making this interview happen.
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All content on this site is copyright of Women Fitness and no part of any article found on this site may be reproduced without an express permission and highlighted, do follow link crediting http://www.womenfitness.net/ or preferably the original page as the source. This interview is exclusive and taken by Namita Nayyar President womenfitness.net and should not be reproduced, copied or hosted in part or full anywhere without an express permission.
All Written Content Copyright © 2016 Women Fitness