Every year for the last three or four years, I’ve helped promote the Lone Star Circus School’s summer camp by being part of a program on the local ABC TV station. This year, the reporter from WFAA Channel 8 came to Lone Star Circus School to film some of the kids during an “open gym” session where everyone works on their individual skill.
He picked me and Claire Banta for individual interviews about what we like about circus. You can see the video of the interview by clicking here. (WFAA won’t allow me to embed the video here — sorry you have to sit through the long ad on their site to see it.)
That close-up of my face in the blindfold is kinda creepy, but I had fun, and I do believe what I said about circus. It’s a great place to learn new skills, meet new people, and just have fun. I went to circus camp for the first time when I was 7, and I’ve been going every summer since.
My first time was at Slappy & Monday’s Clown Camp, and then Lone Star Circus started its summer camp and I went there for a couple of years. When I was 10, I went to French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in upstate New York, where they have an amazing circus program, and then every year since I was 11, I’ve gotten into Circus Smirkus, the amazing summer camp in Greensboro, Vermont — I will be leaving in two weeks for this summer’s stay in Vermont. I can’t wait, even though it means a 27-hour drive to get there.
But you don’t have to go far away to have fun at circus summer camp. Not if you live in Dallas. The Lone Star Circus School’s day camp still has one session left. You can register online by clicking here. The last camp session is August 1-5. Whether you come for just a day or the whole week, I promise you’ll have loads of fun — and, no, you don’t have to juggle knives while blindfolded, or do anything else that’s scary or dangerous.
When I first came to Lone Star Circus, I had no skills at all. And a lot of the kids had already had gymnastics or tumbling. But nobody made fun of me, even when it took me almost a whole semester to learn to climb the silks all the way to the top while some of the little girls in my class did it on the first try. The teachers are super nice, and there are so many things to do that you never get bored at circus school.
Here are some photos from the WFAA photo shoot — definitely watch the video, too.
You know how when somebody does something on TV that is dangerous, and the voice over says, “Do not try this at home”? This was the first time I’ve done something on TV and had the announcer say that — twice.
I thought the way the camera captured the clubs flying around was cool.
At the end, the reporter had a bunch of us yell, “Come & join us!” That’s Claire on the right. She’s a very versatile performer — we’ve been in classes together for several years, and her trapeze skills are amazing.
Kameron Rie Badgers 
Wow. Cool knife juggling! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do that blindfolded before.