Behind the curtain: A look inside the world of the Bellingham Circus Guild
On 6th Street in Fairhaven, there is a bright blue building that the Bellingham Circus Guild calls home.
The Bellingham Circus Guild was founded in 2007, when a group of performers came together to create a nonprofit in an area without a noise ordinance.
“[We felt like] having a home base for [these kinds of acts] was really important,” Lynx Hawthron told The Bellingham Herald. “Circus artists will do a lot of gig work. They’re all over the place. To have a place where we can root in and call home is really important for stability.”
Almost 20 years later, the Guild host workshops covering everything from introductory skills to master classes. Anyone is able to become a member of the guild for a monthly fee, and anyone, no matter the skill level, can perform at Vaudevillingham.
Vaudevillingham is a monthly fundraiser event where attendees can pay on a sliding scale and purchase snacks and drinks. All proceeds from the event go towards the Circus Guild’s rent.
“We were a volunteer run organization for 15 years, and it was only a couple of years ago that we started hiring employees, and so now we have those extra costs too,” Hawthron said. “In one way, it really helps professionalize us, and then in another way, we’ve got to figure out how to pay for it.”
The rules for performers are simple: keep the acts under five minutes and no repeats. This encourages performers to try new material while also keeping the audience on their toes because no two shows are the same.
Some of the seasoned performers, who are Circus Guild Members, open the show. However, the majority of performers at Vaudevillingham are first-timers.
The juggling club at Sehome High School made their Vaudevillingham debut in April, after their faculty advisor suggested they try to perform live.
“We’ve done some performances at our school assemblies before, but they were more like one person juggles, then the next person judges,” said juggling club member Keldon Loder. “Our goal for this [performance] was to really make it [feel like] we were a team, and I think we did a really good job with that. It’s high energy, it’s fun. It’s all that we could have dreamed for.”
There are also no limits to what kind of acts can be featured on the stage, from singers and dancers, to jugglers and gymnasts who perform grandiose tricks that make the audience gasp and cheer. It’s an event the Bellingham community shows up for every month.
Another first-time performer in April was Jae Lewis, who performed a monologue centered around themes of grief and gratitude. Lewis was accompanied by their stuffed chicken, Glinhenda.
“I naturally perform. I am a fairy performer for face painting and so I find myself performing all the time, especially with kiddos. But it’s a really one-on-one, intimate experience and I find myself afraid of the stage,” Lewis said. “So I wanted to test my reality and see if I could do something new and scary, and be scared and do it anyway.”
Once a month, one by one, the Bellingham community shuffles into the building to take their seats as performers take the stage. Once it’s over, the audience roars with applause and offers donations that are collected in a large top hat.
“It provides opportunities for people who aren’t from a big city to get involved in things they might not be able to get involved in. I really wish that I had access to circus arts as a kid,” performer Quinn Murley said. “But I think having the variety of art forms and disciplines to have access to is really important, especially when you’re growing up, in order to just find what makes you tick and what sorts of things make you, you.”