This week I was thrilled to watch my son, Keaton M. Hentoff-Killian, adeptly defy gravity on the stage of the glorious Brooklyn Academy of Music with Circa Contemporary Circus from Australia in their stunning production of Humans. Forty years ago, on and over that same stage, I performed an acrobatic duet with Karen E. Gersch and an aerial perch act with Warren Adams Bacon for Big Apple Circus! Time is not the only thing that flies!
As you can see from the 1978 Big Apple playbill, at that time, the NY School for Circus Arts was an important part of the show. I was a founding member of Big Apple Circus. The point of Big Apple Circus, was to be a showcase for acts created by the School. In the first year of Big Apple Circus, these acts included my acrobatic comedy act, Les Cooques with Karen Gersch, created by NY School for Circus Arts teaching artists, Nina Krasavina and Gregory Fedin, and an aerial each act I did with the other teacher, Warren Bacon, who had been my circus coach in college at State University of New York at Purchase.
It was at Purchase that I first discovered circus and then, after a summer touring with the youth circus, The Circus Kingdom, I went back to Waren, at Purchase, and said “This is what I want to do with the rest of my life. How can I repay you?” Warren responded, “I’ll tell you what my teacher, Faye Alexander, told me: ‘Pass it on.’ “
So, I have. I started teaching, first at my former high school and to residents in my college dorm. I graduated college and continued my performing career but also always did some teaching. I then became a founding member of Circus Flora (and my footnote in American circus history is that I am the only person to be a founding member of both Big Apple Circus and Circus Flora). A decade after the Big Apple BAM performance, I started teaching out in the St. Louis community for Circus Flora and formed the St.Louis Arches youth circus troupe.
In 2001, Circus Flora ceased its circus education funding and I started Circus Harmony to continue the Arches and provide more circus education opportunities for children in the St. Louis metropolitan area.
Forty years ago, when I looked out into the beautiful opera house of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I had no idea that I would be back, in that grand venue, watching a graduate of a circus school that I founded, who also happened to be one of my sons, soaring effortlessly across the stage as part of a courageously, creative contemporary circus company from Australia!
This son, Keaton Hentoff-Killian, is now creating his own circus career. Forty years after my appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he has performed there and in numerous other theaters and amphitheater’s around the world. He also teaches for his current company and always works with my current generation of students, whenever he is home. He is passing it on and flying higher than I ever did or thought possible. Here’s to the next generation!
