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Michelle Khare Joins Circus Vargas for a Week and Tests How Much Control She Can Give Up

Michelle Khare · ▶ 35:15 · 12 min read
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Overview

YouTuber Michelle Khare describes herself as "incredibly type A," someone who controls every second of her day. That habit has made her organized, she says, but it also makes it hard for her to hand control to other people. In this episode of her challenge series, she joins Circus Vargas, a traveling circus, to see what happens when she has to trust strangers with her safety. Her second goal is to find an act of her own she could perform in front of a live audience. The ringmaster's opening line frames the week: people imagine the circus as chaotic and badly organized, and "nothing could be further from the truth."

12 min read
1:20

A Childhood Memory and a Ringmaster Who Was There

Michelle traces the idea back to age seven, when she saw Ringling Brothers and was "completely mesmerized" by the thrill, the courage and the trust the performers showed. Her guide at Circus Vargas is Johnathan Lee Iverson. The narration says he became America's first Black ringmaster at 22, which also made him the youngest in Ringling Brothers history. He started in the Boys Choir of Harlem at 11 and has performed for four U.S. presidents and for Nelson Mandela. The narration says what he is proudest of is appearing on Jeopardy! twice. He was also, it turns out, the ringmaster Michelle saw as a child, a little over two decades earlier.

Iverson describes Circus Vargas as "very charming" and notes that it has been running since 1969. He sets out the plan for the week: Michelle will try a range of disciplines, and "her body will tell her what works for her." He also warns her that "circus will weed you out if this is not for you." The community is "very territorial" about its craft, he says, so being welcomed in is "a big deal," and she will be tested.

3:56

The First Test: Standing Inside the Globe of Death

Before she can try the act she has dreamed about, the trapeze, Michelle has to show she can be trusted in the face of danger. Her first assignment is the Globe of Death. According to the narration, it is a steel sphere weighing over 5,000 pounds, with motorcyclists reaching up to 60 mph inside. It was popularized in 1904 by a daredevil duo and has been linked to more than two dozen injuries and at least four recorded deaths.

Her role is to stand still in the middle while riders circle around her. She gets almost no instruction. Daniel, one of the riders, tells her to plant her feet a little apart for balance, because the globe shakes. When she says she plans to close her eyes, he says no. She has to keep looking at him because that helps him. "Trust is the first thing," he says. Michelle survives the practice run and calls it "not normal." Daniel explains that riding the globe is a family trade: his father, uncle, grandfather and brothers all do it in Argentina. He also tells her she performs it that same night, so "you don't have time to think."

While she gets fitted for a costume, Michelle asks people how they feel about the globe, and the answers worry her. Patricia from wardrobe has been in the circus for 25 years and has never set foot in it. "I know my place," she says. Another performer says she used to stand inside the globe and was a little scared. Michelle notes that even though all she technically has to do is stand still, it still feels like "a life or death situation."

She goes through with it at the evening show and comes out repeating, "I'm never doing that again." Only afterward does she learn that Daniel's tire went flat during the performance, which she hadn't noticed. Iverson then frames the rest of the week: the globe was only the first test, the stunts will get harder, and he believes that "every person" can find their own bit of magic in the circus.

11:58

Rola Bola, Foot Juggling and the Search for an Act

The next stage is a fast tour of the circus's disciplines. Iverson lists daredevils, clowns, a teeterboard troupe and "so many different styles of juggling." Michelle meets a family that performs a foot juggling act and a performer whose specialty is Rola Bola, balancing on a board set on a rolling cylinder. Rola Bola turns out to be among the hardest things she tries. She is afraid of breaking her foot, and her coaches first have her rock gently back and forth. The juggling coaches also comment that she is "too light."

Michelle calls the experience a whirlwind. Every act needs a completely different skill set, and each demands a very high level of skill. Partway through the week, she still doesn't know which act she will actually be able to perform.

14:01

The Teeterboard: Second in a Four-Person Stack

The teeterboard troupe, led by Albert and his wife, gives her a demonstration. Albert describes the act as essentially a seesaw act with a lot of tumbling, one that requires a lot of support ability. He announces that Michelle will be the second person in a four-person high stack, which he calls a very dangerous and difficult stunt.

Michelle recognizes some of the mechanics because she did a cheerleading challenge about a year earlier. She says those skills translate well to teeterboard, but she now has to relearn them the day before the show. The coaching is brief and specific: keep her legs straight, look to the front, hold herself rigid, and get in and out of position on command.

She explains why the role makes her nervous. In the stack, someone literally lands from the sky on top of the people below, so she can't shake or make a mistake. She acknowledges that her position carries the least responsibility in the stack, but she still finds it "kind of crazy" that they would put a first-timer in it. She is also scheduled to appear in the national anthem and the big finale dance. Still, she says that after a full day of training she doesn't feel passionate about any of these, and she hasn't yet found her act.

16:15

The Flying Trapeze and a Fear of Heights

The next day, she persuades Iverson to let her try the trapeze, the act she had wanted to try since she was seven. Watching it up close, she starts having second thoughts because she has a strong fear of heights. She meets Izzy and the trapeze family. One family member reassures her that their own mother was very afraid of heights and still flew trapeze for many years. The family says they have performed flying trapeze for about 28 years and are passing it on to their daughters, who are eighth-generation performers. The narration adds that the flying trapeze was pioneered in 1859 by the French acrobat Jules Léotard. It passed from generation to generation and became synonymous with the big top during the golden age of the American circus.

Michelle asks what will decide whether she's ready to perform that night. The answer: whether she can manage her fear of heights and still think clearly. She then learns she won't just be swinging. Tad, the catcher, will be catching her mid-air. The family's rule is that "the flyer does the trick, leave the catching to the catcher." She should never try to grab the catcher herself.

On the ground, they teach her a sequence of verbal cues:

  1. Grab the bar and arch.
  2. Knees up fast and hook them under the bar.
  3. Point her toes.
  4. Hands off and reach back.
  5. Hands back up onto the bar.
  6. Legs down.

Once Tad catches her, he will call "forward, backward, forward" while they swing. On "let go," she releases and lands flat on her back in the net.

As soon as she gets it right on the ground, they tell her she's ready to go up, to her alarm. She says climbing the roughly 40-foot ladder is her "worst nightmare." She reasons that if she won't trust her partner in practice, she'll never get to perform the act live. She links this to earlier leaps of faith in her life, such as quitting her job to start her YouTube channel and trusting her team to coach her for a boxing match.

The rehearsal goes well. She follows the cues, gets caught, swings, and drops to the net. Her coaches call it "perfect" and remind her to "look pretty for the crowd." The trapeze team thinks she can pull it off in the show. Michelle notes that she gets only one shot, and missing Tad's hands in the middle of the show would be embarrassing. She also admits she is having a lot of fun, which she takes as a good sign.

24:23

"Sawdust in Your Veins"

Iverson introduces the idea that frames the rest of the episode. Early in his career, a ringmaster named John Fugate told him: "Young man, once the sawdust is in your veins, you'll never be the same." Iverson calls it the truest thing he has ever heard in the circus.

Later he gives an example. A friend of his had a six-figure corporate job in the jewelry business. On a lunch break, she wandered into what looked like a furniture shop but had a trapeze school in the back. She tried a lesson and decided by the end that she had to do this. She quit her job, though her mother thought she was crazy and her boss swore at her. She told Iverson she cried in her car "because I was free." After nine months of training, she was at Ringling Brothers. She later went to Cirque du Soleil and ended up flying at Circus Vargas. Iverson says the story is documented in HuffPost and uses it to show that "people changed their whole lives for this place." Michelle jokes that "YouTube Superstar Runs Away with the Circus" would be quite a story, and Iverson says it's a believable one.

22:06

Moving the Show: How the Tent Goes Up

Before her final performance, the circus packs up and moves to its next town, tent and all. Iverson describes the site 24 hours before the circus arrives as "barren," "quiet" and "mundane." A day later it's a "bustling, magical, dynamic happening," with people driving by wondering what is going on. He calls the tent the circus's greatest marketing tool. He says the community's "magical superpower" is turning any space into something incredible and offering "an invitation into miracle making."

Watching the setup, Michelle realizes the people raising the tent are the performers themselves. They all live on the road in trailers and do everything together as a family. One performer says she was born into the circus, and her family has been in it for about eight generations. Her husband performs on the wheel, and they met on the show when they were around two years old. The trapeze family describes circus life as "all about families": raising children, giving them the best education and training, and traveling with spouses, kids and pets.

They also point to a change. In the past, circus skills were passed only from generation to generation. Now that the circus is seen more as an art form, there are many first-generation performers. They tell Michelle that she counts as one of them.

25:58

The Final Show

On the night of the final performance, Michelle appears in the national anthem. She says it went well, though all she had to do was walk and smile. Then she does the teeterboard act. Afterward, a member of the troupe tells her she did a good job and says she can join the circus. She tells them not to forget her.

Before her trapeze turn, she watches Izzy attempt a triple somersault and miss it. Michelle says it made her heart drop. What she noticed was how Izzy recovered: she struck her pose and carried on "like nothing was wrong." That gives Michelle the confidence to go up for her own act, which the ringmaster introduces to the crowd. The transcript records little of the act itself beyond the music and applause, followed by congratulations from the trapeze team and a quick change for the finale. As she puts it, "we do everything here."

34:32

What She Takes Away

In her closing reflection, Michelle returns to her starting point. She came to Circus Vargas to challenge her need for control, and she says she made real progress in learning to trust others. She also found something she hadn't expected: a passion for the art form, in a place she hadn't anticipated. She makes clear she won't quit YouTube to run away with the circus. She says she's grateful to the hardworking group that accepted her into their family, and she leaves, in her words, maybe with "a little bit of that sawdust."

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