Kathleen Streyle
 

GCC welcomes guest artist Kathleen Streyle for the Fall 2023 season! She will be coaching intermediate and advanced classes at GCC and performing in several Fall events. Learn more about this stunning artist below!
 

 How did you get started in aerial?

 

I moved to Asheville in 2012, and rented a room from Sneaky McFly. Awesome performer, got me started and kept educating me until I lived in a tiny circus community a little bit later (and just down the road).

 

2. What is your favorite apparatus or thing about circus arts? 

 

It's also the apparatus sometimes I can't stand the most: Lyra. The very first piece of aerial equipment I ever touched, and responsible for several breakthroughs and breakdowns. I always, however, come back to it again and again.  

 

About circus arts, I'll have to loosely quote Suzi Winson: It's a very pure love that exists as is. It never physically gives you anything back. If you abandon it, it will abandon you. The reality of the cruelty of this craft is matched perfectly with the beauty and peace it holds. We do it because we have to, and all you have to do (if you're like us) to plug into the magic is. . . Show up. 

 

3. Why do you love to teach?

 

 At the end of the day... It's just fun! Some of the coolest and long-lasting bonds have come from aerial classes.

On a serious note, I was lucky to get coaches that really cared about helping me get my goals. I like to honor that and be as much of an open resource as I can. 

 

4. Where do you get inspiration from?

 

Horror movies. I've studied Silent Hill for years. There's such a specifically beautiful and unsettling movement monsters have to have, and it's drawn me in from day one. The principles it teaches are so vast. How to build tension as subtly as possible, when a sudden move or pose would be most effective... all the way down to which direction each body part needs to move in how much opposition. 

 

5. Summarize background training, skills or other activities that make you a dynamic and interesting human. 

 

I've found incredible lessons in so many places. Cheerleading led to fusion belly dance, and that led to circus work. That in turn led me to piercing suspension in performance. My friend calls it jellyfishing... Where you just float on and dance around with the next fun skill to come your way. I'm just infinitely curious, I think.