Meet Suzi Winson | Circus and Dance Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Suzi Winson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Suzi, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
I love this question. I have never found an actual balance. Sometimes I have been work-obsessed and other moments I have spent becoming a better human. When I started out as a professional performer, everything was about art, dance and theatre.. I did shows for a living, edited a literary journal for additional passion. I cared little for anything else except my family. This shifted during the early days of the AIDS epidemic when many in the arts became caretakers. I jumped into activism and caring for my community full force. I think that life shifts happened over which I had no control and then I adjusted from creation of work, business, and if lucky, ART, to helping the world along with crises situations. When I made a circus school in New York (my biggest work/art project to date), I worked around the clock until I had to care for an aging parent, then there was a bigger truth than my own creations. My circus school closed due to the pandemic and instead of rebuilding, I came to Santa Barbara to guide the next generation of business people who love the circus arts to success. That brought me to the Santa Barbara Trapeze Co. I run the operations, but I’m mostly there as an elder statesman to see the youngsters I have mentored grow and develop. That feels like the right move at this age (I’m about 200 years old) and after all these years, I care a little bit about my own time to revel in the things I love best: ballet, literature, movement of any kind, and sometimes I even take a break for dinner.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I like to think I’ve had a life of defining the space between art, sport and business. Movement with meaning, healthy business practices, mixed media projects, and disciplined physical art forms all speak to me. This current moment in my trajectory is the start of a comeback to making creative spaces. Working with a team in SB to craft one and eventually making a small practice space in NY when the time is right. Nothing has been easy. My career path has not been linear. Post performing career, I worked as the second banana in a small prestigious cosmetics firm, edited and published a literary magazine, worked in non-profits and in government (trying to elect more women to public office), and the crowned jewel was Circus Warehouse, the school I founded/directed for a decade which created a multidisciplinary space and a program to make and train athletes and dancers for modern circus. Within that project, I’m most proud of a yearly event called “Aerial Text Experiments” which worked with a social movement called 100K Poets for Change. The evening had 8-10 experimental pieces which had to involve text and some aspect that was off-the-ground. In a day that had poetry readings going on all over the world, this was the only vertical representation of poetry. It was just weird enough to become popular and as the spaces were limited to participate, the acts were very high caliber. It felt like the culmination of everything I knew to that point: curating a theatrical evening using mixed-media art forms and having a group of people I had trained to present. The biggest lesson I have learned along the way is not to be a cranky boss. Every time I’ve ever been furious in any project I have serious regrets over losing my temper or even seething privately. All wasted energy and pointless. “Things without all remedy should be without regard.” (Macbeth)

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend was coming to SB, I’d first of all bring them to the Trapeze School and see if I can coax them onto some equipment to try flying or bouncing or anything else to test physical limits in a controlled way. Next stop is La Super-Rica Taqueria for the best and freshest tacos in town, it looks like a shack and has worn out picnic tables to sit down and eat, and it happens to have been one of Julia Child’s favorite restaurants. After that, down to the waterfront and the pier to see all that’s natural and beautiful about Santa Barbara. It has a very specific glamour.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have always had mentors throughout my many incarnations. In dance, a fellow named Bobby Blankshine was the first teacher to have treated me like a professional (I was a teenager, but working as a dancer). He came up to me one day and said, “Did you pay for my class? You are a working professional, you can demonstrate for me.” That was a position of honor. Working as a dancer, even when employed, you were poor. He went to the front desk and got me back my $5. With that one gesture I felt empowered and credible. His voice is in my head. In his honor, I often welcome pros to take my class without charge. I also let anyone who wants to learn come to class for free, whether or not they can afford it. VERY important to pay it forward. I had great parents as well. When I chose dance/theatre over college, my scholarly father said, “What do you need with college? What on earth could they teach YOU?” In recent times, my friend Randy Kohn, whom I’ve known for 20 years in various positions, lateral and otherwise, invited me to come to Santa Barbara when I was still aching from having to close up shop in NY. I had no imagination for the next step and I had been clobbered by Covid physically as well, so I was not feeling inspired until I saw him and his crew making a like-minded trapeze business, with similar values as my successful NY business had (where he had worked). It felt like a continuation of something magical. Randy gets a lot of credit!

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Image Credits
Rachel Shane