This Tucson school is a three-ring circus

A small, printed piece of paper tells you for sure this is the place. Because until you get up close and see that green sheet taped in the window, you’re not really sure.

The building itself is pretty nondescript: blue-painted brick on the top with a thick belt of white ringing the bottom. But inside the former sofa factory, red, blue and purple swaths of fabric hanging from the 20-foot-high ceiling along with trapeze bars and hoops leave no doubt — this indeed is The Circus Academy of Tucson.

The lack of actual signage is no biggie to director Katherine Tesch. After all, she’s always relied on word of mouth.

For nearly a decade, she has taught kids and adults circus arts at rented studio space around town. Now, she has her own 5,000-square-foot warehouse on West Speedway. The school celebrated its grand opening this month.

“It’s a wonderful place,” says novelist Lydia Millet, whose 11-year-old daughter Nola is passionate about aerial silks and has studied with Tesch since she was 6. “It’s a great resource for Tucson. We’re so lucky to have it.”

The academy’s classes range from tumbling and contortion to globe walking and aerial silks, which was what sucked in Tesch when she was 19. Watching the performers’ graceful acrobatics in the air was magical.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” says Tesch, 28, who was born in Phoenix, raised in Flagstaff and came to Tucson to study English, Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona.

She immediately hunted for people to teach her the aerial art and by graduation, “I was more focused on circus than school.”

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A rock climber and former ballet dancer, Tesch was in good shape. Still, she couldn’t climb the silks or even do a single pull-up in the beginning.

“After my first class, I thought I would never move again,” she says with a laugh.

She continued to study circus arts, traveling across the world and training in Vermont, Russia, Spain and Brazil. Tesch remains devoted to aerial silks, which was the first skill she learned. The elements of art and dance make it appealing, and it gives the mind as much a workout as the body. “Figuring out the tricks, you have to be able to visualize abstractly,” she says.

The Circus Academy has seven instructors and teaches about 50 regular students with another 50 who drop in occasionally. Tesch says her students range from 3 years old to “my oldest is mysteriously over 60.”

Millet admits that, at first, she was nervous to see her daughter suspended by fabric way up in the air. “I got over that several years ago,” she says. “The kids are really confident up there. It makes you feel secure to see that confidence.”

And, that’s what circus is all about, Tesch says.

“I’m not here to make professional circus performers, unless they want to be,” she says. “The kids see us do things, and they say, ‘That’s impossible.’ But they start practicing until they do it. Any time things come together for a kid, I think that’s what it’s all about. They get a lot of joy and a sense of accomplishment.”