Overview: Elliana Grace grew up in a circus family and in the circus life. From infancy. Like, from being a baby being breastfed while sitting atop an elephant kind of infancy. She and her two younger brothers, who also are globe-traveling professional circus performers, spent more time at their fantastically strange and sometimes dangerous home-away-from-home in St. Louis, the City Museum, than they did their home-home.
Elliana shares some laugh-out-loud stories of mischief and sibling rivalry. And by the way, Elliana spent a year riding the rails with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as, hands down, the most singularly explosive performer (wink, wink) in the circus, let’s say. And a lot more, including memories of her grandfather, the renowned columnist and jazz critic, Nat Hentoff.
These things and more in this episode of the Humanitou Podcast.
Also on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, YouTube, Google and other players.
INTRO TRANSCRIPT + SHOW NOTES
Hi. I’m Adam Williams, creator and host of Humanitou, a podcast that empowers connection through conversations of humanness and creativity.
Today, I’m talking with circus performer and teacher Elliana Grace.
But first … I want to bring up a question I have for you. I usually ask it at the end of each episode, during the outro, after I’ve asked my guest a version of the question and we’ve said our goodbyes.
Every now and then, though, I bring it into the intro, like now, to mix things up and shine a little extra light on it.
So here it is. The question: How do you live humanness and creativity in your life?
This gets to the heart of Humanitou. In fact, I’ve got a solo podcast episode coming up soon in which I’m going to get into my own thoughts on that question.
In the meantime, or at any time, really, I invite you to think about your own answer to it. At least, whatever the answer is at this moment. It can, does and will change. How do you live humanness and creativity in your life?
And … if you feel like sharing it with me, send me an email. I share my email address at the end of every episode. And maybe we can collect enough of these answers every so often to create the occasional special episode, just for sharing some of them out loud with each other.
Now … Elliana Grace.
Where to begin? I have been aware of Elliana’s extraordinary path for many years. I once met her, actually, when she was a pre-teen … which is to say already midway into her career and life, as it stands at this point.
Elliana grew up in a circus family and in the circus life. From infancy. Like, from being a baby being breastfed while sitting atop an elephant, infancy.
She and her younger brothers, who also are globe-traveling professional circus performers, spent more time at their fantastically strange and sometimes dangerous home-away-from-home in St. Louis, the City Museum, than they did their home-home. Elliana shares some laugh-out-loud stories.
And by the way, Elliana spent a year riding the rails with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as, hands down, the most singularly explosive performer in the circus, let’s say.
Look, I said where to begin? Well, where to end? We talk about a lot of amazing things, I’ve decided not to even tease it all here. I just want to get to it.
So here we go … my conversation with Elliana Grace.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, YouTube, Google or another podcast player.
Episode 95 Show Notes
Connect with Elliana Grace:
Elliana Grace’s website: elliana-grace.com
Elliana Grace on Instagram: @_elliana_grace_
Mentions
City Museum (in St. Louis): citymuseum.org
Jessica Hentoff & Circus Harmony: circusharmony.org
Nat Hentoff, Writer/Critic: NPR’s “The Two-Way,” Jan. 8, 2017
Book Kennison, Circus Performer: bookkennison.com
Connect with Adam Williams / Humanitou:
Humanitou on Instagram: @humanitou
Subscribe: Humanitou Newsletter
Photography
Portrait of Elliana Grace by Alex Hoffman
Intro/Outro Music
“Tupac Lives” by John Bartmann | freemusicarchive.org
