Episode #19-Part 2: African American Legacy in US Circus with Veronica Blair

Please won’t you be a Patreon?: http://www.patreon.com/theartistathlete While Veronica was performing as an aerialist with UniverSOUL, she met legendary but un-credited performer named Emanuel "Uncle Junior" Ruffin. This meeting inspired her to launch a project in which she traveled all over the US, seeking the stories of the artists who put stakes in the ground, so that she could shine in the center ring. Follow Veronica Blair Instagram: @veronica_blair_aerialist The Uncle Junior Project: https://www.theunclejuniorproject.com This podcast is dedicated to CIRCUS. Aerialist, Shannon McKenna interviews guests from acrobats in Cirque du Soleil to circus therapists and everyone in between. Learn the backstage lives of those who flip, twist, sparkle, and shine under the big top. Shannon McKenna is an internationally recognized circus performer and coach. For the past decade, she has been a freelance artist: giving workshops and classes across 7 countries and worked on both traditional and contemporary circus shows in the US, Portugal, Germany, and Australia including the Shrine Circus and SOAP. She holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with a concentration on post-modern physical theater (how's that for a mouthful?). She founded The Artist Athlete in 2018 as a means to produce educational materials about circus arts including a line of e-books to help aerial artists train safely and a podcast in which she interviews experts in the industry about their careers. If you're reading this, you're probably listening to it. Thank you! She currently lives in whichever circus community is the warmest. Find her online: www.theartistathlete.com Facebook: The Artist Athlete Instagram: @the_artist_athlete