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Meet Rachel Stegman of Circus School of Arizona in North Scottsdale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Stegman.

Rachel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Scottsdale, AZ when my family moved here when I was 2 years old. Growing up, I was fortunate to be able to take many different kinds of classes, but none of these activities inspired true passion in me… none of them held my interest.

When I was 8 years old, our family took a vacation to a Club Med where they had the circus as one of the activities. From the first time I climbed a Spanish Web, I knew I found my calling. There was a spark that I had never had with any other activity before. Unfortunately, there were no circus or aerial acrobatics classes in AZ. The only place I could do circus was in my dreams.

When I was 16 years old, my parents gave me the opportunity to attend the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in the Pocono Mountains in New York. My parents sent me there because they had a circus program and a musical theater program, and to keep me out of trouble, so they hoped. I pretty much spent all of my time at camp at the circus department. I was hooked. It was something that I excelled at and loved in every way. Again, I returned to Arizona where there weren’t any opportunities to further my training. I continued to have haunting dreams of the circus nearly every night.

I really didn’t think it was something accessible to me as a career… I thought you had to be born into a circus family to make circus your life. I ended up getting an AA degree at Scottsdale Community College where I graduated with highest honors and was Valedictorian. During my time at SCC I was also a trailblazer…my accomplishment there are still at play today including the Vice President of Service office of the Phi Theta Kappa chapter. I also conceived of and created the first Gay & Lesbian Awareness Week with lectures in various aspects each day of the week. After SCC, I went to Lesley College (now Lesley University) in Cambridge, MA… I thought I was going to become a Civil Rights Attorney. However, I was very unhappy in academia. I took a job as a Professional Dog Walker in the streets of Boston… walking up to 8 dogs at a time. That’s when I did my thinking about what I wanted to be… my mother told me to “Stop Thinking About It and DO IT ALREADY!”

I attended the San Francisco School of Circus Arts/SFSCA (now Circus Center SF) as well as train with Gregangelo Herrera of Gregangelo & Velocity Circus (now Gregangelo & Velocity Arts & Entertainment). I was finally truly happy to be doing what I was doing and decided that Circus was my thing… that Circus was my life. I trained with Gregangelo and at the SFSCA for a couple years, then I started performing, assisting classes, learning about the business (mainly the special events business), and I took a job for 5 years teaching at Trapeze Arts in Oakland, CA.

I trained, performed, and taught in the SF Bay Area for 9 years before returning to my home town, Scottsdale, AZ to open my own school in 2007. In the beginning, I rented space/time at a couple gymnastics schools, but quickly I realized I needed my own space. In 2008, I moved into our current space where, at the time, I was subletting the back room of a fitness studio. I gradually had students who had attained enough skill to start assisting classes and then become additional coaches.

During these years, I had married my husband in 2009 and had our children Zev in 2010 and Ayla in 2013. So I’ve been very busy with 2 kids, the circus school, and our special events company, which, though rewarding, is way harder than I had imagined it would be. In the summer of 2015, CSA took over the entire unit that currently houses Circus School of Arizona. Now, as of October 2018, we are moving our school into a new space…a unit in the building that houses AZ on the Rocks in North Scottsdale! I am also the Learning Coach for my 2 kids (Grades 2 and Kindergarten) via Arizona Virtual Academy, which is part of the K12 online schools.

Has it been a smooth road?
Owning a small business already has so many challenges, but I feel I’ve chosen one of the utmost challenging industries.

Overhead costs can be much higher (pun intended) than other types of businesses due to many factors such as space and structural requirements, circus equipment, insurance, and higher staffing costs due to the expertise necessary to teach circus artforms. Another constant challenge is trying to keep costs low enough to attract customers while keeping a low student to coach ratio. Low ratios, such as 6 students per 1 coach, should be upheld for a better overall learning experience for the students as well as to reduce the risk of injuries.

Circus is a very niche artform. We have a limited number of consistent clientele, so we tend to be a volume business catering to many people who only take circus lessons periodically or perhaps only once in a lifetime at a birthday party or team-building event. Circus can be for everyone, yet very few make circus a part of their daily lives.

One very prominent obstacle is that there are many fitness, dance, yoga, and gymnastics studios that have started offering various forms of aerial acrobatics at much lower costs. These studios/schools and their coaches often have little to no training in rigging, executing proper aerial techniques, and lack a good understanding of progressions in teaching aerials and execution of good spotting methods. Aerial Arts is a broad term that can include Aerial Yoga, Aerial Dance, and Aerial Acrobatics. Aerial Yoga classes, for example, are generally taught by people who are not skilled aerialists… most have taken an aerial yoga certification program with a required number of teacher certification hours, and often have taken zero or very few circus aerial acrobatics classes. The style, approach, focus, training methods, and techniques are vastly different. They are completely different skillsets, and Aerial Acrobatics expertise requires significantly more years of development and training under qualified circus artists. It can be confusing to the layperson though as there is some crossover between the three artforms.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Whether you’re longing to soar to new heights or craving a fun fitness option, Circus School of Arizona has a class for you. Get an introduction to exhilarating circus skills both on the ground and in the air – while exercising your body, mind, and spirit.

We are the only circus school of its type in the Greater Phoenix Area. We teach five areas of circus including aerial acrobatics, ground acrobatics, equilibristics, prop manipulations, and character work. The majority of our business is done in-house in North Scottsdale; however, we do cater to off-site events including both teaching and performing.

We offer ongoing classes for all ages as well as youth camps, team-building workshops, scout badges, private parties, and so much more!

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
It is very difficult to start and grow a business anywhere, but I feel that in the US, it is especially hard for small “mom & pop” business startups.

You do not have the advantages of larger corporations and you do not have the community support like non-profit organizations do.

It is really tough. I wish there was more help for small struggling local businesses without a huge tradeoff.

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Union Hills Family Dental Care and Orthodontics

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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