In this week’s episode, I interview Brittany Gillespie who is the owner of Aerial Dance Panama City. During our chat, we talk about Brittany’s incredible space, what she’s done to grow the space, and handling disasters. I’m not just talking about COVID here.

Unfortunately, COVID was not the first disaster. Just 15 short months prior, Panama City was hit by Hurricane Michael. Her studio was significantly impacted and she’s been rebuilding since then. Hear how she’s not only surviving, but continuing to grow through these situations.

Brittany fell in love with aerial arts from the first swing. She immersed herself in the study of aerial arts and decided she had to share her passion with others. In 2013 she attended the New England Center for Circus Arts Teacher Education Program for Aerial Arts, Fabric, and Trapeze then again in 2019 for sling with Born To Fly Teacher Education Program. Brittany continues to take workshops, rigging courses once a year and continues to study with other amazing Aerial Instructors.

Key Moments:

• “As long as it’s safe and everything’s in the, you know, the working load limit of the apparatus itself. We really love to add and take away different aspects of each apparatus.”
• “So that’s the funniest story. I had no intention on owning an aerial studios, so I fell in love with it.”
• “Then I had my son and I realized, Oh my gosh, there’s so much we could be doing with these kids. Just the basic foundations, like standing on one foot. Hopping to the other foot, how to climb. Just basic, how to swing on a trapeze. So it’s more of creative play.”
• “And that’s the ultimate thing with being in this industry. You need to talk to those other people and see what works. And just because something works in Atlanta doesn’t mean it’s going to work here. Something that works in California is not going to work here.”
• “By implementing these programs, it gives these. People an opportunity to perform but in the correct way, and it gives them all the tools that they need, that when they’re ready to take a gig, they’re confident in that and they’re not going to low ball or they’re not going to put themselves in a dangerous position or an unethical position.”

• “I put a tarp on the wall, tarp on the roof. We were able to reopen very quickly. I mean, two weeks we had a generator for the house. We had buckets of water for the toilet.”
• “We finally got a burner phone that was shipped to me for my sister. So I would call my sister every morning and say, like here’s my website address, here’s my, can you log in and post this and can you log in to my Facebook and post this.”
• “We’re just going to have to take baby steps and hopefully something will change soon, but it is going to be a very slow reopening process.”

• But I also don’t want to take away this time cause this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity, not even once in a lifetime. I mean once in how, how often do you get to like this? But being a mom and like having a family, I understand the importance of just being with my family without having the pressure of, Oh, I need to do this, I need to do that.”
• “And then when I’m allowed, according to the guidelines, I would like to start with group classes, but once again, not sharing apparatuses, which is difficult, and I’m only allowing, you know, limited amount of people per class and not stacking my classes.”
• “So if they’re going to be using fabric, then they have their one, they write their name on the bag.”
• “This is the first time that we’ve ever allowed a student to actually purchase fabric and rigging from us. Just because we want them to have their own and to be safe with that. So yeah, everybody has their own.”
• “We have not only the circus arts industry, we also have the government. So we will still abide by the circus arts because I’m sure the government’s not going to be near as strict as what we are going to do to keep our families safe.”

Resource Links:
Brittany’s Video Walk Through
Steven Santos’s Simply Circus Page

To Connect with Brittany:

Website | Studio Facebook | Studio Instagram |

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Want to hear more? Check out Episode #15 with NovaCaine Dances & Episode #16 with Dakota Fox.