Shana Carroll had never cared much for spectacle. So when her father — a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle — suggested she see about an office job with the Pickle Family Circus (the subject of a book he’d recently co-authored for the troupe’s 10-year anniversary), the Berkeley native begrudgingly agreed to make the trek across the bay. There, in an old, converted San Francisco church that served as the company’s training quarters, she watched, mesmerized, as a young trapeze artist by the name of Sky de Sela flew above her in a glorious display of athletic artistry.
It was 1988, and an 18-year-old Carroll knew she had found her calling. “It was the proximity that finally humanized it all for me,” she remembered. “As a child, I never bought into the trickery of a traditional circus — it never felt real. But here was Sky, 15 feet above me, hair flowing and wearing sweatpants. I could relate to her, could feel my muscles contracting with hers. I felt like I could actually be her.”
The arduous training that followed would test Carroll’s dedication to her newfound craft: long and bruise-filled years learning the intricacies of the trapeze with “The Pickles” and at the national circus schools of Montreal and Paris. In 1993, her perseverance paid off, and she found herself on the artists’ roster for Cirque du Soleil’s Saltimbanco production, a path that would cultivate enduring relationships in both love and career.