Some families bond over board games, others over movie nights; a rare few bond by juggling each other with their feet in front of astonished thousands-fold crowds. Meet the Poema family, a clan of circus performers who will be bringing their gravity-defying act to Circus Vargas at Earl Warren Showgrounds on June 11-15.
Led by father Adrian, the Poemas perform the rare Risley Acrobatics, in which one performer lies prostrate and vaults a somersaulting partner into the air using his or her feet. The art dates back several centuries, and the Poemas are only one of a handful of acts around the world who have mastered it.
“I started performing around 3 years old, and the act I perform with my kids is the same act I performed with my father, and my father did it with his father, and so on,” said Adrian, whose ringleading roots date back to the 1600s. So do those of his wife, Nellie, whose family hails from the Royal Hanneford Circus, one of the world’s oldest circuses.