Throw out your preconceptions of elephants, tents, and girls in tutus with plastered smiles. Alternacirque is the Southeast’s premier alternative neo-circus, combining tribal style bellydance, fire performance, hula hooping, break dancing, acrobalance, static trapeze, lyra, aerial silks, stilt-walking, spoken-word poetry, and more in integrated, ground-breaking performances. No clowns, no calliopes, no animals. From the chicken farmer turned bellydancer to the EMS director turned stilt walker to the aerialist mother of five, Alternacirque is ordinary people driven to create extraordinary art through extraordinary feats.

Writer, dancer, musician, costume designer, and Jill-of-all-trades wonderwoman Natalie Brown blew into Columbia, SC from New Orleans in 2005, homeless, jobless, with $20 in her pocket following Hurricane Katrina. Taking scope of her new home and finding the weird-factor lacking, she founded Delirium Tribal Bellydance Company in 2006. After finding inspiration in the West-Coast underground circus movement, specifically pioneers Lucent Dossier in L.A. and Circus Contraption in Seattle, Brown scraped together some ragtag hula hoopers and fire performers in the fall of 2007, combined those street urchins with Delirium Tribal, and became the runaway train that is Alternacirque. The group’s integrated variety and themed shows, produced in a parking lot behind alternative hipster haunt The Art Bar, quickly gained a notoriety that crossed boundaries and inspired the city of Columbia to embrace street art, alternative performance, and Bohemian culture.

Alternacirque’s versatility has made it a hit among a wide range of people from all walks of life. Never one to pidgeon-hole themselves, Alternacirque is equally at home on the street at festivals, providing atmosphere at a gala event, and performing full-length theatrical productions in fine arts centers. Alternacirque brings the same versatility to the artistic process, with performers cross-training in several disciplines and styles. Thematically, the circus has tackled everything from Vaudeville to A Midsummer Night’s Dream to ethereal nightmare and dream sequences to the newly-premiered production of 1001 Arabian Nights. Event packages can range from a single performer on stilts for your grand opening to a 12-piece cast and tech team designing a custom show for your gala. Alternacirque performers, techs, and riggers are experienced professionals dedicated to making each experience a dynamic, polished, and safe one.