Circus Stella is one of those acts that has managed to fly under our Renaissance Faire radar. While we were told that we had to check them out, their shows were always scheduled against other shows we wanted to see. This past weekend, we decided to skip one of Fool Hearty's shows in order to catch Circus Stella. I am so glad we did.

Circus Stella is another husband and wife act. Dextre Tripp handles the juggling, ladder balancing, and rope walking portions of the show. Jayna Lee, on the other hand, does the prettier parts. She does aerial stunts with both the trapeze and aerial silks. On top of that, their rescue dogs are part of the show too! (They actually named their show after one of the dogs, Stella.) 

In Dextre's parts of the show, he does a lot of crowd-work. In the show we watched, he had two children from the audience help him. One climbed up a ladder Dextre was balancing in order to bring him a dropped hat. The other, as you can see in the picture, sat on his shoulders while he rode a unicycle across the stage. Those kids were super brave. I don't know that I would have the guts to do either of those. 

We did get to see one of the best parts of Dextre's on-stage presence. He originally brought a different girl onto the stage for the unicycle bit. However, once she got on his shoulders, she freaked out a little. Instead of abandoning the bit, he simply put Girl #1 down, thanked her, and chose a different girl. I appreciated Dextre's concern for the girl and his willingness to continue the show. 

First off, I'd like to say that I wish I had better pictures of Jayna's act. My husband's camera didn't want to give her any love that day. Jayna started out on a trapeze, which was lovely, but my favorite part was the aerial silk. She looked so beautiful and so elegant with them. Even if you don't see them for the other parts (which you should), definitely check them out for Jayna's silk routine. Just gorgeous.

Then there are the dogs. The dog part of the show was very funny. I think we saw three dogs on Saturday. I'm not positive. I was too busy having a good time to count them. Anyway, some of the dogs did their own "tightrope walking" over some wooden boards. In this picture, you can see Stella doing her trick with Adrian. First Stella jumps over Adrian, then she crawls underneath. It is quite funny to see in person. 

When we were at the Faire on Saturday, the weather was not completely cooperative. There were wind gusts and some spitting rain throughout the day. Circus Stella changed their act around a little bit to accommodate the weather so some things were a little off but, honestly, I wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't said something about it during the show. If you get a chance to see them perform, check them out. You will not regret it. I even purchased a DVD so I can watch them in the off-season!