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I crouched near a light post beside a woman with her young daughter and took out my pen and paper. A man, presumably The Act, was circling two pyramidal metal structures with a wire stretched between them. No one in the gathering crowd spoke as he started pouring a clear stream of liquid from a white bottle onto the bricks at his feet. After a few laps, he finally spoke into the microphone mounted beside his face: “I make a quick boundary line,” he said. ”Some use rope; I use lighter fluid.”... Read more

Most people wouldn’t take directions from a boy wearing neon-checkered Hammer pants, a clown nose and rainbow knee-highs, or think that he could teach you anything about the forces of physics. But I’m not most people.... Read more

This Friday, Burlington’s Firehouse Gallery hosts an event that proves the laws of physics also apply to storytelling. From powerful events come transformative stories. When the event is a nuclear explosion, like the one that occurred at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, this is the kind of testimony you get:... Read more

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It's that time of year. The kids have gone back to school, the leaf-peepers are starting to arrive, and here at Seven Days we've been planning ahead . . . for show time. Finally, something to look forward to! As a stack of season programs reveals, Vermont's arts presenters can still be counted on to please, and provoke, us with a stunning variety of performances. Broadway or bluegrass, piano prodigies or puppets, sopranos or satirists - there really is something for everyone. Including some genre-bending artists who defy both convention and category.... Read more

It's no secret that Circus Smirkus -- once Vermont's nimblest nonprofit -- has been grounded by a financial crisis. What's still mysterious is the way in which the 18-year-old circus-arts program is accounting for its losses. While the organization has begun a massive fundraising campaign to raise $250,000 -- with an eventual goal of $750,000 -- it's been mostly mum on the matter of missing half a million bucks. Disappearing act?... Read more

The future of Circus Smirkus is up in the air. The improbable academy of aspiring clowns, jugglers, aerial artists and high-wire walkers recently announced a "temporary suspension of operations . . . until we resolve internal business issues," says founder Rob Mermin. The sad news leaves a lot of young performers in limbo.... Read more

At age 26, Roderick Russell already has been a philosophy instructor and a CryoTransport Technician. He also plays classical guitar. But now he makes his living -- a good one -- as a sword swallower, escape artist, certified hypnotist and "mentalist." With his closely cropped dark beard, glossed-back hair, lean build and French-cuffed shirts, he looks more like a Banana Republic model. But then, there's no "typical" look for someone who makes a living by inserting 24-inch-long blades into his esophagus.... Read more

There was no safety net under Jade Kinder-Martin when he walked on a wire suspended over Burlington's Main Street seven years ago. He negotiated a tightrope from Club Metronome to Kinko's -- and back -- before it occurred to anyone on the ground that there should be a law to stop him. He pulled an even more impressive stunt the following month, when he walked over the Thames River in London. How do you top that?... Read more