As a 20-year-old dancer in Texas, Caroline Calouche experienced a spark while attending an aerial dance performance. She had seen the traditional Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey Circus as a child, but it hadn’t resonated. In this aerial dance performance, Caroline was introduced to a "whole other plane of physical language." A few years later, while studying choreography in Italy, she went to a tented contemporary circus performance and the spark was ignited. She was compelled to explore the air and the ground together; their physicality, artistry, and potential for communicating new things to new audiences.

Today, the success of that hybrid identity is apparent as Caroline Calouche & Co. celebrates its 20th anniversary with a performance of Carmina Burana. To Calouche, the work is neither strictly "circus" nor "dance"—it is its own language that uses the best that each art form has to offer. "The fun challenge is always how to put the pieces together to make a seamless blend," she says. To do this, she looks for artists who possess both a strong technical background and are confident enough to experiment and solve problems in real time.

The audience experience is paramount to Calouche in the creation and execution of her work. She has found that by using all of the available tools from the circus and dance worlds, she is better able to connect with the audience. This feels especially important in an era when audience numbers are in decline and people are moving their bodies less. Building a bridge to the audience invites them into the performance, but also into their own physical beings.

With 20 years of making works behind her, Calouche is at a stage where she can revisit older pieces, dig deeper into their themes, and refine their execution to give them new life. Sometimes that takes the form of revisiting works yearly, such as the company’s annual Nutcracker performance and winter cabaret show, Rouge. Next season, her acclaimed show Star Gazer is set to begin touring. For Calouche, touring is more than just a business strategy—it is a form of scaling her vision and sharing it with bigger, more diverse audiences worldwide. These are audiences that, no matter what language they speak, can understand and be moved by the communication that emerges where air and ground meet.

To learn more about Caroline Calouche & Co., visit carolinecalouche.org.