Elli Komito, co-founder of Biggest Little Circus and one of its performers, says that the creation of Biggest Little Circus arose from several circus friends and 'our frustrations with the fact that there weren't a whole lot of great truly artistic performance opportunities for circus artists locally. And on top of that, a lot of the opportunities that did exist were non-standard as far as pay and other compensation.'
'We really wanted,' they continued, 'to not only create more opportunities for artists in the area, but also level up the quality of those opportunities.'
That led to the creation of Biggest Little Circus. Komito says that 'There are a ton of really great and talented and skilled circus artists in the community. You know, we have everything from Cyr wheel to acrobats to aerialists and jugglers and clowns.'
That range of performers contributes to MYTHOS: A Journey Through Ancient Greece. 'I had been listening,' said Komito, 'to the audiobook Mythos by Stephen Fry. It is a retelling, a hilarious retelling, of all of the Homeric poems, starting with, you know, the primordial gods, you know, Uranus, Gaia, and going all the way through until the Olympian gods. I thought it was so rich and so much fun.' Both familiar and more obscure figures from mythology appear in MYTHOS.
'Classics are classics for a reason, concluded Komito. 'And I think part of that reason is they hit something really deep and basic inside all of us. And they are some of the oldest ways of exploring human nature that we have access to. So I think that retelling these stories connects us to our humanity in a really special way.'
MYTHOS: A Journey Through Ancient Greece by Biggest Little Circus is May 22-24 and 28-30 at UNR's Redfield Studio Theatre. biggestlittlecircus.org for tickets and information.
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Support for 'Arts on the Airwaves' comes from The Nevada Arts Council… a state agency that provides public funding and support to artists and organizations, that benefit Nevadans in cities and rural communities statewide. More at NVArtsCouncil.org.
