Pick up the phone and the first thing you hear is the circus music. Then comes the voice: "Hi, it's Nori. I'm on break so I have a few minutes to talk."
"On break" means she has just finished doing a series of huge double back flips off a 35-foot ramp of plastic snow suspended from the rafters of an arena in Raleigh, N.C., for the "Greatest Show on Earth."
Just another day in the life of junior Nori Lupfer, taking a leave from her studies in visual arts this term to perform with the "Max-Air Blizzard Battalion," an aerial ski act in the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Lupfer has been doing ski acrobatics and aerial ski jumping since she was 12. She was a World Cup competitor in "acro" (ski ballet) until that sport was discontinued in 2000. After a switch to aerials, she found herself ranked 11th at the recent Olympic trials in Calgary.
She worked in the circus act last summer and got an offer to re-join just days before the winter term was to begin. With some help from Dean Fred Alford, she made last-minute arrangements to "run away and join the circus."
The act consists of a seven-member troupe of skiers and snowboarders who do a rapid-fire series of aerial stunts amid a dramatic display of lights and pyrotechnics. The ramp is made of a plastic material that is wetted with water and soap to simulate snow. Sometimes heat or dry air makes the surface slow, so skiers must make adjustments on each jump so they don't miss the wedge-shaped air bag on which they land, she said.
The current tour of Lupfer's "Red Unit" includes stops in Jacksonville, Raleigh, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Washington. (The "Blue Unit" covers other U.S. cities.) The show features Bello Nock, a Swiss comic daredevil clown named "America's Best Clown" by Time magazine; tiger trainer Mark Oliver Gebel; Bo, "the smartest elephant in the world;" and ringmaster Jonathan Lee Iverson. For more on the circus, see www.ringling.com.
Lupfer, a native of West Lebanon, N.H., is no stranger to the road. She has been an aerial freestyle jumper on the national circuit since age 12. Like 1998 gold medalist Nikki Stone and current Olympian Brenda Petzold, Lupfer found Union's calendar – with winter terms off – made it possible to combine college with training and competing.
Traveling with the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus is unique in that the whole enterprise moves together on a circus train, going city-to-city for one-week stands. The train contains everything for a circus: 350 performers and crew, elephants, tigers, horses and about 500 tons of equipment. All meals are served in what circus folk call the "pie car." There is also a school for about 25 children.
"I love working with performers and living on a train car," she said. "It's a little soap opera. Everyone knows everyone else."
Members of the circus live on the train, commuting to the arena for as many as three shows per day. (Performers refer to the grueling weekend runs as "six packs," three shows each on Saturday and Sunday.) Sometimes the train stays in a train yard in a less-than-desirable section of town. Other times, the train will be parked along a riverside park near the arena. Lupfer has her own compartment on the train complete with stove and refrigerator. The bathroom is down the hall. Living out of a train is "so crazy that it becomes normal," she said.
There are 130 performers in the show, but only three (including Lupfer) are Americans, Lupfer said. The train cars are filled with a huge range of languages, cuisines and customs. Birthdays and holidays are big occasions, she said. There is no shortage of practical jokes, many of which are perpetrated by the clowns.
Lupfer is planning an independent study this spring with Prof. Martin Benjamin based on the photos she has taken of fellow performers and crew. "I'm doing mostly portraits, trying to capture who they are," she said. "I like catching them in a moment."
"I'm used to being on the road," she said. "I love the lifestyle. It's a good job and it's nice to be on the move in a different place every week.
"I'm learning a lot about people. I'm getting an education in the circus and working on my art."