For Cirque du Soleil’s Ben Huey, love means trusting Aryn to hold him in the air

Ben Huey’s girlfriend holds him up in the air for a living. When Atlanta audiences see the two perform in Cirque du Soleil’s holiday show next month, they will be watching a partnership that began on another circus tour and grew through hours of training together.

“She holds me up a lot,” Huey said.

Huey and Aryn Shelander perform duo straps, an aerial act, in ’Twas the Night Before…, which runs Dec. 2–13 at the Fox Theatre. As snowflakes in a magical storm, they help carry the story from an ordinary home into a world where a father and daughter might find their way back to each other.

When I called Huey on Nov. 12, he was in Fort Myers, Florida, enjoying a quiet morning before that evening’s dress rehearsal. The company would perform in Tampa before reaching Atlanta. This is his fourth year with the show.

He and Shelander met while touring with Cirque Mechanics, a separate company, about three years ago. Both had experience performing straps individually. When they began working together, they built their act a little at a time, developing the technique and trust needed to share the air.

I asked whether they discovered they liked each other up in the air or down on the ground.

“A little of both.”

Circus relationships can be difficult, he said. Contracts take performers to different places, and arranging a working life together takes effort. He and Shelander have deliberately pursued opportunities that allow them to perform together.

“It’s challenging at times, but it makes it so that we work through so many things together,” he said.

The preparation involves learning how to communicate, both physically and emotionally. Partners need a shared understanding of the movements, but also of the characters they are creating and how they work through difficulties.

In this show, their snowstorm helps set in motion the reunion of Isabella and her father. Isabella has become absorbed in her tablet and her followers, Huey explained, losing some of the connection with her dad.

From Cincinnati to circus school

Family has shaped Huey’s own life onstage since he was about 7. He grew up in Cincinnati, the fifth of seven children, and began performing in a theater group his mother started at his grade school.

“She really instilled in me this love of performing and being on stage,” he said.

She encouraged the children’s creative interests, while the siblings supplied plenty of competition. Huey and his twin brother pushed each other in school and in performance before choosing very different careers. When Huey headed to circus school, his brother went to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in biostatistics.

Huey’s own route was not a straight line. At the University of Dayton, he studied dietetics while continuing to perform in musical theater. Nutrition appealed to his interests in health, cooking and movement. As graduation approached, he began thinking more seriously about how much he loved being onstage.

Circus offered a way to bring performance and physical training together. After graduating, he attended circus school in Vermont, then spent three years at a circus school in Quebec City.

Those years of singing and musical theater come with him into the air. He picks up choreography quickly and uses the music to keep himself on track. By his fourth season, he can also help when another performer has a question. “I know the show very well,” he said. “So I like to share that.”

The company has spent about a month and a half preparing this year’s production, he said. That rehearsal period rests on years of training by the artists and crew. Between holiday seasons, performers take other contracts, work with other companies or teach. For some members of the production team, planning the next Christmas show is a year-round job.

A holiday family on the road

On tour, the cast, crew and production staff become his holiday family. The reimagined Christmas music brings back memories of the holiday performances he attended as a child.

“We know what it means to be sharing holidays and special moments with our chosen families,” he said.

He will return to Cincinnati for his own family celebration after the tour.

Last year, about 23 relatives came to see him and Shelander perform. Having family in the audience added some pressure, but it also made the show more meaningful. His mother still talks about watching his first attempts at handstands in the living room and backyard.

Now she watches him do it professionally.

For all the concentration the work requires, Huey said there are moments during the act when he can enjoy where he is and who is beside him. He credits the production’s emphasis on safety and support, along with the preparation that allows him to feel comfortable onstage.

“I get to be on this stage with my girlfriend performing the show that we dreamed of,” he said.

He hopes Atlanta audiences leave with a sense of wonder and some feeling for the people doing the work. One of his first contracts after circus school took him to the Netherlands, France and Belgium, where he found audiences wanted much the same thing as those back home.

“Everybody wants to feel connected between the performers and the audience,” he said. They want to see extraordinary acrobatics, too: “things that maybe they think are impossible be done.”

Tickets and performance times for the Atlanta engagement are available through the Fox Theatre, with evening performances and weekend matinees.

Before we hung up, I asked him what he would say to his mother if he could leave her a message right now.

“Mom, I am living my dream and it’s really thanks to you.”