Many people dream of running off to join the circus, but Greenville is home to a married couple who met while performing in a circus and continue to share their talents with audiences both within the North Texas community and well beyond.
Visan España is a motorcycle stunt rider and his wife, Laura Dunn, is an aerial acrobat. And while Visan is a fourth-generation circus performer, Laura almost chanced into the circus life after being a professional dancer for most of her life.
“ I was born in Mexico, but my family moved to Greenville when I was about 8 months old,” Visan said.
“ I’ m a fourth-generation performer and, a kind of funny story I’ ve been told about our coming here, is that my grandfather was getting a lot of work with circuses in the U. S. and he wanted to live more-or-less at the midpoint between Southern California and Miami, Florida, so he got out a map, laid his finger down without looking near the middle of that distance and it landed on Greenville, Texas.
“ So, his decision to move to Greenville was mostly based on having about the same amount of travel distance, regardless of which side of the country he was working on,” Visan added.
Being essentially born into the circus lifestyle, Visan started training on the trapeze when he was 3 years old. He performed for the first time at the age of 7 in front of an audience of about 3,800 people in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“ I continued to do trapeze until I was about 20. But with trapeze, you need a lot of people to make it happen, so my cousin and I started training with motorcycles and the globe of death,” Visan said.
“ Globe of death” is a popular circus and carnival stunt act where multiple motorcyclists ride at high speeds inside a spherical steel cage. A variation of the globe of death is an act called the“ tourbillon,” which not only features motorcyclists riding inside the sphere, but also incorporates an aerialist hanging and performing in the middle of it, a role that Visan’ s wife, Laura, has provided many times while performing with him.
Now a renowned aerial performer with extensive experience performing in circuses, Laura got her start in the performing arts in her native England, where she began learning ballet and tap at age 4 at the Liverpool
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