We were lucky to catch up with Razz Vio recently and have shared our conversation below.

Razz, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I am turning 37 years old this year and just beginning a professional aerialist career. What a world. My path into circus and aerials from music has been a winding one. Sometimes I feel like I started my music career late as well. I was 26 when I committed to a full time performance career and wasn’t making a full time stable living at it until I was 30.

Then came my love for circus and that journey has been a whole new level of eye-opening. My job has a musician has always been physical. Long standing hours, and plenty of lugging heavy equipment from one place to another. The music industry is also famously vain so keeping fit is a necessity. I began my circus journey through pole dancing 8 years ago and fell in love with the changes it wrought in my body and my brain. The challenges physically combined with the artistry of the movement were almost addicting. Dance and music have very similar foundations in terms of discipline and repetitive practice. But pole dancing is not exactly a widely accepted artistic medium. So I began turning to other aerial arts which were more publicly palatable in 2019.

I do wonder where I would be as an artist if I had started aerials earlier. I think I would be further ahead, but also likely more injured and impatient. There is a necessary caution I have approaching new problems in dance that I never took with music. My body just cant take risk the same way. With that has come an excitement and acceptance that I will never be a flashy tricks aerial dancer. But as a VIOLINIST and dancer my skills will come a little deeper and a hell of a lot stronger.

To play violin effectively in the air, one must hold a position for a minimum of 16 counts. How many seconds that actually takes depends on the tempo of music. But 16 counts is generally enough time for a complete musical phrase. Any lesser amount of time, you can’t say anything worth saying musically. So every shape I learn in the air must be able to be held safely for at least 16 counts. To most aerialists this would be horrifically boring. But the limitation feels very freeing to me. I can let go of many stressors about looking ‘fancy’ or ‘doing enough’. I know how to train to maximize the style of work I want to do.

This is the first year I’ve been able to physically achieve and craft the acts and ideas I’ve held in my head for the last 5 years. It’s been worth every moment of the work. But the core of my art is still the music. If I had tried to make the aerial work the core of my career I’m 85% sure I would have had to quit by now due to injuries.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a musician, dancer, and aerial violinist. But I am most of all a performer. Take any one of those mediums away and I would still find a way to get up on a stage. I am told this was fairly evident from my toddler years where I would don outlandish costumes of my own invention and dance around the house at parties.

I primarily work in the entertainment industry, providing musician or aerialist services for parties and events. I’ve performed for weddings, conferences, private soirees, public sporting events, and every kind of bar there is (yes even an oxygen bar). In the past few years I’ve prioritized producing my own events and shows with collaborators.

My personal artistry and work revolves around a deep commitment to story and aesthetic. Circus arts, burlesque and drag shows have positively RUINED concerts for me. The vivacity found in these mediums is what I aim to bring to the stage in my own musical performances. Complete with the glitter and rhinestones. Or a fake moustache if that is what the aesthetic requires.

One of my favorite ongoing projects is a wild west themed circus show called ‘Salooniverse’. I am the music director and composer of the show, as well as one of the two main musical performers. We are in our third year of development and have taken it to multiple cities around the country.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

From 2014-2016 I was homeless. Kind of. Perhaps ‘anchorless’ or ‘harborless’ would be a more apt description. My partner (now husband) and I spent the majority of those two years as van-lifers traveling the country to perform. We booked all our tour dates ourselves and spent February-November out on the road. The winter months were split between our families in Vegas and California.

Living essentially off the grid was one of the most enlightening things I have ever done. We pared down all our belongings to fit in our tiny living space. Every creature comfort needed a plan. Where was today’s shower, parking spot, dinner, and bathrooms going to happen? The effort of existing took up so much more of our lives. We had no permanent address so every official document had to ping-pong its way to us through family or friends. We learned to be gracious guests who could ask for the wi-fi password charmingly. We learned that highway rest stops were our best sleeping option and how to sleep through trucks releasing their air brakes. We had a tight cash budget and kept our mini-safe underneath the driver’s seat. Since most of our transactions were in cash, we didn’t even make enough on paper to file taxes for those years. It truly felt like living like a ghost.

In hindsight, those years of resilience and sacrifice were some of the most free. Our responsibilities were only to each other. We met so many wonderful people. We traveled to 49 states (sorry North Dakota). But it all ended when I damaged my vocal chords from overuse. In two weeks we had to unravel an entire 6 month tour. We never went back out on the road.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

There is a moment in a pivot point where the threads have all unraveled and you are left in the middle of a tangle that has no beginning and no end. There are too many options and too much at stake. It is in that moment that ANY choice will be the right one. Pick up one thread. Leave the rest. Others will join it as you work to untangle things. You will never know what would have happened if you picked up another thread. It’s not worth even thinking about. The choice itself is what made it the correct one.

In December of 2020 I decided to buy a dance studio. Thanks to the pandemic assistance funding I had unemployment checks coming in that meant I hadn’t dipped too deeply into my savings. But buying the studio would deplete them almost entirely. The pole dance studio was two blocks from my house and in dire straits. I didn’t think it would make it through the kind of recovery process businesses were looking at coming out of lock downs. Our town had never made it past California’s ‘orange’ phase of lockdown the entire year. The prospect of waiting for the entertainment industry to recover was truly terrifying. I like to be busy. And a fitness business seemed like a much better bet than a freelance musician.

I had three years of training as a student but no instructor training. So took an online teaching course for pole instructors and signed the sales paperwork. I spent January and February of 2021 renovating the space and training by myself. The lockdown lifted for fitness studios in March of 2021. None of the former instructors wanted to come back. So for the first 6 months I taught entirely by myself, building the studio back up slowly through the former student list and word of mouth.

Four years later, and that studio has grown into a fully fledged community. I have 6 instructors and we teach classes 7 days a week. I have found a deep love of teaching adults to move and dance and the physical work has also underpinned my circus and aerial fitness. Picking up the one thread blended so many skills back in with it to create a truly wonderful tapestry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.razzvio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/razzvio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/razzvio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razzvio/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/razzvio

Image Credits

Flying Lion Cabaret,
Philip Pavliger
Emil Alex
Manny Espinoza
Niel Motteram