University of Calgary

Update News

Submitted by alumni on Wed, 11/05/2014 - 21:54.

Update News

A circus runaway, new mental-health initiatives and winners galore — we celebrate the minds behind these matters.

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Twenty-nine-year-old University of Calgary drama grad Leda Davies has run away to join the circus.

Now living in Montreal — the planet’s capital for circus art — Davies, BFA’08, has spent the last year learning how to pull off manoeuvres plucked from a Cirque du Soleil playbook. If you missed seeing Davies do jaw-dropping aerial stunts in a vertical dance five storeys above downtown Edmonton on the walls of the Nina Haggerty Arts Centre back in 2012, you may have spotted her stilt-walking down Stephen Avenue Mall, acting with Theatre Calgary or working with “silks” at this past summer’s Montreal Jazz Festival.

“My passion for circus arts began at the U of C,” says the aerial dancer, “where we were encouraged to be multidisciplinary artists. With a minor in dance, I was able to move my skills forward and now the circus is where I want to be.”

Davies returns to Calgary in January for a one-month gig at Quest Theatre. Along with two other actors, she’ll be performing the play Snow Angel in 30 schools across Alberta, before taking it to Toronto and Saskatoon.

Deb Cummings

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