Molly Saudek

Tight Wire Dancer

Born July 15, 1976 in Montpellier, Vermont (U.S.A.), Molly Saudek started training in dance and gymnastics at the age of eight. When she was eleven years old, she joined Circus Smirkus, a very successful youth circus based in Greensboro, Vermont, whose summer camp’s young students go on tour with a show presented under the Big Top during the summer.

Her seven-year experience with Circus Smirkus triggered her passion for circus arts, and at age eighteen, she enrolled in Montreal’s National Circus School, in nearby Quebec. There she trained as a tight wireA tight, light metallic cable, placed between two platforms not very far from the ground, on which a wire dancer perform dance steps, and acrobatic exercises such as somersaults. (Also: Low Wire) dancer, a specialty for which she quickly showed an uncanny ability. Soon, she was able to complete a somersault on the wire, a feat very few women have achieved in the long history of this specialty.

In 1998, Molly was invited to participate in the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. It was one of these exceptional occurrences when two women of the same exceptional caliber happened to compete in the same specialty in the same festival— both of whom presenting the very rare somersault on the wire! Both were not as successful in achieving the feat however, and the unhesitating, sharp somersault Molly completed at every performance won her the Gold Medal.

After that, Molly embarked in a brilliant international career in circus and varieté(German, from the French: ''variété'') A German variety show whose acts are mostly circus acts, performed in a cabaret atmosphere. Very popular in Germany before WWII, Varieté shows have experienced a renaissance since the 1980s.. Among other engagements, she was featured in the Cirque du Soleil production of Alegria in Asia, in productions of Cirque Eloize, and in the Big Apple Circus production of Happy On! in 1998. In 2010, she competed in the International Circus Festival at the Fóvarosi Nagycircusz in Budapest, Hungary, where she received the Bronze Pierrot. She has continued presenting her remarkable tight wireA tight, light metallic cable, placed between two platforms not very far from the ground, on which a wire dancer perform dance steps, and acrobatic exercises such as somersaults. (Also: Low Wire) act all over the world ever since, including, most recently, at the legendary Circus Nikulin in Moscow.

See Also

• Video: Molly Saudek, tight wire act, in the Big Apple Circus production of Happy On! (1998)