Have Unicycle, Will Travel: Matica Circus Entertains At Public, Private Events

HARWINTON - Everybody’s lives are balancing acts. Heidi Kirchofer and Joel Melendez have built a business on theirs.

As co-founders of Matica Circus, the married couple literally do balancing acts for a living. Kirchofer walks on stilts and performs with aerial silks and a trapeze. Melendez rides a six-foot-high unicycle, often while juggling. They both teach these and other acrobatic skills to children and adults.

“It was the last day of 1999 when we met,” Kirchofer said. “We were both headed to South America. I was headed to Peru and Joel was headed to Venezuela. Joel is from Venezuela.”

Kirchofer’s family is from Harwinton, but at the time she met Melendez, she had been dividing her time between Central America and Oregon. At the turn of the millennium, they were both in Palenque, a former Maya city state in southern Mexico, she said.

“This was where this whole company came from,” Melendez said.

Kirchofer said, “Joel knew someone around the lake to get wood to make drums, so I decided to go with him to make djembes.” She had experience with drums, and the two became street performers. She played drums, and Melendez made and sold jewelry and juggled. Matica Circus was born.

“‘Matica’ means ‘little plant,’” Kirchofer said. “The idea is that we’re this living organism that soaks up the light and sows little seeds behind.”

The seeds are the people they teach in their Harwinton studio, called Thrive Movement Studio, where adults and children learn aerial silks, trapeze, and the Brazilian art of Capoeria, which Melendez calls “the art of movement,” combining martial arts, dance and acrobatics.

“It takes a long time to just get some of the basics,” she said. “Everything comes little by little. You get one skill and you start working on another. We didn’t get a unicycle until we got married in 2001. It was a wedding gift.”

At that time, they were living with a friend in Bantam, and there wasn’t much room to practice the unicycle, Melendez said. “I personally claim that I developed a different learning style by holding onto the garage door” for balance, he said.

“People still ask, ‘How long did it take you?’ I don’t know how to answer that,” Kirchofer said about her many skills.

“I think you just have to want to do it,” she said. “People say, ‘Oh, I just can’t juggle.’ I say, ‘Oh, how long did you spend practicing?’ Five minutes doesn’t count. It takes time.”

“It’s technique, too,” Melendez said. “Repetition is the secret of all these things, the juggling, the unicycle, and understanding the proper technique.”

He said he credits the art of Capoeria as an aid to learning circus skills. “When I do the juggling and the unicycle, I feel that that training transfers to everything that I do.”

Kirchofer said, “Juggling is such a slow process. You can practice a trick for years and still drop a club.”

What they call a “circus in a suitcase” can travel to public and private events, where they entertain with juggling, Chinese yo-yo, spinning plates, unicycles and more. A special event is their fire performance, in which they dance, jump rope, juggle knives, ride the unicycle and more, all amid flames.

They also work with schools, teaching “whole body math,” which Kirchofer describes as using parts of the body to learn about fractions, addition and subtraction.

The Matica Circus duo bring their skills to private parties and public functions, and they teach them in their Thrive Movement Studio. When young students develop their skills, they can join the Youth Performance Troupe and entertain at birthday parties, fairs and more.

More than 50 clients are listed on their website, and Kirchofer said it is only a partial list. She recently entertained on stilts at the 50th anniversary celebration of Torrington FISH at the Litchfield Community Center.

“You’re just bringing joy when you go,” she said. “Kids will ask me, ‘Why are you on stilts?’ I say, ‘Would you be talking to me if I were short?’”

She said, “People think I’m 20 feet tall. I’m five-ten.”

Melendez said, “When people are around, there’s way more energy than if you’re practicing inside a studio by yourself. So for us, the fun comes from being in public doing the things that we’ve been doing for many years. It’s fun when you get to do what you love in front of people.”

Matica Circus will perform at several fairs this season, including the Haddam Neck Fair (Sept. 2-5) and the Durham Fair (Sept. 22-25). At the Harwinton Fair on Oct. 1, the Youth Performance Troupe will entertain, and Kirchofer and Melendez will perform a family show there on Oct. 2.

For information on booking an event, go to www.maticaarts.com. For information on the Thrive Movement Studio, go to www.thrivemovementstudio.net. For either, call 860-309-0306.

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