- Hey, friends!

My name is Miss Beka, and today we are at Arkansas Circus Arts.

(upbeat music) It's where we train circus artists and we teach people how to fly.

First, let's meet my friend, Miss Camille.

She's up in the air, and she's gonna tell us all about aerial arts.

(upbeat music) What's this?

- Well, Beka, these are the aerial silks.

You can see that it's two pieces of fabric, and this is very strong fabric.

And what we'll do is we'll climb up the aerial silks, and then we will wrap ourselves up in different ways so that we can do tricks and poses, flips and exciting moves up in the air.

- That sounds a little dangerous.

What do you do to keep safe?

- Well, safety is super important when we're doing circus and aerial arts.

So just in case something were to happen, we have a big crash mat underneath us.

- Can you show us something really awesome?

- Absolutely.

- So Miss Camille is going to climb to the very top of the silk and then she is going to go upside down, and wrap her belly.

This wrap is super important, it has to be correct so that she can roll down the fabric.

We call this trick the windmill.

Ta-da!

Awesome, Miss Camille.

That was beautiful!

(upbeat music) Hello!

And this is my friend Miss Mattie.

- Hi, everyone.

- Miss Mattie is a trapeze artist here at Arkansas Circus Arts.

Ms. Mattie, can you tell us a little bit about the trapeze?

- Absolutely.

The trapeze is a bar that is connected by two long ropes.

- Do you think you can show us a roll?

- Absolutely.

- [Beka] Are you rolling on your hips?

- I am gonna roll on my hips and I'm not gonna use my hands at all.

- Wow!

That is an awesome hip circle, Miss Mattie.

- Thank you.

- Whoa, you are super tall.

- Yes, I am.

- How did you get so tall, Miss Beka?

- Well, I'm wearing stilts.

- Tell us about stilts.

- Stilts are worn by stilt walkers, and stilt walkers are a type of circus entertainer.

We do tricks on them, we dance around and entertain people with our long and lovely legs.

I call this the little kick to the front and back, front and back, da da da.

I can do a turn, maybe a little head stand.. - Wow.

Could you show us what the stilts look like without your costume on?

- Well, I usually don't show people, but for you and our friends, I will.

Let's go take a look.

- Okay, so this is kind of like part of your costume as a stilt walker, huh?

- Yes, it is.

This is called a stilt cover.

We use this to cover most of the stilts, so nobody knows our secret.

So now I'm going to pull the stilt covers down.

And you can see that I have my shoe attached to a plate, and I have the strap that attaches my leg to this pole.

- So it's like you're walking on sticks, huh?

- Yes, that's exactly what it is.

- All right, well, let me help you get it back up.

Can you show us how you stand up?

- Yes, so I bend my knees and then I put my weight over my legs, like this.

Thank you for joining us today, And I will see you at the circus.

(upbeat music)