Erica decided to join “Cirque du Soleil” right after graduating high school. Her friends thought that she was a little crazy, and thought that she was going to fail. Their parents asked what her plan “B” was, what colleges she was going to look into after she didn’t make it in “Cirque du Soleil.”

“I flew to Las Vegas the day after I graduated and I tried out. I didn’t move right away, but I gave it my best shot”. Even though her friends thought she was not choosing the right path, her parents were supportive the whole time and had faith in her choice. From that day on, she would be working long hours and training constantly, but she knew it would all pay off in the end.

“I really enjoyed theater a lot, and I enjoyed music and I loved acrobatics, but I knew that ‘Cirque du Soleil’ was the one place that embraced all of those things, and did them at a really high level. What I love to do most is to tell a story with acrobatics, like they do in the Nutcracker, where there are characters have hearts and emotions, and tell love stories. They do it through dance, and not just so these amazing tricks, but aim to tell a story and make the audience feel something other than just nervous, and ‘Cirque su Soliel’ is absolutely the best place to do that.”

For Erica, the hardest part of her career is that there is an “expiration date” in the world of acrobatics. “it’s unrealistic to expect that every individual is going to be able to perform hard for high level acrobatics into their 50-60’s-70’s, so knowing that you have to transition out of it when it’s something that you love is always a very sad thing. It’s just a matter of looking at it as having the joy and the privilege of being able to do it for some time, rather than being sad about the fact that you can’t do it forever.”