Though she flies high on aerial silks, this Charlotte-area mom isn’t afraid of danger

The circus arts are the same wherever you go: Swinging from a trapeze, dangling by a lyra — a suspended hoop — or climbing up a silk rope is the same in any culture, any language.

Except for one thing.

“In Costa Rica, we don’t have insurance,” said Carolina Quirós Otárola, 32, an aerial performer and teacher in the Charlotte area. “So we literally do whatever we want, and if something happens, it happens.”

She didn’t get her start in the aerial arts by enrolling in a class. It was on a whim. “Some friends and I just hung some silks up and climbed,” she said.

Quirós Otárola has been a dancer since age 6. She studied dance at the National University of Costa Rica, which is where she first took flight.

“One of (my classmates) wanted to include aerial art in her choreography,” she said. “So we looked at the ceiling and thought: It looks strong enough to hold us.”

After she earned her bachelor’s degree in dance — with a focus on performing and choreography — she got a one-year contract with Compañía Nacional de Danza de El Salvador, the national dance company of El Salvador, before returning home.

Quirós Otárola’s husband, Arturo Miguel Padilla, is in a similar line of work as a gymnastics coach. His job is what brought them to the U.S. in 2017.

From Costa Rica to Mooresville

Quirós Otárola wasn’t worried about finding work. “There are circus arts everywhere,” she said.

But once she got to the Charlotte area, it wasn’t so easy. After being here for two years without work — but training at her husband’s gym and taking ballet and contemporary classes at Open Door Studios in Charlotte — she saw on an international jobs website called Circus Talk that Caroline Calouche & Co. was holding auditions.

She has worked there since, although her time at the studio is coming to an end soon.

“Carolina can speak languages of dance and the circus, and she appreciates them both equally,” said Caroline Calouche, artistic and executive director of Caroline Calouche & Co.

Aerial artists are more than just “tricksters in the air,” Calouche said. Someone with a dance background can “make those movements mean something.”

Quirós Otárola speaks fluent dance and circus — but she wasn’t fluent in English before moving here.

“I took a lot of (English) courses when I was in high school and college,” she said.

“But, it’s not the same when I get here. I tried to read lips; I’d get right up in someone’s face. All the time, if you told me something, I was like, ‘What? Tell me again.’ That makes a conversation awkward, so I just (stayed quiet). I didn’t talk for a year except to my husband.”

A student and a teacher

Quirós Otárola’s performing gig had expanded into teaching aerial silks and aerial lyra at Calouche’s Charlotte Cirque and Dance Center.

Closer to home, Quirós Otárola teaches at Kristie Phillips Athletic Center in Iredell County. There, she runs her own aerial program and teaches dance and gymnastics, including a “Mommy and Me” class.

Quirós Otárola is a mom herself.

She and her husband have a 3-year-old son, Gael, and a 5-year-old daughter, Lia. Finding childcare was one of the toughest things about moving to a new country.

“In the beginning, I didn’t know anybody, and I mean, I’m trusting my kids to someone else,” Quirós Otárola said. “That’s the hardest thing a mom can do. At Kristie Phillips, some of my students are 12, 13, 14 — babysitting age. They are like family. They are angels.”

Sitters became a greater necessity last December when Quirós Otárola was cast as the lead in “Clara’s Trip,” Calouche’s annual aerial show based on “The Nutcracker.”

“That was very exciting,” Quirós Otárola said. “This was my first experience to actually be the leader of the whole show. It was pretty emotional.”

Now, Quirós Otárola will wrap up her time at Caroline Calouche this weekend with performances of “Animalia” and “Random Acts of Kindness” at Charlotte Ballet’s Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance Tickets for the shows start at $17 and are available online.

‘Don’t be too afraid’

Quirós Otárola’s mother, who stayed with the family in Mooresville for three months after the birth of their son, worries about the risks associated with her daughter’s career.

“My mom always says she gets scared every time I do a drop,” Quirós Otárola said. “ ‘I think you’re going to fall,’ she says. And I tell her: ‘That is the point of the circus; we’re trying to scare you.’ ”

“I’m not a superhero or anything, but my brain tells me I will figure it out if something happens up there.

“My attitude is: Don’t be too afraid to get hurt,” she added. “I mean, how many times do you have to fall in order to start walking as a baby?”

Her fearlessness may be part of why she continues working in the aerial arts even with two kids. It’s a balancing act not everyone can pull off.

“That’s her profession and her love. And it’s even more impressive that she’s doing it in a foreign country,” Calouche said. “It’s an inspirational story.”

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This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 2:23 PM.