Life & Work with Elena Brocade

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elena Brocade.

Hi Elena, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory. 
I have been a performing artist for over 20 years, working in circus arts and stage illusion. I am extremely interested in the entire process of what goes into a performance on and off the stage and have mastered my skills in training, coaching, choreographing, stage management, costuming, and set design. It was pretty easy to transition into producing and directing my own show. Leggy Riggs grew out of the pandemic’s necessity to social distance and bring performance out of doors. 

Additionally, over the years, I have had the pleasure of working with some of the most amazing creative and world-class performers, and it was my goal to bring them together onto one revolving stage. So, I bought a portable aerial rig and anthropomorphized it, naming her Leggy Riggs. As a pop-up circus cabaret, we set her in iconic and scenic locations. Leggy Riggs’ mission is to reflect the diversity of Los Angeles and moves from city rooftops and mountain overlooks to decadent hotel lobbies, street festivals, and desert getaways. The show is stylized in modern couture and the avant-garde and brings to the stage a cast of world-class illusionists, burlesque dancers, drag queens, contortionists, object manipulators, and aerial acrobats, featuring entertainers that have played such stages as Cirque du Soleil, the Magic Castle and Beyoncé’s Formation tour and claim credits on both film and TV. 

With various options – from dinner theater to circus in the park – each Leggy Riggs experience highlights a local cafe, vinter, or brewery and collaborates with local artists and organizations to celebrate the already diverse and vibrant communities of Los Angeles. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The hardest part for arts in the America is always money. Applying for grant money is long and tedious and is rarely lucrative. Trying to bring these performances into the neighborhoods is very expensive and that doesn’t even account for the permitting often necessary to set up. To make matters even more complicated, often, to get the grant, you must show that you have the city support or permitting already in place, and to get the permitting, you need to show you have the money… creating a perfect catch-22. 

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Circus circus circus… That is my life. Circus is a huge community, and it is an umbrella to so many modalities and disciplines. Aerial arts have been my primary function, but I have trained and performed puppetry, object manipulation, stilt walking, Cossack horse trick riding, quick change, and illusion magic. I love to innovate and explore new ways to integrate art forms. I created the first-ever quick-change spinning by my neck on a Spanish web and introduced the relationship of dance and acrobatics to the setter’s role. Spanish web is an orbiting rope manipulated by a person (setter) on the ground revolving the rope in circles so that another person (flier) can perform tricks spinning with the rope in the air. In general, my work centers around archetypal storytelling, where transformation plays a role both figuratively and literally. I value exploration both in my own work and in collaboration. I employ storytelling in all of my pieces; a very obvious example of that is my 20th Century Quick Change act… a fast-paced quick-change act that spans the vogue of the 1900s, decade by decade, where sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll tell a lady’s retrospective from her right to vote to #MeToo. 

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out.
Find out what fascinates you, drives you, and keeps you excited, and then trust your own path. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elenabrocade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elena_brocade/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elena.brocade/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyEaf4TRpxUhTlQLQ3CE9Q
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user16249554

Image Credits
Andy Phillipson
Paula Neves
Jessica Moncrief
Steve Thompson