Meet Taylor Krasne

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Krasne.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Taylor. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My mother was a NCAA gymnast and my father a sixth-degree black belt in Taekwondo, so my path in athleticism started early growing up in the gymnastics academy my parents owned. I’ve been flipping around since before I can remember– my mom was doing backflips on the trampoline days before I was born to “get me out!” I was introduced to circus arts at age nine and trained on various apparatuses; teeterboard, Russian swing, aerial silks, and the flying trapeze were my favorites. Hand balancing on canes had been a passion, but it soon switched to Cyr wheel in 2015 when I was accepted to a full-time training school called the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) in Australia. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in circus after completing their three-year bachelor program.

The cool thing about circus university is that instead of majoring in something like communications or computer science, you major in one aerial apparatus and one ground-based apparatus. The “majors” I studied and trained were Cyr wheel and dance trapeze. Cyr wheel is a giant metal ring where the performer spins inside like a coin on the ground. Spinny rides at amusement parks were my least favorite and I get motion sickness easily, so it took about eight months to not be violently nauseous after each training session. I’m grateful that my body eventually adjusted- it was a big learning moment to always push forward if you’re passionate about something.

Our graduation thesis was a full-blown production open to the city of Melbourne for two weeks, and we were each graded based on performance quality of 7 specific skills in our act, musicality, and combined marks from prior training, specialty act assessments, and our dance and acting classes. That performance run and those circumstances certainly taught us how to perform under pressure! It was a challenging three years, but I’m grateful for my time at NICA because it gave me strict work ethic and discipline that taught me to show up every day and do my best, even through injury and hardship.

A few weeks after graduating, I was accepted into the Cirque du Soleil database and was honored to be considered for the solo Cyr wheel act in their new show, “Luzia,” and later considered for their productions “Sima” and “Valeria” right before Covid-19 hit. Waiting to get the call from Cirque du Soleil is currently not possible due to our global situation, so I’ve been focusing on stunts in the meantime and have truly fallen in love with the industry and community in the process.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Two months before moving to Australia to train at NICA, I’d just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (Hashimoto’s) that my doctor had crowned me “the sickest patient she’d seen in 20 years.” I’d been struggling with chronic fatigue and severe inflammation to where I was almost completely bedridden. It was a jolt to my system to start training eight hours a day – because of the inflammation, I had constant small injuries that would set me back from the rest of my class, sometimes months at a time. It felt like I was always playing “catch up.” My body felt like I’d run a Tough Mudder obstacle course each day to the point where it was difficult to walk without muscles giving out or locking up. Experiencing this while being surrounded by classmates who were progressing without issue was quite heartbreaking, so I became determined (almost obsessively) to find the root cause of my condition.

My first year at school consisted of 10 straight months of going to doctor’s appointments and strategizing/perfecting recovery time at home in order to make it to training the next morning, even if all I could do was sit on the side and stretch for the day. In my second year, I was encouraged by the board of directors to fly back home because they thought I was too sick to make it to graduation. Instead, I dug even deeper to find a path to remission, which I finally found with the help of two incredible health practitioners in Melbourne. It was only in the last few months of my second year, after nonstop blood work, tests and consultations, that my body started allowing me to train with a little less pain. By the end of third year, I achieved my dream of graduating with a bachelor’s degree in circus arts, performed two skills on Cyr wheel that no woman had done in NICA’s history, and was accepted into Cirque du Soleil three weeks later. It was a very big lesson to listen to your gut and keep moving forward on what you believe in, even if you can’t see the finish line.

I’m very proud to now be almost completely in remission from an autoimmune disease that I was told was impossible to recover from. I feel great!

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’ve been focusing on training in various areas of stunt work and motion capture while teaching and performing Cyr wheel and aerials for various production companies around Los Angeles. I’m also a Cyr wheel instructor at Jagged Vertical Dance Fitness in their circus department and teach private lessons around LA. Prior to Covid, a recent favorite was performing Cyr wheel in Tim Robbins’ theater company, “The Actors’ Gang.”

It’s been an interesting journey balancing circus training and stunt training. Focus has leaned much more towards stunts and motion capture now since recently getting into SAG-AFTRA, mainly because it keeps me on my toes because there’s so much to learn and do. There’s something about the community, camaraderie and teamwork within the stunt world that I fell in love with and really helped cement my decision to pursue it further. Training in various locations with people has led to so many close friendships and fun projects. One of my favorite projects I’ve been lucky to be a part of was performing motion capture and stunts in the “Apex Legends: Assimilation” video game trailer. I got emotional watching it for the first time; it was absolutely surreal to watch the final product of a project like that and see yourself in that animated universe. It was also a very special and meaningful experience to be the first person to perform Cyr wheel in a motion capture volume a few months later, playing two characters at once.

I’m grateful to have recently been hired as a stunt double for Disney’s “Bunk’d.” I learned so much from the actors, crew, and my stunt coordinator, Danny Wayne. During our lunch break, I joked that my new goal was to be on the CBS lot consistently enough to own a bicycle to get around.

What were you like growing up?
As a kid, I was flipping around the gym constantly! If I wasn’t in the gym, I was playing Power Rangers with my cousins, play-fighting with friends, and finding various ways to flips off the swing set with my stepsister. When I lived in New York City, I’d take dance classes with friends and joined a gymnastics team at my school, and later started performing in school plays and musicals in middle school. I was a very shy and nervous kid but always felt comfortable on a stage. I remember enjoying the heat of the overhead lights and how I wasn’t able to see the audience if I looked out, but they could see me. It felt safe.

Apart from athletics and performing, growing up I loved collecting Pokémon cards (I was the proud owner of a holographic Charizard), Sailor Moon, my Gameboy, Super Nintendo, and snagging the last copy of a movie at Blockbuster. My favorite and happiest childhood memories were at my summer camp, Island Lake.

It’s funny – when I was about five years old, I went through a very long phase where I’d run around my house and legitimately GALLOP on all fours like an animal down long hallways. I was kind of like those girls you see on YouTube pretending to be horses and jumping over hurdles, except I was just sprinting around my house and toppling over furniture pretending to be a cheetah. I’m laughing as I say this, but I had an absolute blast. Today, as a fully grown woman living in Los Angeles, my path somehow led me straight back to my favorite childhood pastime of galloping on all fours, but this time on customized carbon fiber arm extensions designed for quadrupedal movement in motion capture (led by the wonderful Terry Notary). It’s hilarious to me how life can circle back like that – almost like a blatant reminder to keep my inner child happy. And man, let me tell you: ever since deciding to pursue this career path, I’ve never been happier.

Contact Info:

• Email: taylorkrasne@gmail.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/taylorkrasne
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/krazykrazne

Image Credit:
Josh Mobijohn, Alex Valderana

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