Born in California into a family who was “always moving,” Michael Lipari was working for Disney at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles when he met some circus performers and decided to “run away” to Montreal and audition for the National Circus School. Lipari didn’t get into the school but he was able to train with the school’s coaches. That was the first step toward a career as a professional aerial performer and aerial choreographer that has taken him around the world.
Lipari was the aerial captain for Kylie Minogue’s Aphrodite World Tour, demonstrated his craft on “The Ellen Show,” toured with Taylor Swift and gave a showstopping shock-the-judges performance on the fifth season of “America’s Got Talent.” (You can find a video of it on YouTube.)
Lipari, 39, has relatives on Maui and makes Honolulu his base of operations.
How do you describe what you do?
My work is very passionate and very dramatic. I incorporate my training as an actor and being on stage into my performance as a circus artist. It’s not just about going on stage and doing death-defying tricks, it’s about telling a story and creating that magic.
You’ve been a professional aerialist for more than 14 years but let’s acknowledge that what you do requires an exceptionally high level of physical fitness and also involves a high degree of physical danger. How do you handle that?
We train, we train, we train, six hours a day, nonstop. There’s a sense of calculated risk; there’s room for error. There could be an equipment malfunction, but you’re confident in what you’re doing and you just trust yourself.
I’ve seen photos of you doing aerial work off a hot air balloon. How high up were you, and did that make a difference for you?
It was 4,000 feet and to be honest with you I was terrified. We tested it at 500 feet and I was OK, but when I got to 4,000 I did it, I checked it off my list, and we’re good.
Your performance with Ashleigh Dejon on “America’s Got Talent” in 2010 was a showstopper — in the true sense of the word. How did you put it together?
When we were competing we literally had maybe two days to come up with a new act each week, and unlike a singer or a dancer who can rehearse in their dressing room or in their hotel room, we couldn’t train and come up with something in our bedroom. It really raised the risk factor of what we were doing. We were doing extremely dangerous stuff that we had never done before. We normally did not perform with a mat or an airbag or a net, but we were doing an extremely dangerous release trick that we had never done before, so I thought it was important to have some sort of safety. Then I thought, “Since we have a safety, what if I actually did drop her?” It was quite an epic moment for both of us. It was so exhilarating, and that performance allowed us to move to the semi-finals as well.
What would you like to do next?
My goal in moving here, after living in Las Vegas for 10 years, was making this my home base. I’m really drawn to living here, and since my work allows me to travel so much, why not be in the place that my heart has always been drawn to? What I would love to do is continue creating shows. I love working with artists — not just doing a performance but creating a masterpiece. I would love to create something spectacular for Hawaii.
