About Mykelle

Mykelle Walton is a multidisciplinary performance artist and researcher who likes to make a spectacle of big ideas. With over a decade of experience as a professional aerialist, Mykelle has performed internationally in variété shows, artistic festivals, and cruise ship productions, specializing in aerial hoop and straps. Equally at home upside down or asking inconvenient philosophical questions, she also ventures beyond the circus into modern dance, durational performance, and devised theatre. Her work blends physical virtuosity with conceptual curiosity, playing with risk, time, embodiment, and the wonderfully strange business of being human. For Mykelle, circus is more than tricks and glitter (though there is certainly room for both); it is a place to experiment, challenge expectations, and make abstract ideas tangible through the body.

Originally from rural Idaho, Mykelle has worked with organizations including Animate Objects, AIDA Cruises, Virgin Voyages, and the New England Center for Circus Arts. Her work has been supported by the Idaho Arts Commission, Alexa Rose Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance program. She founded the Boise Circus Guild, serving as its president and artistic director for five years, and continues to create, teach, and organize circus through her new project—SPEC Collective. She is currently working on a long term side-quest obtaining a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she researches metaphysics and aesthetics. When she isn't contemplating the nature of reality or hanging from something, Mykelle can usually be found hiking in the mountains with her wife.