Flexibility is key for street performer Sara Twister

Sara Twister’s website advertises her services as a ‘Professional Attentionseeker’, and the sort of childhood she experienced, growing up in a large family that spent a lot of time on the road, no doubt prepared her for the life of a street performer.

“I always had the inclination and I always had the extreme need for attention to show those inclinations off,” she considers.

Born in India to parents who were involved in humanitarian aid work, Sara’s childhood consisted of a lot of travel.

By the age of 21, She had lived in 13 different countries across 4 continents. And she also had to vie with her seven siblings for attention.

A contortionist, Sara enjoyed great flexibility as a child and would amuse herself by hiding from her family in the smallest spaces.

“Just even travelling around, I would hide in the smallest cupboard in the van so my family couldn’t find me,” she recalls.

“I once actually even got left in Slovakia in a gas station because they thought I was hiding in the cupboard and I was actually in the bathroom in the gas station.”

Her flexibility elicited familiar responses from people.

“That was probably just the beginning of it, the thing that made people go ‘yeah, shouldn’t you be in the circus?’

But then I met a contortionist, actually quite late - I was 24. And she opened me up to the possibility of doing it a profession. Up until then it had just been kind of fun in my free time. So I actually ended up joining a circus school in Brazil in Rio.

Brazil had one of the few schools that would take students wanting to specialise in contortion at that relatively late age, but Sara was determined that this was what she was going to do. The studies were quite intense.

Mornings were spent doing two hours of contortion and one hour of hand-standing.

This was more or less repeated in the afternoon and she still practices the techniques she learned there.

“I still have to maintain those every day to this day. It’s really not the skill that you pick unless you have a bit of discipline, unless you’re prepared for a bit of pain and hard work,” she advises. “But I love it.”

The twist, pardon the pun, to Sara’s performance, which is something that makes her unique, is her ability to accurately fire a bow and arrow with her feet.

Archery, as it happens, was another thing she enjoyed as a child. Even so, it took all her will and discipline to incorporate it into her act.

“I was not prepared for it when I did contortion,” she confides. “I concentrated an entire year solely for that stunt, making the bow myself.

"I needed a lot of techniques first because it’s an incredibly difficult stunt for your body. It takes a lot of control.”

“But I always wanted to put my own show together, to have that direct connection between something you’ve created and the audience who are on the receiving end, who show you how they feel about it.

"You can feel that direct connection a lot when you’re doing street performance, which is what I find so beautiful about it.”

Sara Twister is one of several performers participating in the 13th Laya Healthcare City Spectacular on July 6–8 in Dublin’s Merrion Square; and July 14-15 in Cork’s Fitzgerald Park. cityspectacular.com