Our Friday Flashback this week honors the memory of a truly beautiful hoop performer, Dessi España. Dessi is seen here performing with the Tower Circus in 1986 in Blackpool, England. Sadly, she passed away in 2004 performing on the aerial silks with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the United States. The rigging of her chiffon scarves failed and she fell thirty feet to the concrete floor below. Dessi died later that night. At the age of 13 she set a new world record for spinning 75 silver hoops simultaneously. She then went on to break her own record twice with 88 and then 97 hoops, with the latter feat broadcast on the “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee” television show in the U.S. Dessi married Mexican trapeze artist Ivan España during a Ringling Bros. performance in 1992. Her beauty and talents are truly missed.
What a tragic accident. Things like this make me hope that people keep working harder and harder on safety.
My friend (and sometimes aerial partner) was friends with her and was working in Ringling when she passed away. He told me about her when we first started working together; it was very sad.
Robyn, aerialists do check their rigging often but freak accidents like this happen. It’s one of the reasons myself and many, many other aerialists advocate training with an actual professionally trained instructor (University of Youtube does not count) and never ever practicing alone.