Wonder Valley performance artist Tanya Gagné blows your mind!
By Stacy Davies
There are about a dozen different ways one can experience the big bang in the small package that is Tanya Gagné. You might be lassoed from your audience seat and pulled onstage by her rootin’, tootin’ cowgirl, Joy Rides, or you may have the plucky pleasure of hanging with Goldie Hen, the world’s only hula-hooping chicken.
If you inhabit Las Vegas, New York, London, or myriad other metropolises, you may have stumbled upon neo-vaudevillian sensation The Wau-Wau Sisters, the “scandalous circus sideshow striptease spectacular” Night of Joy, the magic-and-ballet burlesque comedy of Birds of Play, or the surreal, western-themed mobile theatre project The Horses Mouth.
She’s sold-out the Sydney Opera House and won at the Edinburgh Fringe and Joshua Awards, and any way you slice it, swing it, saw it in two or spin it around on its glammy, glittery, harebrained head, you’ve just been granted temporary access to the frenzied imagination and fiery form of this petite, rural-New-England-native-turned Wonder Valley powerhouse—who was once a rigger and deckhand aboard Baltic trading ships.
Yucca Brevifolia Magazine:
From sea legs to air legs! How did this happen?!
Tanya Gagné: [laughs] I was living in New York City and attending Tisch School of the Arts for dramatic writing, but I just wasn’t ready. I wanted to trip around, I wanted to travel the world.
And what did you see?
Everything! I sailed on tall ships from Sweden to Africa to South America. Crossing the Atlantic, hands down, was one of the most profound experiences of my life—like, not seeing land for 40 days! I hopped off the ship in New York three years later.
That’s a far cry from Salem, Massachusetts where you were born. In New York you created an aerial and circus school—in your loft?
Yes. I was obsessed with trapeze and trained with Russian coach Irina Gold, a former Soviet Olympic gymnast. Later, I found one of my mentors, Jennifer Miller—a bearded lady and Yale Scholar who created Circus Amok, a very “bread and puppet”-style circus, which means socio-political content rooted in the idea that art should be accessible to the public, not just a privilege for the rich. We did free shows all around the parks of New York City. I was like, “I’m going to save the world!” [laughs]
I performed and studied both here and abroad for about five years, and then I opened the first aerial school in Brooklyn. It was mostly women—privates and groups—and I learned so much about craft and process. But, yeah, it was in my loft, which was not big. Almost twenty years later, I was ready to leave New York, so when they said they were going to demo my building, it was my ticket out.
Serendipity at work! Why Wonder Valley?
I knew I was coming West and that I was on some weird vision quest. I ended up in an artist commune in Washington State for a while, and then during Covid, my friend Kevin Bone, who runs The Palms in Wonder Valley with his wife Laura Sibley, offered me a rental house. Being in all that wide-open space was amazing. I could still train and have my outdoor shows, and I just met all of these amazing freaks.
You were even wrangled into an episode of America’s Got Talent!
Well, I didn’t get the Golden Buzzer or anything, but Simon [Cowell] said Goldie Hen was the funniest act he’d seen all year!
He hates everything—well done! So, what’s next?
I’m definitely going to keep working in Las Vegas, and I’ll still make time for my touring shows like Birds of Play and The Horses Mouth. All of these characters are so special to me, and their mission really is to spread joy, love and magic wherever they go. That connection and inspiration are what it’s all about.
