08/19/2026
Over 250 balloons and 6+ hours of twisting, sculpting, walking away from it, coming back to it, and twisting some more.
This is the dress Paúl Gomex made for Naomi Shafer, helping 406Cirque win Best in Show at the Sweet Pea Festival Parade last week.
And then, of course, it disappeared. 🎈💨
That’s circus.
It can be ridiculous and beautiful, technically demanding and completely ephemeral. It can take over a street for an instant, transform an ordinary place into a stage, and bring together people who might otherwise never find themselves in the same room…
…That idea of circus as a place of gathering is part of a conversation Paúl will be having tomorrow at the Rialto with historian Dr. Sakina Hughes, in the context of Tinworks Art “I’m Conversations” series.
Sakina’s research looks at traveling performance venues and the role they played in African American and Native American communities after the Civil War. Paúl comes to the conversation from a very different time and place, but with a related question at the heart of his work with 406Cirque: what happens when circus becomes a place where cultures, disciplines and communities meet?
They’ll talk history, contemporary circus, community-building, and what it means to walk the tightrope between different worlds.
It’s also a conversation very close to what we’re trying to build here in Montana: circus not simply as entertainment, but as theater, art, spectacle, experimentation and a reason to Be together.
Although sometimes, yes, it’s also 250 balloons and a nine-foot Lady Liberty walking down Main Street🗽🎈
Tomorrow at the Rialto. Come join the conversation.
