BACCES Founder

Ariel Mihic

Ariel Mihic is the founder of BACCES. She is a Chinese acrobat in the Bay Area. For most of her time in acrobatic spaces, she struggled with the tension between her love for circus and her frustration with the way the art has been dominated by primarily White, upper class, heteronormative, and gender-normative people.

For over a decade she worked to ease this tension by teaching workshops for queer/trans and BIPOC, leading conversations about power dynamics in circus, and promoting sliding scale accessibility. She was not alone in this experience, as many BIPOC acrobats were beginning to organize collectively to address the harm that was pervasive in the circus community. There was a clear need and desire for more BIPOC community engagement and advocacy. Out of these experiences, BACCES was formed in 2023 as a collective by and for circus artists of color.