She’s only eight-years-old but Blaze Bullen already has her sights set firmly on stardom.
As a fourth-generation member of the famous Bullen circus family she has performing coursing through her veins.
Blaze began training with acrobat Morgan Winwood from a very young age and continued with circus trapeze artist Bekki Ashton of Ashton’s Circus.
Becky worked with her on her first aerial act which she performed at the Beaudesert and Canungra Shows last year at the age of seven.
This year she debuted her lyra act at the Canungra Show, which involved acrobatics and holding poses with poise and style to wow the crowds.
The Illinbah Valley girl recently returned from traveling around Australia with the Ashton family’s Circus Spectacular where she performed weekly in her own act on a hoop dangling seven metres up in the air.
“She was beside herself when she started to get paid. She thought it was just for fun,” Mum Zelie said.
Blaze is looking forward to learning and performing more tricks, but also says there is a lot she is yet to learn.
“It feels like I am making other kids happy. It’s my passion and I love doing it,” she said.
“I do a lot of reading about circus history and there are so many tricks I feel inspired by and I really want to do.”
“Once I’m out there I think ‘this is fine, I’ve done this, I’ve practiced this, I’ve done the all the hard work, this is my reward’.”
Blaze loves performing at Canungra in front of her local friends.
“All my friends come and watch me and they are all really supportive. It feels like I’m there in front of my friends and I don’t really worry about the other people.”
The family business
Bullen’s Circus was one of Australia’s oldest and most famous, begun by Blaze’s great-grandparents, Alfred and Lilian Bullen, in 1923.
Blaze’s grandfather, Stafford Bullen established several drive-through Safari Parks in Australia in the 1960s and her father Craig and mother Zelie have gone on to become world recognised animal trainers for film and television.
“Blaze asks us several times a year if we can start Bullen’s Circus again,” Zelie laughed.
“She wants to do a bit of everything in the show. She wants to have her own aerial animal act.
“She’s very passionate about it and I’m happy she has a passion.”
“We homeschool so we are lucky to be able to spend a lot of time training with other circus families. The Ashtons and the Bullen Circus families have a long history of training together and it continues through to this generation which is very nice.”
“She has three rules before she goes out, we hold hands and I say, ‘hold on tight, point your toes and have fun’.”
Training
Zelie said she doesn’t worry about Blaze up in the air as she knows how much training she has put into it.
“I know how strong she is. It is not unusual for her to go and do fifty pull ups. She’s very strong,” she explained.
“There’s a huge amount of training that goes into it. She trains every day. Depending on what we are doing she can train for two hours. There are times when we have to step in and tell her she needs to rest.”
Blaze says she enjoys training and estimates she has done 100 sit ups, push ups and pull ups every day for the last three years.
“Circus is what I’ve wanted to do for ages, it is a part of me and if it was taken away I feel like I’d melt into something.”
