Floating river circus docks in Kentucky

FLOTSAM! performers are making their way by bus and boat for a run of shows in the commonwealth.

The Louisville shows, which start at 6 p.m. Sept. 13 through Sept. 15, aren’t FLOTSAM!’s first visit to Kentucky. The circus made a stop in Maysville during an earlier part of the Ohio River tour.

“We're a troupe of performers from all around the country,” said organizer Jason Webley. “We come together, and we travel on a makeshift raft that I mostly built, and we travel from town to town giving free circus shows to crowds that gather on the shore.”

Webley is a life-long performer, playing accordion and other instruments. Putting together the floating circus was the culmination of a long-time dream for him.

“I feel like in my life I can't end war or end hunger, personally, but I think I can organize a river circus and put on shows in a bunch of towns,” Webley said. “I hope it is a rather magical and unlikely thing, and [it] brings a lot of happiness to people in a lot of different places.”

The floating circus traveled along the Mississippi River last year and plans to make a tour through Erie Canals for its shows next year.

FLOTSAM! has a wide range of talents. There’s trapeze, puppetry, balance art and a live band.

“We're a little weird, like our show, it's kind of strange. I like to think it's weird and strange in a way that's kind of quirky and inviting,” Webley said.

Kalan Sherrard, also known as Enormous Face, is the circus’ puppeteer. Sherrard's role in the show is the “prophet of doom” portrayed via a giant mutant fish puppet.

As the story unfolds, the fish’s villain persona grows. Sherrard said the audience’s reaction to the moral dilemma is different in every performance.

There’s a point in the show where the mutant fish is locked in a trap.

“Last night, I heard some kids being like, ‘Yeah, kill him!’ and others being like, ‘No, what are you doing?’” Sherrard said.

The shows are free and rely mainly on donations to stay afloat .

“We count on, especially in the big cities like Louisville, getting donations that are enough to cover the cost of this trip,” Webley said. “In the future, I'd love to take this to places where we don't pass the hat at all.”

The group aspires to travel to places outside the country, eventually on rivers like the Nile and Rio Grande.

“I think we could travel and perhaps do shows on both sides of the border, if we could get the right allies. And I think that could be a really cool thing in this moment that might, I don't know, sort of cut against the narrative in a joyful way,” Webley said.

FLOTSAM! puppeteer Sherrard, who has been with the circus from its inception, wants folks who see the show walk away inspired.

“I would hope people would come away thinking, wow, you can really do all kinds of wild things, if you put your mind to it,” Sherrard said. “If you see this floating circus project and you're like, ‘Whoa, this is amazing. Anything's possible.’ At that point, the seed is in your hands, and you got to go do wild, crazy, impossible things.”

Like the waterways the floating circus is traveling, Webley sees FLOTSAM! itself as a great connector.

“The sum of it all is something separate from the individual parts,” Webley said. “That actually tracing the Ohio River, going to each of these places, each of the big cities, each of the small cities, and gathering people and then moving on to the next place for me, like, that's the bigger thing.”

After leaving Louisville, the circus will drop anchor in Kentucky and Southern Indiana communities along the Ohio River before ending this tour in Paducah next weekend.