They believe in fairies. They find magic in the mundane. Wait – they create magic in the mundane. Sarah Holmes and Rain Anya, two aerial arts performers who have a Tinker Bell air about them, are co-founders of the Paper Doll Milita. This is a group of performers using physical theater, aerial arts, acrobats and other artistic forms to tell stories. This is where theater meets the circus. The performances are intimate -- and the performers are very committed to their craft.  

Sarah, Rain and two friends founded the Paper Doll Militia in Santa Fe back in 2006. If you like the name, the credit goes to Bob. No, Bob isn’t one of the founders or even one of their friends. “He is the collaborative tissue between us,” says Sarah. When they’re just throwing things out, and something comes up that’s a great idea that works for everyone, they say that Bob came up with it so that there aren’t any egos attached to their work, explains Rain. 

They worked well together as a team, but Santa Fe began to feel small to Sarah and Rain.  “We were obsessed - we wanted to do circus all the time, and wanted to move to a place where there’s more of a circus community,” says Sarah. 

The Bay Area fit the bill. Thanks to the San Francisco Circus Center, it has developed into the biggest circus hub in the country. In 2008, Sarah and Rain moved to Oakland to open a new chapter in the life of the Paper Doll Militia. They are now artists in residence at the Kinetic Arts Center, a West Oakland fitness and circus arts space offering classes and performances. 

Rain and Sarah met in Santa Fe, but neither of them are from the area. And neither of them started out wanting to be circus performers. Rain grew up in a small town called Jupiter near West Palm Beach in Florida, singing, dancing and acting since she was 8 years old. She moved to Santa Fe when she was 18 for a musical theater program at the College of Santa Fe. She started going to a weekly trapeze class in her second year of college and stumbled upon a political circus group called Wise Fool. She discovered the world of circus and physical theatre. “I discovered a whole other world,” remembers Rain. “The possibilities of how to be a performer seemed to be expanding.” It was at Wise Fool that she met Sarah.

Sarah grew up in south Portland, Maine and ended up in Saint John’s College in Santa Fe to pursue a degree in Philosophy. But all the talking and reading began wearing her down and began teaching kids at an elementary school. She also joined some trapeze classes. She enjoyed them so much that she began teaching trapeze arts to her students. Soon, aerial arts felt a lot more important than philosophy -- and gradually became her career.

When Sarah was looking for a partner for a double trapeze set, Rain introduced her to a friend, Westin McDowell. Rain already had a partner in Colleen Mckeown. The four of them began to collaborate and formed the Paper Doll Militia. 

In a time when the name Cirque du Soleil is almost synonymous with circus, this group isn’t trying to emulate them. They prefer smaller and less lavish performances, where the emphasis is on storytelling. They look up to some other European and Canadian groups. James Thierree, the French performer, writer and director, who is also known for being Charlie Chaplin’s grandson, is top of their list. So, it’s no surprise that their goal is to grow the Paper Doll Militia into a full fledged company, and to take it to Europe -- to places in France, Germany, Greece and Scotland, where “they have really good circus.”