Meet your neighbor: Scott Autrey
Published 8:00 am Monday, April 28, 2014
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With two degrees in visual design, Scott Autrey chose to eschew the traditional career path in favor of something free spirits have dreamed about for years.
“I ran away and joined the circus,” he said. “Why not? It’s a great lifestyle. I’m a gypsy.”
After working in musicals, Cirque du Soleil productions, sideshows, and vaudeville acts in Las Vegas, he relocated to Argo, “and I wanted to perform in Birmingham once I got here. But then I discovered how much talent there is here. I remember being at a performance by a local dance group and thinking, ‘Why isn’t all of Birmingham here right now? These are really cool people doing really cool stuff, and I want people to see them. These performers deserve a stage, and the people of Birmingham deserve to see them.’”
Autrey formed the Birmingham Vaudeville Company to try to make that happen and quickly began supporting local causes and charities.
He’s currently working on the Audemus Performance and Arts Festival to be held later this year at the Horse Pens 40 outdoor nature park in Steele. An entertaining raconteur with a mysterious exotic accent, Autrey explained the purpose of the festival and why he thinks such events are important ways to keep a lost art form alive.
Audemus: It’s a three-day performance and arts festival featuring performances, workshops, vendors, camping, and more. Performances will be on multiple stages and will feature dance, movement, juggling, circus arts, fire performances, hooping and more. Workshops of various performance-related themes will be featured throughout the festival. “This is a festival for everyone featuring some of the finest performers from the South, and a portion of the proceeds will go to Children’s Hospital,” Autrey said. For more information, visit www.audemusfest.com.
The festival’s name: “Audemus jura nostra defendere is Latin for ‘We dare defend our rights,’ which is the state motto of Alabama. As performers in this great state who continue to create art, we embody this word. Audemus.”
After Audemus: “Next year I’m opening the ACCA, the Alabama Center for Circus Art. Part of that will be a program for at-risk youth and community outreach efforts to take kids off the streets and teach them something fun and constructive like circus arts.”
Autrey the performer: “I grew up watching Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd and often found myself doing that kind of slapstick physical humor. These days, I mostly juggle or breathe fire. But my main act is called The Human Vibrator, wherein I vibrate any part of my body and can manipulate objects through vibration. The best way to describe it is when your cell phone rings and falls off your night stand.”
The first time he was on stage in front of an audience: “Gosh, I don’t remember it, but I do remember being in kindergarten about to go on stage and dance and my dance partner passing out right before we went on so I danced the partner dance by myself. And I remember a piano recital that I blanked on the song and improvised for five minutes.”
Viva Las Vegas: “I was there 3 years. I taught for ITT Tech out there and for the Art Institute of Technology. I worked with Insurgo Theatre Company and helped make them the top theater company in Vegas. I also worked with Cirque du Soliel performers and did makeup and special effects for countless shows.”
Who are the best circus-style and vaudeville-style performers today? “The guys that are doing it. ‘America’s Got Talent’ has really helped show people it’s okay to have weird things that they do. That kind of entertainment still matters. ‘America’s Got Talent’ proves that. And think about it: why do we watch YouTube? To see people do crazy bizarre weird or just plain cool stuff. That’s vaudeville. It’s not cinema. It’s real people with amazing talent.”
The performers he most admires: “Oh, man, there’s too many to name here, but I’m a big fan of the fusion belly dance group Erynias Tribe from Birmingham, Pink Box Burlesque out of Tuscaloosa, Crescent Circus out of New Orleans, and my friends over at Cutthroat Freak Show.”
The best advice he ever received as a performer: “Practice. Don’t give up. Never, ever give up.”
