Friday, November 7, 1997
Flying Montana
Circus aerialist, high diver comes to UCLA to earn doctorate in
folklore
By Candi Ramos
Daily Bruin Contributor
She was a flying trapeze artist and a solo aerialist in the
circus, and one of fewer than 10 female high divers in the world,
performing from heights of 80 feet in the air.
And now she desires to share her life by making it into a
fascinating story.
Montana Miller, a recent honors graduate in folklore and
mythology from Harvard University, now attends UCLA as a graduate
student where she aspires to gain a doctorate in folklore and
mythology.
In addition to the adventures of doing somersaults high above
crowds and high-diving at amusement parks, she is one of five women
to make history as the first ever to dive from the cliffs of
Acapulco, Mexico, at the 1996 world cliff diving championships. "My
greatest accomplishments have been the times I’ve learned to fly in
new ways," Miller said.
Miller has so far lived a life that has been hardly anything but
ordinary. She graduated as valedictorian from her high school, but
instead of heading off to college with her classmates, she left for
Europe and was the first American to be placed in the French
National Circus. Being a gymnast in high school gave her the
acrobatic strength and skills to be a circus performer.
The flying trapeze troupe, consisting of her and five French
men, toured Europe for four years. "It was a very tough life,"
remarks Miller.
Eventually she quit the troupe and returned to the United
States.
She headed off to San Francisco where she was a solo aerialist
on the flying rings for San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus for a
year. Afterwards, she reapplied to college to be accepted by one of
the top schools in the United States.
Craving a need for adventure, she decided to try diving during
her freshmen year of college. Even though she had never been fond
of water, she asked the Harvard diving coach if she could try out
for the team. Her skills from the circus contributed to her fast
learning and earned her a spot on the varsity diving team.
However, her diving was abruptly stopped when she was hit by a
truck during her sophomore year, causing her to miss training for
almost two years.
When she recovered, she got the opportunity to try high diving.
She began to high dive for amusement parks. Instead of her usual
diving off Olympic-style boards, she had to climb up an 80-foot
ladder to reach the board. It took her a month’s worth of practices
to reach the top of the ladder. She admits that it was scary and a
struggle to overcome her fear. "Reaching that goal was one of the
proudest moments of my life."
Overcoming her fear of diving in Acapulco was another proud
accomplishment. The cliff diving championships were held in
November 1996. It was the first time women were allowed to
participate in them, and when Miller received an invitation, she
couldn’t refuse. Her goal was to make history and her daredevil
stunt led her to be selected for Peter Jennings’ "Person of the
Week" on ABC World News Tonight in December 1996.
According to Miller, everything she has done has just gone from
one thing to another, without any direction planned out in advance.
"It’s really all about story, making an interesting story of my
life," she said.
Her motivation for joining the circus, high diving and cliff
diving is the need to have heroic adventure. She wants to be a hero
by standing out and having a great story to tell. This, more than
anything else, is what motivated her.
Miller’s reasons for doing aerial acts and going to Acapulco are
about making a good story. She says that everything is related to
storytelling and that’s why she loves folklore. Deciding to pursue
a doctorate at UCLA was a clear choice because of "their
open-minded approach to folklore."
Miller’s home, as she describes it, really valued a good story.
So she was naturally encouraged to not only to go out and do heroic
things, but tell her stories to inspire others. "Who wants to be a
hero if nobody sees you?" Miller remarks.
However as one might expect, her parents have been nervous about
her high diving and cliff diving. Her mother, Kathleen Cushman, has
feared for her daughter’s safety on more than one occasion.
"I can’t say I was enthusiastic about her diving off the cliffs
of Acapulco," Cushman said. "If it’s spectacular, beautiful, and I
know there’s no real danger, then I enjoy it. But if it’s
spectacular, beautiful, and life-threatening, then I don’t enjoy
it. I’m still not able to watch my daughter jump off the cliffs on
TV."
Cushman has played a big part in Miller’s life. Together, they
wrote a book called "Circus Dreams: The Making of a Circus Artist,"
detailing Miller’s experiences of traveling with the French
National Circus. Miller claims that "this book gets the biggest
reaction from adolescent girls who are full of big dreams."
Miller also does an aerial storytelling act for schools about a
princess who falls in love with a lion, a fairy tale she made up.
She tells it with her voice, but illustrates it with a flying rings
act. In all her years of doing acts for the circus, she never saw a
trapeze artist who talked while performing her act. "It’s hard,
because it takes really good conditioning," said Miller.
While she still has that daring spirit in her, she is going to
continue to be a performer, take risks and tell good stories. In
her later years, she wants to be a professor of folklore and tell
her stories, which she expects to largely increase in number.
But in the meantime, Miller says, "New adventures drop out of
the sky, and I can never predict what’s going to happen next."
GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
Montana Miller, a famous high-diver, is a graduate student at
UCLA, and recently graduated from Harvard.