For circus performers, it takes a lot to excel at a festival. But when Ryan Shinji Murray learned how Juanita Cárdenas came to Montreal’s Complètement Cirque festival in 2015, he was intrigued.
“I heard a couple of people had ridden their bikes from Brooklyn to Montreal and I was like, I need to hang out with these people,” recalled Mr. Murray, 35, an entertainer who had toured as a stunt performer with Cirque du soleil. .
Set to perform at Cirque du Soleil’s “Festa” next month in Andorra, Mr. Murray dropped out of New York University in 2007 to pursue gymnastics and acrobatics, eventually landing with the global circus company.
Juanita Cárdenas, 38, a multidisciplinary artist and performer from Bogotá, Colombia, was among the team who had biked to the circus festival from New York. max Cárdenas, who uses a gender-neutral courtesy title and she/she pronouns, graduated from Cooper Union in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in art and later studied circus arts in Buenos Aires.
While living in New York, she had previously crossed paths with Mr. Murray while performing at venues like Muse and House of Yes, but the two only knew each other casually.
However, something clicked when they hooked up in Montreal. One night, after eating the famous poutine at La Banquise, Mr. Murray unexpectedly kissed Mx. Cardenas.
“It was a nice surprise,” he said. “Because in normal life, he is a very shy, polite and sweet being.” They enjoyed several more passionate days together in Montreal, but neither expected their romance to get them anywhere.
“I didn’t think he wanted a girlfriend on tour”, Mx. Cardenas said. “That’s not fun.”
As Mr. Murray’s touring performances as an acrobat with Cirque du Soleil took him all over the world, the two gradually fell apart. Then, just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, their tour schedules overlapped in Australia.
max Cardenas was in a relationship with someone else at the time, but she and Mr. Murray were still excited to reconnect. “It was special but not flirtatious,” she recalled.
Eventually, Mr. Murray, who grew up in Silver Spring, Md., returned home to the Washington/Mx metropolitan area. Cárdenas returned to Brooklyn. But the two remained in close contact in the months that followed.
“We were very supportive of each other during some dark and scary times,” he said, referring to both the Covid lockdown and Mx. Cárdenas’ breakup with her boyfriend.
After a year of intense remote communication and the launch of the Covid vaccines, Mx. Cárdenas convinced Mr. Murray to visit her in Brooklyn. In May 2021, she biked for 19 hours directly from Washington to Mx. Cárdenas’ Bed-Stuy apartment, where she showered and immediately fell asleep.
“Afterwards, we woke up together and it was wonderful”, Mx. Cardenas said.
Mr. Murray agreed. “After a year and a half of not touching another person, who was not family, it was crazy,” he said.
There was no formal proposal, but rather a mutual decision to marry that followed many long, in-depth conversations about their future together.
The two married on June 4 in an evening ceremony at the Slipper Room, a performing arts theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His friend James Habacker, a minister at Universal Life Church and owner of the venue, led the ceremony. When the couple first told Mr. Habacker that they wanted to rent his club, he offered his officiating duties as a bonus.
About 100 guests attended the ceremony, including New York burlesque stars like Julie Atlas Muz, Mat Fraser, dirty martini and bambi the mermaid.
The Slipper Room routinely hosts wacky and bold burlesque and circus performances. So, MX. The theatrical wedding of Cárdenas and Mr. Murray was a natural fit. “We built it like a show you’d see in the Slipper Room, but with us as the featured acts,” Murray said.
The ceremony began with Mr. Murray building a stack of chairs, while singing Beyoncé’s “Love on Top.” The next act, in charge of the couple, featured costumes designed by Mx. Cardenas. She was wearing a floral dress and he was dressed to look like a roast chicken. “It was about food and lust”, Mx. Cardenas explained.
After the couple recited their vows by equalizing giant hands costumes (also done by the bride), were hoisted into the air through an aerial hoop to exchange their rings.
“That was the only reason we didn’t do a dress rehearsal,” Mr Murray said, adding that his hand suits weren’t ready in time for a fitting. Fortunately, the guest list included many trapeze artists and acrobats who helped them position themselves safely.
For their final act, the couple dressed in handmade Western-style outfits, and Mr. Murray performed lasso tricks that ended with the two being tied in a knot. Soon after, the wedding party and guests had to vacate to make room for another show. An impromptu after party at Arlene’s Grocery, a live music venue, went on late into the night.
In the middle of the theater, the couple had forgotten to ask for a marriage license. So Mr. Habacker ended up signing the marriage license the following Wednesday, June 7, in between previews of the couple’s latest collaboration, “Day of the Dead Live!” which will open October 19 at Brooklyn Art Haus. The show’s pianist, Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, served as a witness.
The couple spent their wedding night at New York’s Sixty LES Hotel and now plan to travel for their honeymoon from Barcelona, Spain to Genoa, Italy. Naturally, they will be riding their bikes.