Coming To Be

When I was a young girl, I would watch movies like Benjamin Button or Burlesque. I grew a deep romanticized attachment to the thought of being in a dressing room backstage. I felt that if you had your own dressing room in Hollywood, you were a star. 

By the age of 23, I found myself sitting in my own dressing room. I was backstage preparing for a three month gig as a co-star of a well known magic show in Santa Monica called Magicopolis. As I sat there getting ready, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the fact that I was literally sitting in my childhood dream. Everything that everyone had once told me was impossible was suddenly irrelevant. I had become what people said I could never be.

But it was at no small cost. As most dreams do, my dream required an awful lot of sweat, blood and tears. To this day, people ask me how I did it. How did I become a successful performer in Hollywood? How did I build my own company by the age of 24? I was also often asked why. Why did I spiral down such a dark path? Why was a straying from my religious background and becoming something that my hometown considered disgraceful? I did my best to answer the first set of questions. However, it's difficult to explain in a single text something that took a quarter of a lifetime to achieve. As for the second set of questions, I completely ignored those. The complexity of what I went through in life could not be explained in a single text.

Today, I decided that it was finally time to answer all the questions.
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My name is Alyssa Mei Liu (a.k.a. Alicia Cirque) and I'm a circus burlesque performer in Hollywood. Four years ago, I was twenty, homeless and traveling the world as a Christian missionary. I was a well known in my community. At sixteen, I was speaking in churches. Children and elderly alike listened to and respected all that I had to say. I was something of a Christian celebrity in my little city. By the time I was twenty-one, I was married.

But today, you'll never find me in a church sitting with my husband. More often than not, I'll be in a high-end bar, hanging from the ceiling or lighting myself on fire while taking my clothes off in front of an audience and being thankful for my divorce. Looks like two very different pictures, sounds like two very different people.  

But the beauty of life is that they are not. People are allowed to change and flourish as life pushes them along. So here's my story, packed with plenty of tips on how to become a full-time performer and overcoming challenging odds. I hope it helps you along your own journey.