STRONG MAN
Meet Toni Cannon, a charismatic trans man known for his acrobatic strongman performances, which combine feats of strength with dramatic flair.
“ I wouldn't say I had the worst family experience with being trans or queer, but it was challenging.” – Toni Cannon
Toni shares his journey of coming out as trans, discovering acrobatics, and eventually joining San Francisco’s Circus Bella. Plus, how his act playfully critiques toxic masculinity.
Toni Cannon & Christopher Beale
LINKS
The full conversation with Toni Cannon
TRANSCRIPT
Christopher Beale:
Welcome to Stereotypes, straight talk from queer voices. I'm Christopher Beale. This is the podcast where I give you a glimpse into queer news, culture, and history.
For as long as I can remember, I've loved going to the circus, whether it was like, I don't know, Ringling Brother and Barnum and Bailey growing up with the animals and the motorcycles, or Cirque du Soleil reinventing the genre with their avant garde presentations of acrobatic wizardry.
And luckily, here in San Francisco, there are several companies that put on just really fabulous circus events, including this one called Circus Bella.
Circus Bella performs under this big red tent, and their shows feature all manner of acrobatics and stunts, clowns, and these moments that feel so death defying that they quite literally move you to the edge of your seat.
There's this one performer in the show that I want you to meet.
Toni Cannon:
Toni Cannon.
Christopher Beale:
Toni is a muscular, good looking black man with a million watt smile, and his circus character is larger than life.
Toni Cannon:
A strongman circus act is doing feats of strength. Toni's strongman features throughout the show. Like, I bend a bar, I rip an apple in half, I roll a frying pan. Lifting various people up in the air. Two people stacked on top of me. Then I do some, like, handstands and stuff. It's just feats of strength so it's like whatever.
Christopher Beale:
Your job is to make people go whoa.
Toni Cannon:
Whoa, yeah.
Christopher Beale:
And the biggest whoa moment of Toni's act for me is when he does this thing called the Chinese pull. Now, the stage at Circus Bella is already elevated up pretty high, so everybody can see. And on top of that stage is this tall pole that seems to disappear into the darkness of the Big Top. Near the end of his act, Toni climbs all the way up that pole, as high as he can go, and hangs upside down.
Holding on with just his thighs, arms outstretched, looking down at the stage, 18 feet below. And you can literally see the audience shift in their seats as Toni looks down at the stage and lets go.
So in that moment, right before you let go, what's going through your mind?
Toni Cannon:
When I'm at the top of the pole about to do that drop, that's when it's like, yeah. Like, oh yeah, I'm gonna getcha.
Christopher Beale:
You strike the stage like lightning, stopping within inches of hitting your face, breaking your neck, ending your life. And then you glance up and you smile at the audience. You're not feeling nervous at all. You're 100 percent confident in your trick.
Toni Cannon:
Oh, absolutely.
Christopher Beale:
And so you know you've got the audience in your hand.
Toni Cannon:
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Christopher Beale:
Many acrobats are lifelong performers. For some, it's a family business. Some are even former Olympians. But not Toni. In fact, Toni would almost fall into acrobatics in his late 20s. But first He had to face coming out as trans.
Toni Cannon:
I wouldn't say I had the worst family experience with being trans or queer, but it was challenging. It was just something that, it was like, no, no, you're not, for a long time. And I wouldn't say I went in the closet because it's like, when you don't have the words for the way that you're feeling and there's no, uh, representation around you, you're just like, okay, I guess that was weird.
Christopher Beale:
Then at 21 years old,
Toni Cannon:
I moved out of my mom's house and that's when I learned about hormone treatment and like all the things I was just like, I guess I never is like, I was like hiding from it so much growing up that I like didn't even realize that there were options. But once I found out, then I just like came out. I've been on hormones for a long time.
Christopher Beale:
Later, Toni moved to Northern California, where he happened upon a gym in the Bay Area and started dabbling in acrobatics there.
Toni Cannon:
Kind of fell in love with it. And I was like, I want to do this professionally. I need to train like at least 25 hours a week.
Christopher Beale:
Then he ran into Abigail Munn.
Toni Cannon:
Abigail Munn is the owner of Circus Bella. She's the boss lady. I guess she just like. Loved my vibe from the beginning was kind of just waiting till I got an act To ask if I wanted to be a part of Circus Bella. So it was like, yeah, it was really kind of perfect.
Christopher Beale:
I'm fascinated by the concept of a trans man Playing a strong man, which is in You know, the circus atmosphere, the representation of masculinity, right? Um, which you are, like, I've seen you perform. You are the prototype of masculinity in your role. You crush it. Um, how important is it for you personally to, to also live out loud while occupying that masculine role?
Toni Cannon:
It's funny because the whole reason why I started even thinking about making the Strongman act was because when I started doing Circus, I was like, I want to make a solo show. And one of the acts that I want to do in the solo show is A strongman act making fun of toxic masculinity. And it just became this thing where I'm like, wow, I'm just like this super masculine character. It's so funny. And it's just really interesting that that's what came out of it.
To a certain extent, right? There's like, when you, when you're performing on stage, like even they say with clowns, they're like, clowns are usually just like a dramatization of themselves. And I'm like, I guess like, I guess that's like my strongman act. It's like really funny. You just like kind of play on things that you know and then just make it more dramatic or whatever.
Christopher Beale:
It's you turned up to ten.
Toni Cannon:
Yeah, exactly.
Christopher Beale:
Toni Cannon is performing in Circus Bella's holiday show Kaleidoscope and they're always announcing new stuff and dropping content on Instagram. They're a great follow. Check out Circus Bella at CircusBella.com. And Toni is on Instagram.
Toni Cannon:
@Acrocanon.
Christopher Beale:
That's A C R O C A N N O N.
Toni Cannon:
Next year sometime I'll be doing my show, Reflections, which if you follow me on Instagram then you can stay updated with that.
Christopher Beale:
I really appreciate your work and the way you represent yourself and your dedication to your craft. Thank you. Super nice meeting you. for doing this.
Toni Cannon:
Yeah, absolutely. You're welcome.
Christopher Beale:
This episode of Stereotypes was produced by me, Christopher Beale. Special thanks to Lawrence Hellman, Jonah Price, and Circus Bella for helping out with this episode.
I'm going to take the rest of the year off to unwind, but I will still be posting stuff on Patreon.
You can find that, hear past episodes, and get in touch with me at StereotypesPodcast.org. I'm Christopher Beale. I'll be back in January with Season 4 of Stereotypes. Straight talk from queer voices. Bye for now.
