Karyne Steben

Karyne Steben is a Canadian trapeze artist, acrobat, and movement creator best known for developing an internationally awarded two-woman swinging-trapeze act with her twin sister Sarah. Born in Montréal on 26 July 1974, Karyne and Sarah grew up in a performance-centered family: their father, Claude Steben, was a singer, actor, and television host who introduced them to performance at age six through the Québec children's program *Les Satellipopettes*. Alongside television work, the sisters trained in dance and gymnastics, disciplines that shaped the physical symmetry and theatrical presence of their later aerial partnership.

At sixteen, Karyne and Sarah caught the attention of Cirque du Soleil talent scout and former aerialist Andrew Watson, who helped them develop their swinging-trapeze duet. Karyne graduated from Montréal's National Circus School in 1991 as a trapeze duo specialist. The sisters' act emerged from a Québec circus environment where aerial technique, choreography, and character were treated as an integrated stage language. In 1992, they joined Cirque du Soleil's *Saltimbanco* and won a gold medal at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. They went on to win a gold medal at the Gran Premio del Circo di Genova in December 1994, establishing themselves as both company artists and an independent festival act.

Throughout the mid-1990s, Karyne and Sarah performed across circus, variety theatre, and film. In 1995 they performed at Frankfurt's TigerPalast, won a silver medal at Stockholm's Circus Prinsessan Festival, and appeared in Patricia Rozema's film *When Night Is Falling*. They rejoined *Saltimbanco* for its European tour in October 1995, then received the Silver Clown at the 1996 International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo and performed for the G7 summit in Lyon. In 1998, the sisters became original cast members and featured trapeze artists in Cirque du Soleil's *O* at Bellagio in Las Vegas, a residency that extended their Cirque du Soleil tenure across eleven total years.

Beyond the major circus productions, Karyne and Sarah developed work in film, television, and video art. They appeared in HBO's *Carnivàle* between 2003 and 2005, played roles in Teatro ZinZanni productions, and performed in video sequences created by artist Bill Viola for Peter Sellars's production of Wagner's *Tristan und Isolde*. Over time, their professional identity expanded to encompass movement creation, coaching, and training alongside performance. This shift reflects a crucial dimension of their legacy: their contribution extends beyond a sequence of catches to include the construction, transmission, and sustained authorship of a duo relationship over decades.