In Cavalia’s “Odysseo,” horses thunder across the stage as their riders dangle upside down from the saddle or stand gracefully astride two fast-moving steeds.
Another act brings 32 horses and riders onstage at once, executing precise, interweaving figure eights and graceful, flawless dressage.
For Spencer Rose Litwack — who goes by the name Spencer Rose — performing these tricks and working with the magnificent equine members of the cast is a horse-lover’s dream job. The 24-year-old from the San Joaquin Valley town of Exeter was recruited by Cavalia when she was just 19. The $30-million equine theatrical production, based in Canada, needed a roper. Rose’s proficiency — learned and honed as a teenager — fit the bill. An expert horsewoman undaunted by challenges, she has since taken on several other exciting roles — like hanging upside down from a galloping horse.
Rose has been touring with Cavalia for more than four years, traveling throughout North America and as far away as the United Arab Emirates and Australia, where she spent a year.
She is one of only two Jewish members among the several hundred people — from stable crew, to set designers, to performance artists — involved in the show.
Currently performing under the huge white big top by AT&T Park in San Francisco, “Odysseo” runs through Jan. 17 before moving on to Southern California.
Rose grew up observing major Jewish holidays (“I still call my grandma on all the holidays”) and her newest trick-riding horse is an Appaloosa that she named Adonai.
The other Jewish woman traveling with the troupe is an artistic therapist from Canada. Joanne Baker misses the large family gatherings that marked the Jewish holidays when she was growing up in Ottawa, where her family belonged to an Orthodox synagogue and she attended Hebrew school three days a week. And those seders for 50 hosted with a friend when she was living in Toronto are now a fond memory of the past.
Baker, 50, has been on the road with the troupe for 21/2 years. She first joined the show in Toronto for a two-week stint, filling in for the vacationing artistic therapist. A year later, within 30 minutes of wrapping up a contract job, Baker got a permanent job offer from Cavalia. “It literally fell in my lap,” she says.
As the artistic therapist, Baker works primarily with riders like Rose, the amazing ground-based acrobats from West Guinea, aerialists and other performers.
Her “office” is a bare-bones trailer equipped with a desk, a cushioned bench where her clients can stretch out, various massage tools, and sundry small posters she’s taped to the walls and ceiling, advocating the importance of stretching, drinking water and electrolytes. “Water’s the key for everything,” Baker adds, recommending two liters a day.
Baker also works at a warm-up area near the stage, where she can assist artists, stagehands, grooms and others with stretches, and help them work through any physical kinks. She says shoulders and knees bear much of the brunt.
“Any athlete that’s going to do six to seven shows a week, they’re going to have aches and pains,” she says.
Baker also is “first responder” to any injury, and is stationed right by the stage during trick riding and jumping performances, “just in case …,” she says.
Though she says accidents “rarely occur,” Baker adds that “horses make the show reality for me, because you never know what the horse is going to do.”
Rose, who serves as head of Roman riding (in which the rider stands atop a horse, even while going over jumps), can’t recall any major mishaps with the animals. If anything, she says, it’s the riders who may make mistakes. “We try to make it as safe as possible.”
For the last six months, she’s been working with Kart, a Spanish purebred, on the Roman riding stunts. “I trust that horse with my life,” Rose says.
“We all have certain horses that we work with. It’s important to build that bond with your horses.”
Sixty-five horses, representing more than a dozen different breeds, travel with the show. For any long-distance travel, they are flown by plane in custom stalls. And, like the riders, each horse has a few specialty skills and does about six shows per week. Approximately 45 artists and horses participate in each show.
Rose is quick to point out that Cavalia horses have a good life. “We don’t use the horses till they’re broken, and when it’s time, we let them retire.” Riders, in fact, are encouraged to adopt their horses — and Rose has done just that with two of them.
She keeps them at Riata Ranch in Three Rivers, not far from Exeter, where she learned roping, trick riding and equitation starting at age 12; she soon became a member of the all-girl performance team. “They’re on 62 acres, loving life,” Rose says.
She tries to get home to see them (as well as her other horse) whenever possible. While based in San Francisco, “when I have two days [off] I go home,” she says. She also may head home to Exeter during the show’s two-week break between six-week stays in each city.
Baker enjoys visiting her aunt in Toronto when she can, and if the timing is right, she especially likes being part of large family gatherings for the Jewish holidays.
Short of that, there’s her Cavalia family — especially the performing artists with whom she works so closely. “I tell my parents, ‘These are my kids. I have 45 of them!’ ”
Cavalia’s “Odysseo,” through Jan. 17, 1051 Third St., S.F. $45-$290. www.tinyurl.com/odysseosf or (866) 999-8111