(bright music continues) - Hey, I'm Nicole and welcome aboard.

Welcome to Flotsam.

(bright music continues) Flotsam is a floating raft that's been built out into a stage that holds a bandstand, aerial points, places for a lot of different kinds of circus and puppetry to happen, and hopefully pull off a lot of different surprises.

- [Performer] We're a floating circus.

- It's the last humans floating on a garbage raft and they're in a world of invasive mutant fish and maybe they survive or maybe those really are the last humans.

(bright music continues) - I think it's a really cool project, it's emergent, it brings communities together, it doesn't need any advertising, people just hear about it by word of mouth.

It's this really old-fashioned thing, and seeing audiences just kind of materialize on the riverbank to watch our show, it's pretty magical.

- [Audience] Whoa!

(bright music continues) (bright music continues) - Our boat is our stage.

The show all happens on the boat.

We tie off at the riverbank, and then the audience all gathers on the shore and watches the show.

- [Nicole] This year, we're doing the Illinois Waterway.

This is Flotsam's seventh year, and Jason Webley that created it picks a different river every year.

Last year, I did the Erie Canal into New York with them, and this year we're doing the Illinois Waterway.

We started in St.

Louis, we're gonna end in Chicago.

(bright music continues) - The two most common questions are like, "You don't actually drive that thing from place to place?"

And the answer is yes.

And then, the other question is like, "Yeah, do y'all live and sleep on that boat?"

And the answer is sort of yes, I do, I sleep on the boat almost every night on tour, and there's three of us that do.

We also have a ground crew.

We've got an old school bus that I built out, and that holds most of the crew.

This is also where I live when I'm piloting the boat on the river.

There's like a long piece of pipe that comes up here and I just use that to steer the boat.

- This has to move every day.

I think it hits a grand speed of about five miles an hour if we're lucky, so you'll just have really kind of long, beautiful days on the river.

(clacker clicking) - The old shows, the tented shows, they don't go to the small towns anymore like they used to in the old days.

So a town this size will have very little in the ways of live performance.

To bring something here that's, I think, very generous, public facing show, has a little something for everyone.

Our hope is that they treat it as a true gift and that they're able to come back together and share something special and enjoy live performance, live art.

(audience cheering) (upbeat music) (performers shouting) - [Jason] I feel like we're part of something out of a fairytale.

It feels like we're doing something impossible and epic and really magical and tangibly rewarding.

- [Kalan] The purpose of this project in a wide angle sense as I see it is to sort of say that anything is sort of possible.

(audience applauding) (intriguing music) (upbeat music) - When we get to a town and show up and there's like a small crowd, but then you start seeing the people rolling down the hill and it goes from being like a modest crowd to like, "Where did all these people come from?

People are still coming.

Where are they coming from?"

I love that feeling.

Every day, when that happens, I feel kind of giddy.

- The key word for me is generosity, you know?

It's true that we're trying to come up here and do something that means something to us, but if it doesn't mean something to the people watching it, then I don't think we're doing our job.

And, also, we can't spread that creativity and joy.

So to me, as a clown, as a circus performer, the reason I love this art, you know, more than theater or film, the reason I love circus and clowning is because it's generous.

(audience cheering) (drums banging) If the audience isn't with us, you know, if they're not smiling, if they're not gasping, if they're not applauding, then we haven't done our job.

And so we really need to be with the people and share what we, you know, bring our best to the show.

And I end the show completely drenched in sweat, and it's a cathartic experience, and I just, I have a smile on my face every single time.

♪ La la la la ♪ ♪ La la la la la la ♪ ♪ La la la la ♪ (pleasant music)