Victoria Van Dame, the founder and executive director of OT Circus, was born in Albuquerque and raised in Cuba, New Mexico. Her father was the mailman, a butcher, operated a tow truck and served as the mayor. Her mother was a teacher. She has lived in Albuquerque since moving back from Kauai, Hawaii, where she lived for nine years. She currently lives in a loft above the OT Circus gallery space with her fiancé, Lawrence, and her two pups, Arthur and Harlow. Her two kids are grown up. Vaughn lives in Phoenix where he is a teacher and head football coach at a junior college. Taeru attends the Parsons School of Fashion in Portland and designs clothing for her own line called With Reality. “My kids are my greatest accomplishment,” she says, “without them none of this would be possible.” She also shares two “bonus kids” with Lawrence: Lunati and Rocco.
Victoria became an occupational therapist, or OT, in 2001. “I love my job! My husband had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and that’s how I learned about how much impact OT can have on people’s abilities and disabilities to be able to live a fulfilled life.” Victoria takes after her father and has many jobs, from working in a local ICU as an OT, to running her own OT practice, And Me Therapy, where she also supervises several COTAs (certified occupational therapy assistants). In addition, she manages several properties, including an Airbnb, is opening a coffee shop called Curious Toast, and has taken on the roll of “Mayor of Downtown.” Of course, she is also the executive director of OT Circus! “I always see a need and think outside the box to fill it. Artists needed space and I brought it,” she says of why she started the Circus in 2013. As for the future of OT Circus, “I see more circus all over our state, and then all over the nation...then the world!”
A typical day at OT Circus features plenty of hustle and bustle. “There’s always something going on in the world of the Circus, from running online art classes to everyone getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid. People are starting to see the light at the end of the COVID tunnel.”
