Debbie Harbin Keenan hasn’t exactly run away to join the circus, but Atlanta’s only circus has lured her into the fold.

“When the casting call came up [in January] for the Imperial Opa Circus, I almost didn’t try out,” Keenan says. Though the mom of two has been training in aerial dance since last October, she still wasn’t sure she was ready. But she ultimately decided to show off the “tricks” she knew.

Good thing she did. They called the next week to invite her to be a part of the circus.

“I consider it an honor to be a part of Atlanta’s only circus,” Keenan says. “And it didn’t take me long to come up with my stage name: DebOnAir. I giggle inside every time I say it.”

And she’s discovered a few things about those circus people. “They are like the kids you grew up with in the neighborhood,” she says. “Some are funny, some are strong and some are just outright characters.

“The biggest difference is the ostentatious moustaches.”

The circus isn’t her full-time gig, and really, it seems she doesn’t have just one job. She’s also a yoga teacher at Vista Yoga in Decatur.

For years, she’d been telling her twin sister that she should become a yoga instructor. “She was so good at her yoga practice, but she couldn’t imagine it,” Keenan says. “Finally it dawned on me. ‘This is my dream! I want to be a yoga instructor!’”

Keenan was trained in Hatha yoga, which required a 200-hour intensive training course held over a nine-month period. She admits it was difficult getting through it when she had two small children at home. Her youngest was around 1 at the time and once a month, she was away from Friday evening until Sunday evening.

“I am a bit of a homebody, so I suffered from separation anxiety on those weekends,” she says. “Sometimes I wanted to quit. But it taught me what it takes when you really want/need something to happen.”

As for teaching, she admits some days she’s on and some days it’s just not happening. “Yoga is a great analogy for life,” Keenan says. “It’s a delicate balance.”

The Decatur mom has been teaching two and a half years at Vista. She says she thinks she benefits from teaching as much as the students benefit from the practice. “Yoga class is calming to take but also to teach,” she says. “I heard it once said ‘yoga instructors teach for themselves, they practice for their students.’

“Plus why wouldn’t I want a job where I walk around barefoot, wearing the equivalent of comfy pajamas?”

Having the flexibility of teaching yoga classes means Keenan can practice aerial at Sky Gym in Sandy Springs to prepare for circus performances, but “being a parent means I have to be realistic about how much involvement I can have in the circus,” she says.

She has two sons, 5-year-old Jasper and 4-year-old Emmett.

The boys have their own activities, but Keenan works them into her training routine as well. They hike up Stone Mountain once a week. Emmett sits in a backpack on Mom’s back. “I like to imagine if there were some sort of emergency situation where I needed to carry my children out, that I could do it!” she says.

After helping her train, it only seems fair that some events work out perfectly for her husband, Jason, and their kids to see her perform her aerial routine.

“Jasper and Emmett are both monkeys/acrobats themselves,” she says. “I decided it couldn’t hurt to keep them in regular gymnastics classes in case we decide to create a family act.

“How does ‘The Fabulous Von-Keenans’ sound?”

NOX: A Current of Dreams, a student showcase at Sky Gym, is Aug. 25, 6:30-8:30 p.m.; and Aug. 26, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Cost is $10 in advance and $15 at the door.