About The Artist

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Toria Summerville is a real life human pretzel from Woodbridge, Ontario and has been a professional performer in her field for 12 years now. Over her career she has been trained by elite performers in a number of disciplines including hand-balancing, dance, acting, acrobatics, aerial arts and specializing in contortion.

 

Also known as Flexy-T, Toria began her journey as a multi-time award-winning dancer. By the time she was a young adult, she ran away with the circus! Ever since she was a little girl, she has possessed rare natural flexibility beyond that of the average person. Her super power is caused by a collagen deficiency due to a connective tissue disorder she was born with, called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Toria is humbled that she can use her rare disease to her advantage as she has turned its effects on her body into her full-time career. 

 

Her performances have taken her across North America with a myriad of talent companies (Cirque Revolution, Illuminair Entertainment, Hit & Run Dance productions, In Tha Groove, Trillium Entertainment, Trellis Entertainment, The Idea Hunter, among others). She has dazzled large audiences at high profile events such as being the featured act for the live televised national broadcast for the NBA, on Halloween night, as well as for their Christmas Game for the Toronto Raptors as their halftime show. Toria is no stranger to performing at professional sports games, as she has also performed for The Toronto Blue Jays alongside her acrobatics partner, Caleb Ford. She has been a featured performer at Canada's largest fair, The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), Canada's largest theme park- Canada's Wonderland, The Toronto Zoo, and she can be seen performing her act as a contestant on Season 2 of Canada’s Got Talent on CityTV.

 

Her successful live performances have been continuously elevated to cinematic experiences. She is a full union member of ACTRA. Her most recent credits include; acting and performing contortion stunts in the Netflix Documentary “The Devil On Trial”, Amazon Studio’s “Gen V”, Eli Roth’s Virtual Reality Experience “Trick VR Treat”, "Davey & Jonesie's Locker", and “What we do in the Shadows”. In her most recent creature role, she was honoured to work with director Corin Hardy on his new film "Whistle", where she played the role of the "Old Crone" and "Dead Ellie". She has always been a huge horror fan, and since the beginning of her time has believed that she was born to use her freakishly bendy body to create unique scenes. She eagerly awaits future productions where she can dive into transforming herself into unique characters and creatures.

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In her spare time, Toria is a passionate advocate for disability rights, and she is a Co-Chair for ACTRA's Disability Alliance Subcommittee. She also enjoys coaching the next generation of cirque performers at the circus school Cirque-It Work-It, in which she has the honour of working with some students who were born just like her, living with hypermobility disorders. Her mission is to help others who experience similar rare conditions such as herself, to lead fulfilling lives and help them reach their fullest potential.