Audience members wandered down the backyard’s sloping lawn past psychedelic deer statues, neon mannequin limbs and a constellation of bowling balls to find their seats. The mismatched chairs labeled “stained not dirty” were filled last with stragglers toting takeout and six-packs. Aerial silks swayed above in the breeze as the sun set.

“You might be thinking, ‘This is a yard?’” the master of ceremonies began. “It’s a portal.”

By the end of the night, boomed Russell Rinker, “we’ll all be different.”

Suburbanites, meet the circus performers playing out their wildest ideas next door.

For the past five years, “The Glow,” an underground variety show that runs just two days a year, has hidden in plain sight in the Columbia village of Kings Contrivance, its cult following so word-of-mouth that many in Howard County don’t know it exists.

The event’s Instagram has fewer than 1,000 followers, but a dedicated audience of roughly 100 neighbors, family and friends return year after year.

Perhaps that’s because there are no corporate sponsors, no event promoters to appease — just hosts Rinker and Joan Cooper, both of whom perform in the show they said began as an end-of-the-world-esque housewarming party in 2020.

Cooper, who grew up in Sarasota, Florida, in the shadow of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, is a pharmacist with a side hustle as an aerialist. Rinker, a Virginia native, is an actor and musician whose resume includes a five-year stint with Blue Man Group.

One weekend a year in late summer, the couple open their backyard on a quiet cul-de-sac to their network of aerialists, wrestlers, contortionists and other performers across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia.

Put on the craziest act you can imagine, they say. Be outrageous.

“We’re doing acts that we can’t do at a gig,” Cooper said. “It’s something that is just for ourselves, for our community.”

The performers’ clients are most interested in creating an ambiance and maximizing the amount of time that performers work. But at “The Glow,” the cast are encouraged to explore their own ideas, choreographing routines around themes like disco snails, Black joy, sexual expression and the grief of losing a beloved pet.

Singers croon from a trapeze. Acrobats experiment with fire. Aerialists swing from chains bought at Home Depot. This year, Cooper put together an aerial routine with her 9- and 11-year-old daughters for the first time ever.

“The world is full of uncertainty, especially right now,” said Caitlin Weiger, an aerialist who performs in a duo with Cooper. “It’s so nice to have a base of people that love you, support you no matter what, let you be your most authentic, weirdest self.”

To aerialist Randi Kaltrider, the show hums with excitement.

“People are celebrated for all of the gifts that they have,” Kaltrider said. “Out of all of the performances that I have personally done for circus, I look forward to ‘The Glow’ the most.”

The result is a surrealist fever dream featuring circus performers’ favorite circus performance.

On a Friday evening in August, opening night kicked off with a nod to “Cabaret,” a musical set in a hedonistic Berlin nightclub during the Nazi party’s rise to power. Cooper played the musical’s first number “Willkommen” on an accordion as Rinker belted out updated lyrics.

We have our way

to fight decay.

It’s pretty gay,

and that’s okay.

Our cabaret,

in suburb-I-A!

The Columbia suburb is perhaps what gives “The Glow” its allure. Neighbors stumble across the circus while walking their dogs or find that the best seats in the house are their own back porches.

Spicier acts feature burlesque, so children aren’t permitted and Cooper’s daughters head indoors after their routines end.

Other aspects of the location can be a difficult sword to swallow.

Audience members must search under the sink when the toilet paper runs out in Cooper and Rinker’s humble ground-level bathroom. The cops showed up the first few years to remind everyone that a local noise ordinance takes effect at 10 p.m. And this year, a change to local zoning laws nearly darkened “The Glow.”

The Howard County Council passed emergency legislation in late July raising the penalties for paid parties at residential properties from $250 to $5,000. The bill aimed to crack down on rowdy house parties across Howard, but raised questions about the county’s evolving short-term rental industry.

Earlier in the summer, Cooper and Rinker tried selling tickets to “The Glow” on TicketLeap in an effort to track the audience headcount and keep its size manageable. Ticket prices were described as a donation but came with a $20 minimum.

The couple said the funds help cover their expenses — for extension cords, lighting and sound equipment, or chairs. The remaining proceeds are split among performers. They took down the ticket listing after hearing about council deliberations — but neighbors rallied around the artists anyway.

“It is as fun as it is inspiring, and our friends who don’t live in our neighborhood tell us how lucky we are to live here and have it,” one resident on Narrow Wind Way said in an email imploring the council to create an exception for “The Glow.”

Councilwoman Christiana Rigby was in the audience Friday along with friends visiting from Europe. “You live in vacationland,” they told her.

Rigby said it’s more like the “magical third space we’ve been seeking.”

“It’s very ‘if you know, you know,’” the councilwoman said. “This is the most Columbia thing I can think of. It’s artistic, it’s quirky, it’s neighbor-based. It’s centered on connecting community.”

Rinker and Cooper said they’ve tried their best to do right by the neighborhood. They set the dates months in advance and before the beginning of the school year. They knock on doors to give neighbors a heads-up and invite them. During past dress rehearsals, Rinker drove around surrounding streets to monitor how sound carries.

Some fans of “The Glow” have suggested they relocate the show to a larger venue or start their own production company featuring a cadre of performers. That’s not the goal, the couple said.

“It changes when it becomes your business,” Rinker said. “This is our passion.”

After all, where else could 11-year-old Vivian Cooper perform a routine featuring a pine tree? As dusk fell on opening night, she scaled the trunk in a rock-climbing harness and a tutu.

When she heard her cue, she gripped a branch and leapt into the air.

The crowd roared.