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| Founder(s) | Wendy Parkman Judy Finelli |
|---|---|
| Established | 1984 |
| Location | , , |
| Coordinates | 37°45′57″N122°27′25″W / 37.76583°N 122.45694°W |
| Website | circuscenter |
Circus Center is a circus school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1984 by Wendy Parkman and Judy Finelli as the San Francisco School of Circus Arts.
In 1974 the Pickle Family Circus was founded by Peggy Snider and Larry Pisoni. Ten years later, the San Francisco School of Circus Arts was founded by Wendy Parkman and Judy Finelli as a project of the Pickle Family Circus. [1] The school was then located at the Pickle headquarters in an old church on San Francisco's Potrero Hill. Two years later, Hannah Kahn assumed control of the school, directing it over the next 10 years. In 1990, master instructor Lu Yi was hired [2] with the mandate of developing the most comprehensive Chinese acrobatics program outside of China. Three years later, the school was incorporated as a separate nonprofit organization, and moved into a vacant Polytech high school gymnasium in the Haight-Ashbury district. In 1996, the San Francisco Circus was established, and later that year the school staged its first student production, Zoppo!, a show that played to a sold-out house at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason.
Four years passed before the San Francisco School of Circus Arts purchased the New Pickle Circus from the Santa Cruz-based nonprofit organization that had produced the company's shows since 1993. All of the purchase price was raised from contributed sources, and from this date on, all of the organization's professional productions have been staged under the banner of the New Pickle Circus. Student productions are produced under the name "San Francisco Circus". The Clown Conservatory program was then started with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as the only year-long professional circus clown training program in the United States. In 2001, the board of directors changed the corporation's name to Circus Center, reflecting the fact that the organization now encompassed more than a school. [3]
The school currently offers classes and private instruction in numerous circus skills, including Chinese acrobatics, contortion, Chinese pole, juggling, teeterboard, trampoline, static trapeze, flying trapeze, aerial hoop, aerial silk and aerial straps. It also offers the unique two-year Clown Conservatory program and various workshops. [4]
The following outline provides an overview of and topical guide to entertainment and the entertainment industry:
Acrobatics is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro dance, circus, gymnastics, and freerunning and to a lesser extent in other athletic activities including ballet, slacklining and diving. Although acrobatics is most commonly associated with human body performance, the term is used to describe other types of performance, such as aerobatics.
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes, metal straps, or chains, from a ceiling support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning, swinging or flying, and may be performed solo, double, triple or as a group act.
The Pickle Family Circus was a small circus founded in 1974 in San Francisco, California, United States. The circus formed an important part of the renewal of the American circus. They also influenced the creation of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal. Neither circus features animals or use the three-ring layout like the traditional circus.
Josh Routh is an American circus performer, and a founding member of the comedic troop Brothers Kaputnik, Death By Tickle and Circus Kaput. Josh trained at the Circus Center in San Francisco, California and attended the Clown Conservatory where he graduated "Class Clown". As Tchotchke, his alter ego, Josh has performed with The New Pickle Circus (formerly the Pickle Family Circus, The San Francisco Youth Circus, The Much Ado Shakespeare Circus and Velocity Circus.
The title Moscow State Circus is used for a variety of circuses. Most commonly, it refers to one of the two circus buildings in Moscow, the "Circus Nikulin" and the "Bolshoi Circus", or to traveling shows which may or may not be directly related to Russia.
The Clown Conservatory is a performing arts school in San Francisco, CA. The school began in 2000 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Aerial silks is a type of performance in which one or more artists perform aerial acrobatics while hanging from a specialist fabric. The fabric may be hung as two pieces, or a single piece, folded to make a loop, classified as hammock silks. Performers climb the suspended fabric without the use of safety lines and rely only on their training and skill to ensure safety. They use the fabric to wrap, suspend, drop, swing, and spiral their bodies into and out of various positions. The fabric may also be used to fly through the air, striking poses and figures. Some performers use rosin on their hands and feet to increase the friction and grip on the fabric. Aerial silks is a demanding art and requires a high degree of strength, power, flexibility, courage, stamina, and grace to practice.
The National Circus School is a professional circus school located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is for higher education in the art of circus. The NCS also offers academic subjects at the secondary and college levels. It is one of the only circus school in the Americas to offer professional programs in circus arts: Preparatory program, Circus and High School Studies, and Higher Education in Circus arts. It also prepares professional circus arts educators.
The aerial hoop is a circular steel apparatus suspended from the ceiling, on which circus artists may perform aerial acrobatics. It can be used static, spinning, or swinging. Tricks that can be performed include the Candlestick, Bird's Nest and Crescent Moon
Nouvelle Expérience was Cirque du Soleil's fourth touring circus show, which premiered in 1990.
Tuuli Pauliina Räsänen is a circus performer and actress from Finland. Her career jump-started when she was invited to perform as the first Fennoscandian soloist with Cirque du Soleil. She was awarded a five-year grant from Finland's Central Commission of Arts to pursuit artistic work. She has succeeded in establishing her career in the international market and at the moment performs with Komische Oper Berlin.
Jeff Raz is an American clown, actor, teacher, and director. He founded and served as director of the Clown Conservatory in San Francisco, California, the country's only remaining professional clown training program from 2000 to 2010. As a performer he has had leading roles with Vaudeville Nouveau, Make*A*Circus, Pickle Family Circus, and Cirque du Soleil.
The Philadelphia School of Circus Arts (PSCA) is a contemporary circus school in Philadelphia. It began in June 2008.
Contemporary circus is a contested term in circus studies. In this article, it is used in contrast to the term 'traditional circus', combining with the genre elsewhere disambiguated as new circus or nouveau cirque. Many circus scholars prefer to separate these styles, as elaborated in circus. Contemporary circus, by this definition, is a genre of performing arts developed in the late 20th century in which a story, theme, mood or question is conveyed through traditional circus skills. For fans of animal performance in circus, this genre could arguably be found more akin to Variety as animals are rarely used, and traditional circus skills are blended with more choreographic, character-driven or mechanical approaches.
David Larible is an Italian clown.
Mina Liccione is an American performing artist, comedian, tap dancer, choreographer, and arts educator.
Joan Mankin (May 16, 1948 – September 26, 2015] was an actor and clown prominent in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the early 1970s through 2014. Mankin started her professional career in San Francisco in 1970 with a production of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's An Independent Female. Thereafter, she appeared in major roles in many Bay Area theater companies including the American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre Company, Berkeley Rep, San Francisco Playhouse and California Shakespeare Theatre as well as the feminist Lilith Theater in the late 1970s early 1980s, of which she was Artistic Director for two years. In 2006 she had a major singing role in the Los Angeles Ahmanson Theatre's production of The Black Rider: The Casting of Magic Bullets.
Make*A*Circus was a professional, recreational, and educational circus that created free day-long events in which children observed a professional circus performance, took workshops in the circus skills of their choice, and finally performed their own circus. It took place outdoors in parks, in primarily underserved neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, and all over the state of California, with 400 to 700 children per show. It lasted for 25 years, from 1975 to 2002.