5 New Programs!
Thanks to funding from the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, Halifax Circus is opening up five new social circus programs! We have now spread to Dartmouth, the North end, and Spryfield!
Circus Circle on YouTube
Hey all -- here is our new promotional video, featuring our performance at Neptune’s Studio theatre, and some footage of our rehearsals and current practice times.
Feeling Nine Feet Tall
Archived from The Chronicle Herald, March 31 2009, by Andrea Nemetz, Arts Reporter:
Performers rehearse for the upcoming Circus Circle show at St. Matthew’s Church gym. The show, which runs Wednesday to Friday at Neptune’s Studio Theatre, features jugglers, unicyclists and acrobats.(ERIC WYNNE / Staff)
THERE WILL BE be lots of juggling, a transvestite, nightmarish horrors and beautiful cartoons when Circus Circle stages its debut show Wednesday to Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Neptune’s Studio Theatre, says performer Zack Collins, with a shake of his fluorescent striped hair.
“It’s everything you can imagine wrapped in a circus-y delicious package,” says the 21-year-old Dartmouth native who is hoping for a career in circus arts.
Circus Circle in Motion, with 24 performers aged 10 to 56 hailing from Halifax Regional Municipality, Truro, and Kentville, features artistic direction by Michael Hirschbach, a former performer and teacher with Cirque du Soleil and direction by dancer/actor Louise Renault. Ringmasters are Jamie Bradley and Lucy Decoutere of Trailer Park Boys fame.
“It’s a celebration of the best circus work now being created in Nova Scotia,” says Hirschbach, as jugglers, unicyclists and stilt walkers mill about in rehearsal in the gymnasium of St. Matthew’s United Church in Halifax.
Among the more seasoned performers in the two-hour show will be Daniel Mahoney, a pogo stick artist recently seen on the Ellen DeGeneres show and Dawn Shepherd, a local aerialist currently studying at the National Circus School in Montreal. As well, five performers who were part of a group of 11 who performed in the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo last year, will strut their stuff.
“It’s everything you can imagine wrapped in a circus-y delicious package,” says the 21-year-old Dartmouth native who is hoping for a career in circus arts.
Many of the performers are participants in Circus Circle, a social circus program Hirschbach began at St. Matt’s in Halifax in 2006 targeted at street-involved and homeless youth aged 16 to 30. Circus Circle ( http://www.circuscircle.ca/) has now expanded to Kentville, Dartmouth and the Waterville Youth Detention Centre with a new program slated to start at the George Dixon Centre in Halifax.
After Wolfville resident Hirschbach finished his performing career with Cirque de Soleil in 2003, he was approached by Cirque du Monde, Cirque du Soleil’s social outreach program and asked if he’d be interested in coming onboard as a teacher. The program operates in more than 50 communities around the world in partnerships with Jeunesse du Monde, Oxfam International and community to teach youth life skills.
“My job was to work with the youth instructors and bring their skills up by teaching workshops. I taught for one to four weeks in places like Las Vegas, L.A., Montreal, Toronto, N.Y., Orlando, South Africa and Burkina Faso,” says Hirschbach.
When he returned to Nova Scotia in 2005, he realized that the same kinds of problems that exist in other parts of the world exist here and he began working to establish a social circus program that would be free for participants.
“I’m constantly involved in fundraising, and I work with a number of funding agencies. Without the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage and Nova Scotia Health Promotion and Protection, it wouldn’t have happened. And St. Matt’s is one of our real champions.”
Seoras Speirs, has been involved with the program, which runs twice a week at St. Matt’s, since its early days.
The 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Sackville High has been unicycling for about six years and has been involved in other circus arts for about a year and a half. Now he does juggling, tightrope, walking globes (giant plastic balls on which performers stand), cigar boxes and bar flair (juggling like bartenders do, a la Tom Cruise in Cocktail).
“I do circus every day. I find I’m jumping around activities, skateboarding, playing drums. With circus I can jump around in the same field. And I like the environment, it’s a really solid group.”
Speirs was one of the youth involved with the Tattoo, and the success there led to the idea for Circus Circle in Motion, which Hirschbach hopes will become an annual event.
“The youth were so energized, they were really pushing me to do a show of their own, to take the skills they’ve been working on here to a new level.”
Kailey McMillen, 15, will be making her performing debut.
The Grade 10 student at Sackville High began coming to Circus Circle in October, after seeing Speirs riding around school on his unicycle.
“I was never interested in sports and I didn’t have a whole lot of extracurricular activities, so I was all for the idea of trying to ride a unicycle. It took me two months until I was solid,” she says, while Collins notes unicycling took him a year-and-a-half to learn and he was never very good at it.
In this week’s show McMillen will be doing unicycling, juggling (which she began in January), diablo (which is like spinning a top with sticks) and levitating.
Collins will be doing contortionism, poi (chains with balls on the ends), club swinging, stilts and will perform as a transvestite.
“It’s a celebration of the best circus work now being created in Nova Scotia,” says Hirschbach, as jugglers, unicyclists and stilt walkers mill about in rehearsal…”
He first got interested in circus arts watching the Halifax Busker Festival as a Grade 12 student at Prince Andrew High and then attended the Bluenose Juggling Club (started by Hirschbach 19 years ago) and the Atlantic Cirque school in Dartmouth, where he got into the best shape of his life doing aerial acrobatics.
The six-foot-one performer, who is nine-feet tall with his stilts, specializes in stilt walking and has performed professionally.
He’s heading to school for make-up arts, and hopes it will help him land a career with the circus.
“I’ve worked security, in stores, in kitchens, done thing with my hands and none of it was ever fun,” he says, explaining his chosen career.
Hirschbach says this week’s show, which mixes professionals and newbies, is not a variety show, but the skills are set in a theatrical context.
“The show is driven by a real sense of play and is appropriate for all ages, very visual and very humorous.”
( anemetz@herald.ca)
Tickets are $20 for adults, and $16 for students, seniors and children 17 and under and are available at Neptune Theatre 429-7070 or 1-800-565-7345.
Come and Join the Circus
Archived from The Chronicle Herald, August 17 2007, by Elissa Barnard, Arts Reporter.
Duncan Philpot, left, and Sean Anderson work their diabolos during a demonstration Tuesday at St. Matthew’s Church in Halifax. (Christian Laforce /Staff)
AS THOUSANDS of Nova Scotians flock to Halifax to see Cirque du Soleil this week, a circus school for street youth is opening in the city.
Circus Circle, inspired by Cirque du Monde, which is Cirque du Soleil’s social outreach program, uses circus arts like juggling, unicycling, diabolo and balance work to teach youth life skills and start their journey back into society.
“When you end up on the street, it’s extremely difficult to find your way back into a larger community,” says Circus Circle’s director Michael Hirschbach. “This offers an entrance through the discipline you need to achieve to do circus arts.”
Circus Circle is a free program run out of St. Matthews Church gym every Tuesday and Thursday, 1 to 4 p.m., for street-involved and homeless youth, aged 16 to 30.
“Circus arts are very attractive and enticing and interesting to youth in the same way skateboarding is,” says Hirschbach, who lives in Wolfville and is a former performer with Cirque du Soleil. “It takes energy, it appears to be a risky activity, it involves you with other people.”
While participants are taught circus skills by local professionals, the aim isn’t to produce professional performers, but to help develop autonomy, solidarity, self-esteem, communication, expression, adaptability to change and physical fitness.
“It can be a huge difference in somebody’s life to have clear goals and a sense of expression and accomplishment that comes with circus work,” says Hirschbach.
Also on hand at the Barrington Street church gym for youth is an instructor with a background in social work, “a person who is very familiar with the resources in town for youth at risk, for street youth, familiar with housing issues and substance abuse,” he said. “Youth have the opportunity if they want to deal with whatever their current situation is.”
The Spring Garden Area Business Association is sponsoring Circus Circle as part of its effort “to meet the challenges of the street community,” says the association’s manager Bernie Smith.
“It was felt there is a certain component, mainly street youth, that aren’t being reached out to,” he said, adding that circus and other arts-based programs may be more successful in inspiring street youth than conventional education systems.
“We’re hoping to include music and visual arts next year. This is the first step we’re taking,” Smith said at Circus Circle’s open house Tuesday. “We’ve been looking for funding. The more funding we get the more we’ll expand it very rapidly.”
So far there are three teachers and five to eight youth involved in Circus Circle. “We don’t know what the maximum number is,” says Hirschbach. “The other programs I’ve taught I’ve seen programs run up to 40 to 50 students. In general it takes three years to have a truly mature program with youth attending regularly and building up strong skills.”
Since 2003 Hirschbach has been a master trainer with the Cirque du Monde and has taught in Montreal, Orlando, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, France, Burkina Faso and South Africa.
There are over 100 Cirque du Monde programs in over 30 countries and the Nova Scotia program, also starting up in Kentville next month, will become an official affiliate in 2008. “That means more contact with teachers, more possibility for students from here to go to Montreal to do more extensive studies there and some annual funding from Cirque du Monde.”
Circus Circle is funded by the United Way, the Campaign for Kids, Michelin Canada, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage and Nova Scotia Health Promotion and Protection. “St. Matthew’s has just been really helpful in terms of getting us started and providing a space for a reasonable fee,” says Hirschbach. “This is a great church.”
Circus Circle is specifically for the street population. “It’s an open door,” says Hirschbach. “If somebody shows up at the door I assume they want and need to be here.”
The program’s website address is www.circuscircle.ca.