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Home » Feature » Events and TV
Juggling, tumbling circus acts connect kids, build trust
By Betsy Taylor |
January 15, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
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WHEN looking for a way to bring together children of different races, religions and financial means, most people might not think of juggling, tumbling and aerial acts as their "go-to" tools.
Jessica Hentoff does.
Hentoff, 53, is the executive and artistic director of a circus school run out of the City Museum in St Louis, Missouri, the United States. She brings together children who normally wouldn't cross paths and unifies them through circus training and performances.
One effort, Circus Salaam Shalom, trained Jewish and Muslim children at the same time. Far East Meets Midwest combined Asian and Midwestern arts in its shows. And Peace through Pyramids allows St Louis and Israeli children, both Jewish and Arab, to perform together in the US and overseas.
Tomorrow, Hentoff will speak in Monaco at the International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo about her commitment to "social circus" ?? her work using circus arts as a way to encourage social change.
"Here, they (children) can define who they are. This is where they choose who they are and what they can do," Hentoff says.
The Arts and Education Council of St Louis has named her as its Arts Innovator of the Year.
Hentoff, who grew up in New York City, didn't even climb a tree until she was 10. But while a student at Purchase College at the State University of New York, she began taking classes in circus skills in 1973, learning about tumbling, fire-eating, clowning and the like.
"It was so amazing that I could actually juggle; I could hang 6.1 meters in the air," she said.
She began working with circuses, the first being Circus Kingdom, which gave regular performances but always put on shows for people who couldn't come to the circus ?? visiting nursing homes, prisons and hospitals.
"That was social circus, using circus for something other than pure entertainment," she says.
Hentoff traveled with other circuses and continued her studies with other performers. She and another woman, Kathie Hoyer, who was from St Louis, created a double trapeze act around 1980. They began to work with Circus Flora, a one-ring show that began operating out of St Louis in 1987.
Hentoff's students still work with Circus Flora, but in 2001 that circus stopped offering circus classes to focus on shows, she says. Hentoff started a new nonprofit, the Circus Day Foundation, to provide a place for a circus school now called Circus Harmony and the St Louis Arches, a group of intermediate to advanced child performers trained in circus skills.
City Museum in St Louis offers weekend circus shows during the school year, and during the week over the summer and school holiday periods.
The eclectic museum, created by artist Bob Cassilly, teems with mosaics, sculpted caves to explore, slides to barrel down, even a massive outdoor playground where kids climb through tunnels, towers, suspended airplanes and a fire engine.
During a recent visit to the circus ring and rehearsal space inside the museum, a handful of students who were a combination of private school, public school and home-schooled children, prepared for their biggest show of the year, "Cafe Appassionato," running later this month.
Claire Kuciejczyk-Kernan, 17, a Webster Groves resident, put her feet and ankles up on blocks and then went into a split, an exercise to focus on her seemingly superhuman flexibility.
Meanwhile, Melvin Diggs, 16, and Terrance Robinson, 15, of St Louis, rehearsed a routine with one of Hentoff's three children, 12-year-old Kellin Hentoff-Killian, in which they balanced and juggled brightly colored wooden plates.
Hentoff said the teens learn a lot more than the circus arts in their training. She talks to them about how they present themselves to others, about how one skill builds on another, or to try again when they mess something up.
"When you flip, fly and juggle, you learn things like focus, persistence, teamwork," she said.
On one trip, children from the St Louis program have gone to Israel to perform with Jewish and Arab children with the Galilee Circus. This past summer, a group of those children came to St Louis. While there are language barriers at times, Hentoff says those are usually overcome once the children rehearse and perform together. Circus acts, she notes, rely on trust.
Work is under way to raise about US$50,000 to take American children back to Israel next year for another visit.
Hentoff describes shows involving Jewish teens from Karmiel and the Arab village of Dir el-Assad and her American students.
"The kids in the front rows were laughing," she says, "but there were adults behind them with tears streaming down their faces."
Jessica Hentoff does.
Hentoff, 53, is the executive and artistic director of a circus school run out of the City Museum in St Louis, Missouri, the United States. She brings together children who normally wouldn't cross paths and unifies them through circus training and performances.
One effort, Circus Salaam Shalom, trained Jewish and Muslim children at the same time. Far East Meets Midwest combined Asian and Midwestern arts in its shows. And Peace through Pyramids allows St Louis and Israeli children, both Jewish and Arab, to perform together in the US and overseas.
Tomorrow, Hentoff will speak in Monaco at the International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo about her commitment to "social circus" ?? her work using circus arts as a way to encourage social change.
"Here, they (children) can define who they are. This is where they choose who they are and what they can do," Hentoff says.
The Arts and Education Council of St Louis has named her as its Arts Innovator of the Year.
Hentoff, who grew up in New York City, didn't even climb a tree until she was 10. But while a student at Purchase College at the State University of New York, she began taking classes in circus skills in 1973, learning about tumbling, fire-eating, clowning and the like.
"It was so amazing that I could actually juggle; I could hang 6.1 meters in the air," she said.
She began working with circuses, the first being Circus Kingdom, which gave regular performances but always put on shows for people who couldn't come to the circus ?? visiting nursing homes, prisons and hospitals.
"That was social circus, using circus for something other than pure entertainment," she says.
Hentoff traveled with other circuses and continued her studies with other performers. She and another woman, Kathie Hoyer, who was from St Louis, created a double trapeze act around 1980. They began to work with Circus Flora, a one-ring show that began operating out of St Louis in 1987.
Hentoff's students still work with Circus Flora, but in 2001 that circus stopped offering circus classes to focus on shows, she says. Hentoff started a new nonprofit, the Circus Day Foundation, to provide a place for a circus school now called Circus Harmony and the St Louis Arches, a group of intermediate to advanced child performers trained in circus skills.
City Museum in St Louis offers weekend circus shows during the school year, and during the week over the summer and school holiday periods.
The eclectic museum, created by artist Bob Cassilly, teems with mosaics, sculpted caves to explore, slides to barrel down, even a massive outdoor playground where kids climb through tunnels, towers, suspended airplanes and a fire engine.
During a recent visit to the circus ring and rehearsal space inside the museum, a handful of students who were a combination of private school, public school and home-schooled children, prepared for their biggest show of the year, "Cafe Appassionato," running later this month.
Claire Kuciejczyk-Kernan, 17, a Webster Groves resident, put her feet and ankles up on blocks and then went into a split, an exercise to focus on her seemingly superhuman flexibility.
Meanwhile, Melvin Diggs, 16, and Terrance Robinson, 15, of St Louis, rehearsed a routine with one of Hentoff's three children, 12-year-old Kellin Hentoff-Killian, in which they balanced and juggled brightly colored wooden plates.
Hentoff said the teens learn a lot more than the circus arts in their training. She talks to them about how they present themselves to others, about how one skill builds on another, or to try again when they mess something up.
"When you flip, fly and juggle, you learn things like focus, persistence, teamwork," she said.
On one trip, children from the St Louis program have gone to Israel to perform with Jewish and Arab children with the Galilee Circus. This past summer, a group of those children came to St Louis. While there are language barriers at times, Hentoff says those are usually overcome once the children rehearse and perform together. Circus acts, she notes, rely on trust.
Work is under way to raise about US$50,000 to take American children back to Israel next year for another visit.
Hentoff describes shows involving Jewish teens from Karmiel and the Arab village of Dir el-Assad and her American students.
"The kids in the front rows were laughing," she says, "but there were adults behind them with tears streaming down their faces."
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