Acrobatic bugs and juggling racoons and flowers on stilts, oh my!
Instead of wrangling lions and tigers and bears, the Fern Street Circus will be spreading “seeds of joy” with garden-themed performances as their annual Neighborhood Tour kicks off Saturday, in its return to Mid-City and South Bay parks.
Each of the six trilingual shows – emceed in English, Spanish and French – will be free to the public and feature an array of professional and youth ensembles. Between acrobatics, juggling, an ancient Chinese yoyo act, chair balancing and more, Ringmaster Cheryl Lindley said that the show is “a moment of human joy.”
Lindley will be ringleading the performances as her clown character, Colombina – showcasing her “traditional Italian comedia del arte” style.
“She just knows she’s going to run everything,” Lindley said about Colombina. “It’s her oyster world, and she’s going to make sure it happens the way she thinks it should. Everyone around her doesn’t realize that she’s doing that, and that’s kind of the comedy there.”
Cheryl Lindley (Photo courtesy of Fern Street Circus)Lindley also has been a costume designer for over 50 years. With help from some of the circus parents, she took on the tedious task of gluing rhinestones while handmaking the majority of the costumes for this year’s Neighborhood Tour.
“Costumes are alive,” she said. “Regular clothes are fine, but costumes are so much more exciting.”
Artistic Director Catalina Paz said that she gained inspiration for this year’s theme, “Seeds of Joy/Semillas de Allegria,” from a community garden planted by the circus as a family service activity.
“I got very inspired by, you know, everybody working together, learning about something that is very intricate to us – which is, creating life,” she said.
“For a lot of our audience it’s difficult times, scary times, to live in the U.S. And so, for us, it’s kind of like that hope that all we can do right now is plant a seed in hopes that, in the future, we can grow together or harvest that joy.”
Clowns “Gerold” (left) and “Abuelita” (right). (Photo courtesy of Fern Street Circus)Paz added that local communities are central to each performance.
“Something that I love about the neighborhood tour is that we – instead of people coming to us, like in other traditional settings – we go to the people,” she said. “It’s this notion of activating a public space. It’s a free show, it’s family friendly and sometimes there are parks that are not activated in that way.”
Lindley said that the performances become a “place of joining where people can come together and enjoy a moment of whimsy.”
“I think that can do a lot to bring people and communities together,” she added.
Fern Street Circus is a non-profit organization that has been providing after-school circus education programs for children since 1993. Apart from learning tumbling, juggling or clowning, Paz said that these programs also teach students valuable social skills – such as by working together, communicating with each other, solving problems and overcoming fears.
The youth acrobatic ensemble. (Photo courtesy of Fern Street Circus)Paz has worked with Fern Street Circus for the past four years, but her love of performing goes back to her childhood. “I just feel like I was born a clown, to be honest.”
While she always sought out ways to make people laugh, it wasn’t until she moved to Mexico, where she attended a fine arts high school, that she was introduced to clowning as a profession. She said she realized that, to be a clown, she just had to be herself.
There are several branches of clowning, including theater clowns, circus clowns, humanitarian clowns and medical clowns. Paz has worked as a humanitarian clown for several years, traveling to rural locations, such as the Sierra Mountains, to perform for vulnerable communities during times of need.
When she moved back to San Diego, Fern Street Circus asked her to join their troop.
“It was literally like my dream job,” she said, adding that, “Having worked with migrants before and communities in rural areas and crisis areas, et cetera, I was able to really connect here with our team, but also the families that we served.”
Catalina Paz as “Abuelita.” (Photo courtesy of Fern Street Circus)Lindley also has worked in circus arts for decades. She first started working with Fern Street Circus in 1994 and returned to the organization a few years ago, after operating her own circus company for 15 years.
“I was always trying to find a place to blend my love of physicality and art and thrills,” she said. “And then I found the circus.”
The show will be held at different parks throughout the six Neighborhood Tour weekends – starting Saturday at Park de la Cruz in Cherokee Point, and ending on May 17 at Azalea Park. Other communities the circus will visit include Golden Hill and North Park.
Showtimes are 2 p.m. Each stop also will feature a mobile health clinic in collaboration with Live Well San Diego and a puppetry workshop with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry.
“I guarantee, if you come to our show, you’ll be smiling for a week thinking about it,” Lindley said.
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