|
||||||
  Click here to make a secure donation through Groundspring.org Circus Center Leans Gracefully Into Economic Headwind Dear Friends, As we prepare to celebrate the New Year, we face a world financial crisis and the feeling that many of our institutions and ideals may be crumbling around us. Nonetheless, Circus Center - its board, faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, performers and audience members - are moving forward and committed to becoming a world-class school of professional circus arts by the end of the decade. The Pickles and Circus Center would have accomplished little without the support and affection of you who recognize what a unique cultural treasure we have here. If you are able to make a charitable contribution at this time, we would be extremely grateful. Funds are needed for scholarships, immediate capital improvements, and general operating support. If you can’t make a donation at this time, perhaps you can send a brief letter/e-mail of support encouraging us to continue on the path we have taken. Either way, we wish you and all of us an increasingly-stable economy in the coming year. With your support, Circus Center made it through its own financial crisis two years ago, and with the help of a strategic planning grant last year from the Hewlett Foundation, we have developed a multi-year plan and organizational framework that give us confidence that Circus Center - what it offers and represents – has and will continue to become stronger in the future. Circus is optimism, awe, it demonstrates the potential of human beings to overcome gravity and the laws of nature, to accomplish with the body what the mind might not agree to do. In essence, it allows us to overcome our self-imposed limitations and to believe in ourselves. It was our good fortune to join Circus Center as General Manager and Board President just as Hewlett’s grant allowed us to hire international performing arts and circus consultant, Jan Rok Achard from Montreal. Achard, who was Director of Canada’s National School of Circus Arts (Ecole Nationale de Cirque) during its first fifteen years, has played a critical and ongoing role in the artistic, educational, and financial transformation that Circus Center is going through. If we had to sum up the overall impact of the past year, it would be an increased sense of confidence and respect within this institution. As we are now witnessing with the turmoil that has rocked the social, economic, and political fabric of this country, confidence is a critical element that has much to do with success and failure, stability and insecurity. Circus Center is moving ahead with a new sense of optimism, clarity, and purpose. Saying this does not demonstrate why we feel this way; please scroll down for a listing of Circus Center accomplishments of the past year. We have much to be thankful for and look forward to having you as a partner as we carry on the rich Bay Area tradition of nouveau circus and move toward the goal of becoming a world-class school of professional circus arts. Best regards, Ken Levinson, President Michael Kesselman, General Manager E-mail: michael@circuscenter.org San Francisco CIRCUS CENTER Accomplishments of 2008 • Our June Showcase production is an artistic and financial success. The show includes acts by students in our professional aerial program, clown conservatory, studio (formerly recreational program), and youth circus. • Circus Center’s new Direction Committee meets on a weekly basis to discuss policies, programs, and procedures that will transform Circus Center’s independent programs and departments into a fully-integrated Professional School of Circus Arts. (Committee members include Lu Yi, Elena Panova, Jeff Raz, Helene Turcotte, Xiaohong Weng, Judy Finelli, Dominique Jando, Wendy Parkman, Michael Kesselman and Scott Cameron). • CC is accredited by Homeland Security, the U.S. agency that issues visas to foreign students wishing to study higher education in this country. Now that we are an official vocational school, we may accept students from other countries wishing to study professional circus arts here. We already have students applying from Japan, Mexico, and Peru. • The U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swimming Team receives acrobatic training from Master Lu Yi and Xiaohong Weng at Circus Center before traveling to China for the Summer Olympics. CC has already been asked to continue its training of likely U.S. competitors for the 2012 London Olympics. • CC’s Board of Directors rotate positions, take-on new and talented community leaders. • Katherine Parks joins CC’s administrative team as a bookkeeper. With a successful track record in the for-profit sector, Kathy’s involvement bodes well for CC’s increased emphasis on effective business practices throughout the organization. • Circus Center’s Jeff Raz and Lu Yi are invited by the Chinese government to put on an American Clown Workshop in Nanjing, China. The program is attended by twenty acrobats from throughout the country, and culminates in a public performance where the Chinese students perform to an audience of more than 1,000 people. • CC is featured in a full-page article in Sing Tao Daily, Northern California’s largest Chinese-language newspaper (circulation 400,000). • CC’s in-house Circus Historian, Dominique Jando, co-authors Circus: 1870-1950, published by Taschen Press in Germany. The elegant, super-sized coffee table book receives critical acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. (San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll describes it as “…a behemoth of a book, almost silly in its dimensions. When it arrived at my house, I thought I had ordered an appliance. I would be happy to make fun of it, except it’s really good.”) • CC places ads in national Spectacle Magazine and Theater Bay Area, promoting its new brand and identity as a Professional School of Circus Arts. • Our Youth Circus performs with the Santa Rosa Symphony at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Chinese New Year Celebration for Seniors, Ethnic Dance Festival Auditions, San Francisco Mayor’s Inauguration, Family Night at Hillsdale Shopping Center, Hyatt Hotel, Redwood Christian School, Miss Chinatown Pageant Circus for Arts-in-School, Benefit for Africa, Summer Arts Festival in the City at Union Square. • CC discusses possible partnership opportunities with Cirque du Soleil, which describes “a growing shortage of professional circus talent in the world” and considers Circus Center one of the few international schools that provide them and other circuses with talent. • Graduates of last year’s Clown Conservatory publish a Naked Clown Calendar for 2009, which honors co-founder of Circus Center and one of the world’s pioneer female jugglers, Judy Finelli. The calendar - which was picked-up widely by the US press including NPR and ABC News - seeks to raise awareness and support for people suffering from multiple sclerosis. • Social Circus: Our first and second-year Clown Conservatory’s students perform to tens-of-thousands at nonprofit health and social service venues,including Walk for Hope to Cure Breast Cancer; Treasure Island Community Homeless Development; St. Vincent de Paul’s Kids in Domestic Violence Shelters; San Francisco Symphony’s Deck the Halls; Tenderloin Elementary School; and the Janet Pomeroy Center (a.k.a. Recreation Center for the Handicapped). • Circus Center offers a 12-week Circus Skills Workshop to children in the residential program at San Francisco’s Edgewood Center for Children and Families. The program culminates in a circus performance for families and friends of these children who live with serious mental and emotional disorders. • International photographer, Thomas Heinser, and professional jazz singer, Jacqui Naylor, donate proceeds from their Herbst Theater event in November to Circus Center. The program includes the first public showing of Heinser’s recently-completed exhibit, Circus Portrait, a study of Circus Center faculty and students. • CC is invited to perform at the opening of the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Our teachers and students perform to a crowd of 25,000 at the city-wide weekend celebration. • CC puts on another series of sold-out circus performances at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco’s Friend Center for the Arts. • Sweet Can, a home-grown company made up of Circus Center students, teachers, and graduates performs as part of Ohlone College’s 2008-09 Season of the Arts Program at Smith Center. • Circus Center opens its building to the community with an all-day Open House & Holiday Carnival scheduled for December 20, 2008 (10 a.m. – 4 p.m.). This spend-a-day at the circus will include workshops, demonstrations and performances by aerialists, acrobats, and clowns. There will be food, face painting, flying trapeze classes, and an area for tiny-tots. At 7:00 p.m. Circus Center will present its end-of-year production, Pratfalls and Rising Stars, performed by students in our professional aerial program and clown conservatory. • Working with San Francisco’s School of the Arts (SOTA) and the San Francisco Unified School District, Circus Center will be establishing a new circus arts track at the City’s only arts-focused public high school. • Circus Center begins discussions with Canada’s Ecole Nationale de Cirque about holding joint student auditions in San Francisco and developing student and teacher exchange programs. • CC mounts both a capital fundraising and scholarship campaign to make advances in both these critical areas. • Circus Center’s “Conservation Island,” an environmental education tour sponsored by Alameda County’s Waste Management Department, performs to 23,000 K-6th grade students in forty-three East Bay elementary schools. East Bay teacher evaluations confirm that “Conservation Island is the most successful school assembly program to date.” Where Your Contributions Go During its early years Circus Center, then known as the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, operated with no subsidy. As we hired more teaching staff, upgraded equipment, made improvements to our building, and expanded our community outreach programming, we came to rely on contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies for about 25% of our annual operating budget. Now, as we continue to develop Circus Center into a world class circus school and as we expand our public performances of both the New Pickle Circus and the San Francisco Youth Circus, we will have to generate approximately 35% of our budget from contributed sources. How You Can Help From time to time, the Circus Center has fundraisers that help operate our facility supported through the generous actions of individual donors and businesses. Each may provide goods or services that you might need or want and already use. By purchasing such items through the Circus Center, we receive contributions from many organizations as they help support the community in which they live and conduct business. Individual cash donations of any amount are deeply appreciated by everyone here at Circus Center. If you'd like to make a donation to Circus Center's scholarship fund, or to support our free ticket program, or to help with our capital equipment needs, please send your check to: Circus
Center Or click our "Donate Now" button to donate online through our secure site at Groundspring.org.
|
||||||
|
||||||
back
to home
 |
 |  |
|
 |
 |
||||||||||
|
