On Saturdays, kids sleep late. Some watch cartoons. A few play sports. Not the kids of Circus Harmony. They juggle fire and toss knives.
Their unconventional weekend workouts have landed members of the predominately African-American ensemble on “Steve Harvey’s Big Time Challenge” and “Late Show with David Letterman.” Saturday, February 26 Circus Harmony will perform two special shows at downtown’s City Museum.
Circus Harmony is the most recent addition to Circus Day, a family of programs and projects organized and directed by former trapeze artist and Circus Flora veteran, Jessica Hentoff.
Circus Harmony’s eighteen racially diverse members, aged 5 to 14 years, are the fulfillment of a dream for Hentoff. “I still am working towards having an entire circus of children,” she said. “Circus Harmony is the next step on that path.”
At a recent dress rehearsal for Saturday’s show, Hentoff gave each child an itinerary of the performance, a pencil and instructions.
“The reason why you all have your own act orders is for you to write what costume you wear, what props you need, and what mats you have to move n what you’re responsible for,” she said.
Circus training teaches arts like tightrope walking and sword swallowing n and the value of responsibility, perseverance and cooperation. Excuse makers and finger pointers have no place in Hentoff’s circus. “If we make a mistake,” she said, “we all have to work together to figure out what went wrong, and get it right.”
When Hentoff pulled back the sequined purple curtain, five of her performers and the stage manager were still absent. But a packed house was proof that even two-thirds of Circus Harmony could fully mesmerize a crowd.
Balanced atop a rubber ball taller than she is, ten-year-old Shaina Hughes hula-hooped for stunned onlookers. Her father, a member of Hentoff’s first youth circus troupe, the St. Louis Arches, enrolled her in Circus Day classes while she was a toddler.
After only two years in the Arches, Iking Bateman, 12, can tumble and juggle with the best, but his favorite tricks involve the mini trampoline. He credited his ability to soar through the air to Hentoff, who “has a lot of creative ideas.”
Renaldo “Junior” Williams, who joined the Arches around the same time as Bateman, already stars in several solo acts. An expert contortionist, he admitted that being a circus performer can be stressful, but rewarding: “we get to make people smile.”
Hentoff formed the St. Louis Arches in 1989 and soon added Everyday Circus, a for-profit entertainment company that handled the performance requests her classes and shows generated.
Everyday Circus made money and, two years after its inception, moved into the City Museum. St. Louis Arches lost its funding and nearly disbanded. To save Arches, Hentoff created her own non-profit circus arts organization, Circus Day, in 2001.
Four years later, Circus Day has spawned a litter of baby troupes. First came Circus Salaam Shalom (the words for “peace” in Arabic and Hebrew), a partnership between Muslim children from Grand Avenue’s Clara Muhammed School and Jewish students from Central Reform Congregation in the Central West End.
The unlikely collaboration flourished. “The Jewish and Muslim kids were like, ‘Can our friends come?’ And what are you going to do, say ‘no’ because they’re not Jewish and Muslim?” said Hentoff.
“Last year, we had Chinese, Filipino, Muslim, Jewish, Caucasian, African American, Christian, urban, and suburban [kids] all together working with circus.” Patchwork Circus was born.
Hentoff’s performers will be only half of the show this Saturday when “Circus Harmony: First Movement” takes the stage at the City Museum. Five “marvelous, multicultural musical entities” will provide a live soundtrack to the performance: Iranian musician Farshid Soltanshahi on acoustic guitar, Sandy Weltman and the Hebrew Hillbillies’ gypsy jazz and bluegrass fusion, Japanese drumming by the St. Louis Osuwa Taiko Drummers, traditional Chinese music from Xiaoyu Yan, and the toe-tappin’ tunes of the St. Louis Community Circus Band.
Circus Day Foundation presents “Circus Harmony: First Movement” Saturday, February 26 at City Museum, 701 N. 15th Street. Showtimes are 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets for adults are $20, children and senior tickets are $15. For more information, call 231-2489.
