Makom Bagalil | Galilee Circus

Can the Circus Save the World?

In a world – and a region – where fear and distrust between peoples lead to insecurity and violence daily, it just might be that a circus can make a difference! After all, what is circus all about? It's about overcoming fear, it's about trust, it's based on non-verbal communication, it represents a multicultural tradition – and its purpose is to make people smile.

The late Australian circus artist and educator Reg Bolton has written about “circus to save the world.” When you see the child of Russian immigrants from Karmiel balancing on the shoulders of his Arab peer from Dir El Assad – you know exactly what he means. When the kids stop the music at the curtain call of their first show to say – in Hebrew and in Arabic – “The Galilee Circus family thanks you…” you understand that this not just another after-school activity. These kids come on their own time (from different communities, different religions, speaking different languages), they commit themselves, and they understand that they have to do what they do in complete cooperation with The Other – or they will do nothing at all.

The Galilee Circus includes kids of ages 6-18, from the town of Karmiel in the heart of the Galilee and the villages around it. Rehearsals are held after school in a school gym, and we perform all over the region for schools, festivals, businesses, etc. The circus has an active parents committee that helps out at performances, and organizes occasional social activities for the circus kids and their families.

Dagan Dishbak, our trapeze coach, is circus director, assisted by youth counselor Ahmed Sanallah; Leonid Tzipkis coaches acrobatics. Last year our student intern, Sarah Herr, ran a junior coach training course, qualifying a number of our older circus kids to join the coaching staff.

The fees paid by the participants – and the audiences – cover only a small part of the cost of coaches, buses, rent, and equipment. Major funding comes from foundations and private donors. We recently received a generous donation from the tzedaka collection of the fourth grade at Larchmont Temple.

You don't have to run away from home

to be a part of the Galilee Circus!

Information for synagogues, school classes, youth groups

Link your bar/bat mitzvah to the circus

We have found the writings of the late circus artist and teacher Reg Bolton to be helpful and inspirational. You can explore them here:

http://www.regbolton.org/circus_library/articles/article_index.htm

In the summer of 2008, the Galilee circus visited the St. Louis Arches youth circus - see the blog for a detailed account. (in the picture below- with the mayor of St. Louis)

This trip came after the Arches visit in the summer of 2007, as Marc Rosenstein reported:

I have just come home from probably the most amazing two weeks of my career in educational tourism. Our Galilee Circus, a Jewish-Arab youth circus based here in Karmiel, hosted for two weeks the St. Louis Arches performing troupe, part of a large youth circus program in St. Louis. The Israelis consisted of 6 Jews and 7 Arabs (out of the 50 kids who participate in the program); from St. Louis there were 11 kids, including several inner city African Americans, as well as a few middle class Jews. After practicing together and developing a joint act, we toured the country, giving ten performances in public venues like Tel Aviv port boardwalk, but also community centers (Majd el Krum, Yokneam and Mitzpeh Ramon), institutions for the handicapped in Haifa and Tel Aviv, and mixed Jewish-Arab audiences(YMCA). Everywhere we went the kids in the audience were enthralled, and somehow, the adults were in tears. As Annette Hochstein, of the Mandel Foundation, commented after the YMCA show, ''you have created an island of happiness here...''

For us, in the Galilee circus, this project was important in helping initiate our kids into the wider world of youth circus and show them to what they can aspire - as well as an opportunity to do circus without any reference at all to their particular ethnic identities (the Americans couldn't tell the Jews and Arabs apart).

Here are a few relevant links: