Video Credit: Brian Myers, Media Arts Center San Diego
By Brian Myers
An after school program in City Heights gets youth juggling, flipping and sitting on invisible chairs.
Fern Street Circus started in 1990 around the Golden Hill neighborhood of San Diego. The professional circus performed in local parks and taught clowning and acrobatics at the Golden Hill Recreation Center for many years.
The program ceased activities in 2010 and, just this year, the founders reestablished the circus in the neighborhood of City Heights.
Co-founder John Highkin said San Diego has excellent options for training in the circus arts, but participants pay a premium for it. Fern Street Circus works with the San Diego Park and Recreation Department to serve those in low-income communities.
“What we really want to do is provide a really unusual, high quality, interesting experience for students, children, teenagers, and families in City Heights that they wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to have,” Highkin said.
The free program at the Mid-City Gym is open to youth ages 3 through 18. Participating youth learn new skills and get exercise.
“It gets you healthier and you get to have fun with other kids,” said Pebbles, 11.
“Kids are moving around and active, so its good about exercise, but its also art, so its not competitive,” Highkin said. “Circus is really about magic. We do the preparations so they can find the magic, so they can find the intangibles that happen when kids and artists work together and suddenly find things coming out that they didn’t know they could do.”
Florance, 11, has been attending since the Spring.
“I’ve been really good at the tight wire,” she said. “It was kinda hard for me, but I got a hang of it. Knowing that I was able to do it, it felt very good. I felt very strong. I’m surrounded by people who care about me, so I can feel more confident in what I do.”
It’s that kind of enthusiasm that Highkin hopes to instill in more local youth. Fern Street Circus is a planning a 25th anniversary neighborhood tour in the fall and wants to give youth from the after school program an opportunity to perform with their professional coaches.
While 8-year-old Delilah attempts the tight rope for the first time, her aunt Gloria Hernandez watches from the wall.
“My niece is here and my daughter and other two nieces are going to start next week,” she said.
Delilah and her cousins are the second generation of the circus. Hernandez learned the art and performed with Fern Street Circus when she was a child.
The circus class is every Tuesday through the end of August. Registration is available online at the San Diego Park and Recreation Department.