Circesteem Partners Up With Chicago Park Districts To Host Summer-Long Youth Traveling Circus Show

A combination of nearly twenty Chicago Park Districts and Chicago Public Libraries have partnered up with CircEsteem to host the nonprofit organization's newest iteration of its traveling circus production starting June 29th, 2022 and ending August 19th, 2022.

Performing across the Chicago area, shows will range from majestic outdoor performances to intimate indoor trunk shows. CircEsteem celebrates 21-years of successful community engagement on the North, South, and West sides of Chicago as we embolden, uplift, and unite youth from diverse backgrounds and identities by building self-esteem and mutual respect through the practice and performance of circus arts.

The aim of this city-wide tour is to highlight the importance of CircEsteem's mission to young Chicagoans as well as celebrate the organization's love for the city of Chicago by presenting free shows in family-oriented spaces. Visitors will be treated to an evening of music and fantastic feats such as juggling, trapeze, acrobatics, clowning, aerial arts, jump rope, and more! Following the show, CircEsteem will invite young people (ages 6 - 16) from the audience to participate in a thirty-minute workshop where they can try their hands at many circus skills!

CircEsteem is also honored to have our prestigious Performance Troupe leading all of the summer tour performances. Performance Troupe represents the core of our organization's goal to empower youths as the mentee becomes the mentor within this group, leading lessons for newly inducted Performance Troupe youths. As CircEsteem's Program Director Renee Bell Werge states,

"Summer Tour is CircEsteem's mission on full display. The combination of Performance Troupe led by our CircEsteem alumni cements the strong and important mentoring relationship we encourage in our youth. Working with youth from different CircEsteem programs - Chicago Youth Circus (CYC), After School Activities (ASA) in Gage Park - underscores and solidifies uniting youth across all backgrounds and identities. But the biggest impact the summer tour has on the youth with whom we work is taking them to various neighborhoods within Chicago and interacting with the audiences from different communities, teaching both youth and adults a variety of circus skills, and further spreading the positive impact of what circus actually does - bringing people together."

CircEsteem's Summer Tour 2022 kicks off on June 29th with an indoor trunk show at Chicago Lawn Branch Public Library at 11AM. The first outdoor performance will be held on July 1st, 6PM Union Park. Please visit the CircEsteem website to check out our interactive map with all the locations, times, and dates of performances, found at www.circesteem.org/summer-tour-2022.

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