Architecture & Acrobats Program to Help Circus Harmony Rebuild After Pandemic

Circus Harmony has announced it has been awarded a two-year PNC Arts Alive grant from the PNC Foundation to help bring a new program, Architecture and Acrobats, to life. Circus Harmony students will create and present site-specific shows at historically significant architectural landmarks throughout North St. Louis City and North St. Louis County. In addition to presenting the shows live and free of charge in those neighborhoods, the shows will be recorded and accessible online so people around the world can see and learn the history of these wonderful places, and be entertained by St. Louis youth.

PNC Arts Alive is a multi-year initiative of PNC and the PNC Foundation dedicated to supporting arts organizations with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways. In addition to receiving funding, Circus Harmony will benefit from next-generation capacity-building sessions, with access to business experts a?? including members of PNC's experience innovation team a?? who will share "next practices" such as design thinking and applying principles of successful startups.

"In the financial services industry, we often talk about business resilience as being key to the long-term success of a company," said Michael Scully, PNC regional president for St. Louis. "Through PNC Arts Alive, we have the opportunity to apply a similar lens to help arts nonprofits such as Circus Harmony plan for the future of their organizations and deliver sustainable programming."

"Resilience has been what this past year has been all about," said Circus Harmony Artistic/Executive Director Jessica Hentoff. "Due to the pandemic, we created shows very differently during the past year. Our Balancing Act show gave our students, teachers, and alumni a platform to share their perspectives on the pandemic, and we learned the power of narrative. Our Sister City Circus collaboration with a circus school in St. Louis' sister city of Stuttgart taught us the power of place. Then our Circus Harmony Interactive Cookbook demonstrated the power of using our experience to nurture others. All of these shows were presented as online videos so they could be accessed by people around the world. The Architecture and Acrobats program that the PNC Arts Alive grant is funding combines the power of personal narrative, place, and sharing our experience with others. St. Louis itself has been a center of resilience for centuries, and we want to tell these stories and make arts and history come alive."

For more information on PNC Arts Alive, visit www.pncartsalive.com.

For more information on Circus Harmony contact Jessica Hentoff, 314-226-3633, circusday@circusharmony.org