It's a Circus Out There! - A Peek Behind the Curtain of The Circus Collective of San Diego
Hello, readers!
Welcome back to the blog dedicated to highlighting the stunning work being done by our local nonprofits to better our community and further the health of humanity, right in our own back yard!
My guest for this post is Ehrick Costello of The Circus Collective of San Diego, a performing arts group whose mission is to make contemporary circus arts accessible to the community in unexpected ways. The brainchild of aerial artists Zoe Irvine and Danielle Berg, the Collective officially became a nonprofit in 2015. The members perform their art not in a circus tent or huge arena, as you might expect, but in unusual spaces, such as galleries, theaters, community centers, library annexes and the like. The group aims to foster creative freedom of expression among their members, promote cross-disciplinary collaboration with other artists (such as dancers, musicians, and spoken word poets), and to give emerging circus artists the chance to blossom. Their shows are sometimes educational, sometimes a commentary on society, and sometimes just plain fun! With every performance they bring artfully crafted, original entertainment to our community. What they bring to the table is inspiring, uplifting, and downright delightful!
Ehrick Costello is the Executive Director of the Collective. A Navy veteran and engineering student, Ehrick has been a practitioner of acrobatics since 2011, and performing with the Collective since 2015. He speaks to us about what the Collective brings to the table, the importance of being inspired, and what it means to have vision.
What is the Circus Collective of San Diego?
The Circus Collective of San Diego is a nonprofit performing arts group that was founded back in 2013 by a group of friends here, all local friends in San Diego. They just had a dream of being able to create their own circus shows and make their vision a reality…and pretty much did.
Does that remain your mission, or has it expanded at all? What would you say your mission is?
So, our mission is a two part mission. The first part is to bring accessible circus performances to the community and the second part is to support emerging circus artists. We can really interpret that to mean all ages, appropriate for everybody, low cost shows that people can actually go see with their family.
In your opinion, why does it matter to the world at large?
It matters because people kind of go through their lives and…get into a rut, and…they don't, maybe they don't find inspiration in their daily lives. And we can provide an inspiration to people. We can kind of get them thinking outside the box, get them re-examining everything. I hope that when people come to see our shows, they leave feeling more creative, they leave feeling more inspired to do something they've never done before, even if it's not circus. We're not selling circus, but we are selling, hopefully, creativity and passion and inspiration. Obviously, if people can feel that, then the world’s a better place if people are actually out there, living and experiencing.
Given that, what special sauce does the Collective bring to the table? Why are you guys uniquely equipped to to fulfill that mission?
I think there are a couple of reasons why we are uniquely equipped to achieve that goal. The first is the nature of our performances. Everything that we do is very intimate, in the setting at least. So, people come to our shows and they're not being overwhelmed by spectacle -- there's no illusion. What you see is what's happening. So, you see artists out on the stage working really hard, and you see it close up. You see us working to put on a show that we've created, and I think that really comes across in our performances. You can see…the level at which we're involved, and the level at which we're actually working on the stage. We're always putting stuff into shows which is 95% there, or 90% there…we're taking chances up there on stage. So you're part of the process by coming to our shows.
The second reason I think that we're uniquely equipped is because we're such a community-based group, that when you come to the show it's likely that you know somebody in the cast, even if you don't know them from a circus background. So, you'll see people that maybe you work with at another job, or a friend of a friend, or somebody who you would never really guess would do this kind of stuff; who isn’t, you know, like a full-time, professional acrobat living on the road and doing nothing but training all day. You see scientists and engineers and teachers out there doing these amazing things, which I think hits people on a different level than watching an acrobat who's born into this lifestyle and has trained their entire life.
What's your personal favorite part? What motivates you to do it? And what motivates you as a group to keep going?
[For] me personally, (and I think that actually I can speak for myself and for the group), just the love of the art. Obviously, we all love what we do. Love it enough to train on our own time outside of, like I said, other jobs...we love the art and we love being a part of a team that's dedicated and works really hard. We like being around other people who can share our vision and our goals...we can work to do something and to put something on stage that hasn't been on stage before.
What is the most valuable lesson you've learned about being a nonprofit?
People loooove tax write-offs. People love it. During fundraising time, that's a big one. The other thing I've learned is it's important to stick to our mission, to our mission statement. It's important to stick to those things, to keep the company operating within those boundaries, to make sure that we're not doing anything that's outside of them.
What has most surprised you about being a part of a nonprofit?
The amount of work that goes into it from volunteers. In a nonprofit, the board of directors is not allowed to get paid, so our board is volunteers and they do an incredible amount of work to keep us up and running and moving and growing, and I'm constantly amazed by how much they do in their extra time.
To you, what does it mean to be a visionary?
To me, I'd say that it means being a person who has insight into the future...somebody who has a finger on the pulse of where things are heading and has a way to get there, a creative way to get there, an interesting way to get there, rather than inertia. You can't be an inertia-based person if you want to be a visionary.
Is there anything you wish the audience or public knew about being in the circus, or being an artist, or being a nonprofit?
Yeah, I guess on all three of those fronts, I wish the public knew that it's all really difficult. All three of those things are very difficult things to be, and we're being all three of them. I want people to know that this group puts in a lot of work, and they put in a lot of work all the time. And it's essentially to do what we love…but we're still doing a lot of work.
What do we have to look forward to from The Circus Collective in the near future?
So, we have a Halloween show the weekend before Halloween, in October, and it will be in the City Heights Performing Annex...details will be released soon. And then, we also have a Valentine's Day show which is Valentine's Day weekend, coming up in February, also at the City Heights Performing Annex...connected to the City Heights Library.
And that’s show business, folks! For more information about this inspiring and fascinating group of artists, visit circuscollectivesd.org. Follow them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/circuscollectivesd/ or Instagram: @circuscollectivesandiego, and find Ehrick: @ehrick.costello.
If you like the images accompanying this story and would like to explore how visual storytelling could help your organization share the heart of its mission, please visit my website, www.soulvoyagerstudios.com, or send me an email at soulvoyagerstudios@gmail.com. To receive regular content regarding visual storytelling and inspiring ways to make a difference in this world, subscribe to my newsletter below!
