The Downside-Up Circus

[[Image:DSUp color web.jpg|left|DSUp color web.jpg]]About
The Downside-Up Circus is a performing arts company founded in 2009 by Hampshire College students Tara Jacob, Molly McLeod, and Victoria Quine. Combining a shared passion for the circus arts and a commitment to social change and sustainability, Downside-Up is our answer when people ask us what we are going to do when we graduate college: run away with the circus, of course!

Mission Statement

+ The Downside-Up Circus likes to look at the world upside-down. We are optimists, but we are also pragmatists. We aim to use the circus arts to promote positive connections between people who may otherwise pass each other on the street without so much as a fleeting glance.

+ We are committed to facilitating community-building, creativity, exploration, collaboration, and enlightening entertainment through various circus projects, workshops, productions, and events. Our events are open to the public and reflect our love of exploration and innovation.

+ For us, circus is a way for us to reimagine our world and our place within it by fusing together different performance arts and skills (dance, acrobatics, music, theatre, aerials, juggling, clowning, etc.)

Vision Statement

+ The Downside-Up Circus wants to bring people’s hearts and souls together to celebrate and spread joy through performance, creativity, and community building. A performer is shaped by the audience, and we hope to embrace our audience as a truly essential part of who we are, with the goal of being able to offer something back in return. It is only through interaction that we can begin to understand each other and we encourage sharing stories and creative expression as a way to foster empathy and solidarity among otherwise separate groups of people.

the INTERROBANG tour
When the world falls to pieces, we make a jigsaw puzzle of the ruins. In the face of global warming, a crashing economy, and an increasingly isolated society, a small circus company strives to foster connections between people, bringing together communities and inspiring hope for the future.

They will be performing their free public show, INTERROBANG, in parks and on the street as a way to encourage interconnectedness, ingenuity, and creativity. In an effort to be conscious about human influence on the environment, the troupe will travel exclusively by bicycle during the six-week tour of the Puget Sound region of Washington state.

Through acrobatics, juggling, dance, and theatre, and drawing upon the stories of historically dark times, INTERROBANG will demonstrate that people can work creatively and collaboratively through difficulties, living with enthusiasm and curiosity.

+ What does INTERROBANG mean‽+ The interrobang is a typographic symbol combining a question mark (a.k.a. interrogative mark) and an exclamation point (often called a bang by printers). Not only is it a very cool visual symbol, but to us it also metaphorically represents enthusiasm and excitement tempered by curiosity and questioning.

'''+ Why are we touring by bicycle? +''' 1. Because it will be a crazy awesome adventure. 2. We want to influence by example: if we can travel hundreds of miles from one show to the next hauling loads of circus gear, surely you can manage to ride your bike to go grocery shopping a few miles down the road! 3. The revolution will be pedal powered.

+ The Troupe +

Tara Jacob, Victoria Quine, Molly McLeod, Lindsay Barbieri, Corvus Woolf, Kristian Brevik

For More Information/Contact
Our Website - DownsideUpCircus.org

mailto:info@downsideupcircus.org@undefined

Become a fan on our Facebook Page

We will be doing bake sales EVERY other TUESDAY in the library to raise money!