After-School Circus Skills Program

The recreation program provides free-of-charge instruction at Golden Hill Recreation Center in acrobatics, balancing, clowning, contortion, juggling, trampoline, trapeze, tightwire, and other circus and performance skills. Students range from six year olds to teens to young adults. All share the desire to learn circus skills first-hand from professional working artists. The Rec Center is located at 2600 Golf Course Drive in Golden Hill (map).

Mondays are for all levels, (attendance about 45-50). Youngsters move from one station to another, trying all the different tools. While circus is not for everyone, we have found over the years that a core group of kids comes back week after week, year after year. Many of the young people have become skilled circus performers, who work regularly alongside our professional circus artists. We preach safety and utilize safety equipment in all areas. Every activity is closely supervised and spotters are positioned wherever necessary. Several times each year, after-school participants produce the Fern Street Junior Circus where they showcase their skills before an audience under show conditions.

Fern Street Circus is proud to be part of the "6 to 6" extracurricular program at Roosevelt Middle School where our coaches provide circus skills training every week to an enthusiastic group of central San Diego teenagers. Educators and parents have told us that participants in this program have shown improved performance in class and have translated circus discipline to other portions of their lives in and out of the classroom.

The After-School Circus Skills Program is supported, in part, by grants from the Boys and Girls Foundation, Cirque du Soleil, the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, Target Stores, Union Bank Foundation and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.