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No Graves, No Masters was our most political work to date and used a zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for climate change to critique how capitalism deals with the “new normal” mostly through attempting to deny or diminish its impact on the people trying to survive it. In early 2019, we debuted another all original work: No Graves, No Masters, a dark comedy set 12 years after the dawn of the zombie apocalypse, at Z-Space, San Francisco. Our first show of 2017 followed the “tribute to classic film” vein and adapted & satirized Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in the unnerving and psychedelic comedy: Charlie and the Chocolate Circus. Circus director, Bunny Holmes, also produced an intimate and immersive, four-location, short theater piece called Two Houses, which brought small audiences through one night within the play Romeo & Juliet (using the original text), and it played twice a night with a 45 person ensemble cast. In September 2016, we got mostly-naked at a very silly, very queer, unabashedly sexy rock-opera tribute to the cult classic Rocky Horror, which returned a year later in an even more polished and ambitious iteration. In summer of 2016 with the help of our friends at the Vau de Vire Society, the Vespertine Circus debuted our first big top circus tent show, Midsummer, and adapted Shakespeare’s classic tale for the circus medium. It was very complex and built from the passionate round-the-clock efforts of over 50 artists, over two years of fundraising, design, and construction. HiNGE had an all original score that could be changed & manipulated by the audience during the production, elaborate costumes crafted by local fashion designers, an iPhone app for further narrative content & interactivity, a set designed and created by Clody Cates & Gaige of NIMBY fame, a one of a kind life-sized tiger puppet, and even custom fragrances to accompany our set-dressing. Our 2013 show – “ Important Business“, which opened in January 2013 and ran for the last time on July 31st, 2013, was an office comedy, juxtaposing the whimsy of circus with the droll monotony of office life.īetween 20 we built an interactive, immersive, circus-meets-game production called HiNGE that invited the audience to join the circus crew as a technician and effect the outcome of the show. July 2012’s show “A Perfect World” took us on a tour to the Pacific Northwest. Our first tour was in July of 2011 the Vespertine Circus traveled to New Orleans and back with the show “Absolutely Anything“.īy the end of 18 months in action, the Vespertine Circus had written, rehearsed & performed 13 original narrative & character-driven circus shows*. The troupe was first conceptualized in 2008 by director & producer Bunny Holmes (pictured left) while she was attending school at UC Santa Cruz, though it did not begin having regular performances until June of 2010 after re-locating to Oakland.įor our first two home-seasons, the troupe produced an all-new 90 minute theme show each month to perform locally. As performers, we are moved to attempt seemingly impossible feats, in the hopes that we may challenge what you believe is possible in your own life.
Arts inspire innovation in technology, deepen our empathy for others, motivate shifts toward healthier lifestyles, and can grant a kind of indescribable spiritual catharsis.
We believe that artists are the progenitors of culture, enriching us in mind and spirit by broadening our perspective of the world. We weave circus arts into the context of narrative theater, with characters you can relate to. Our troupe is inspired by both the iconic and small, traveling, family-circuses that first swept across America around the late 1800s and the theatrical, dance-infused, animal-free, indoor contemporary circus movement. The Vespertine Circus (based out of San Francisco, CA) is a small collection of ambitious oddballs on a quest to spread joy and absurdity. About Vespertine “The world they create in their performances, that’s where I want to live all the time.