'Yes Sweet Can': 'Mittens and Mistletoe' circus
Jamie Coventry (left) and Natasha Kaluza, a.k.a. Coventry and Kaluza, cook up some clowning fun in Sweet Can Productions' "Mittens and Mistletoe."Mary Ellen Hunt, Special to The Chronicle
Thursday, December 15, 2011.
Take a little bit of acrobatics and a little juggling, throw in some trapeze work and clowning, and it adds up to a charmer of a circus cabaret for kids.
This weekend, the 5-year-old Sweet Can Productions kicks off two weeks of holiday performances of its popular "Yes Sweet Can" show at Dance Mission, turning the everyday into magical moments.
Embedded in this year's run will be special circus arts workshops for kids, Dec. 30-31, and also a pint-size circus cabaret titled "Mittens and Mistletoe," Dec. 23-25.
This is the second year that clowning duo Jamie Coventry and Natasha Kaluza has taken the stage with their daffy, slightly surreal kids' program, and judging from the reception the two got last year, it will be a hit with families.
"A lot of people have told us that they really didn't know what to take the kids to for the holidays," Kaluza says. "But the family reaction was so great and we had such good turnout for our shows."
"Mittens and Mistletoe" is on a much more modest scale than larger commercial circus acts like the Ringling Bros., and Kaluza says their show isn't aiming for spectacle.
"We're much more intimate," Coventry agrees. "We're real people, right there next to you. We're much more naturalistic, not that big white-painted face. We're just big living cartoons."
The shtick, they explain, is much more along vaudeville lines, with Murray the geriatric clown emceeing the evening's series of circus acts - which range from Genie Cartier's finely balanced acrobatics with folding chairs to Sam Luckey and Shira Yaziv's uniquely told story of a shipwrecked sailor, and Jaron Hollander's aerial displays.
"We gather people from all over the Bay Area, and the talents we have are, I think, the cream of the crop," Kaluza says. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 6 p.m. Sun. Through Jan. 1. (Check website for full schedule.) $12-$60. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., S.F. (415) 225-7281. www.sweetcanproductions.com.Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/14/NSLI1M9PV9.DTL#ixzz1gcFBHOTC
This weekend, the 5-year-old Sweet Can Productions kicks off two weeks of holiday performances of its popular "Yes Sweet Can" show at Dance Mission, turning the everyday into magical moments.
Embedded in this year's run will be special circus arts workshops for kids, Dec. 30-31, and also a pint-size circus cabaret titled "Mittens and Mistletoe," Dec. 23-25.
This is the second year that clowning duo Jamie Coventry and Natasha Kaluza has taken the stage with their daffy, slightly surreal kids' program, and judging from the reception the two got last year, it will be a hit with families.
"A lot of people have told us that they really didn't know what to take the kids to for the holidays," Kaluza says. "But the family reaction was so great and we had such good turnout for our shows."
"Mittens and Mistletoe" is on a much more modest scale than larger commercial circus acts like the Ringling Bros., and Kaluza says their show isn't aiming for spectacle.
"We're much more intimate," Coventry agrees. "We're real people, right there next to you. We're much more naturalistic, not that big white-painted face. We're just big living cartoons."
The shtick, they explain, is much more along vaudeville lines, with Murray the geriatric clown emceeing the evening's series of circus acts - which range from Genie Cartier's finely balanced acrobatics with folding chairs to Sam Luckey and Shira Yaziv's uniquely told story of a shipwrecked sailor, and Jaron Hollander's aerial displays.
"We gather people from all over the Bay Area, and the talents we have are, I think, the cream of the crop," Kaluza says. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 6 p.m. Sun. Through Jan. 1. (Check website for full schedule.) $12-$60. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., S.F. (415) 225-7281. www.sweetcanproductions.com.Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/14/NSLI1M9PV9.DTL#ixzz1gcFBHOTC
No comments:
Post a Comment