Album Notes

ECHO’S REACH is an imaginative new production by Tim Barsky that reunites him with a top-notch group of musical collaborators. The production deepens Barsky’s vision of a new, hybrid performance style called Urban Circus Arts – a genre unique to City Circus. Urban Circus Arts crosses traditional circus arts (acrobatics, aerial acts, and contortion) with contemporary city-born forms (breakdancing, parkour, beat boxing, and hip-hop theatre). The result is an energetic and ground-breaking juxtaposition of art forms that is at once accessible and thrilling.

ECHO’S REACH is a thoughtful, urban fairytale with mythic overtones and historical references. Echo is a little girl who lives with a circus inside of a prison. Her desire for freedom sends her on a journey through the prison. On the journey, she follows bboy revolutionaries on the Underground Railroad to encounter a magical world populated by acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, contortionists, and musicians. On the journey, Echo learns to grow up, come to terms with her struggle for freedom and love.

The central theme of ECHO’S REACH explores how systems transform us, and how, in the words of Tim Barsky “our culture builds a lot of walls on a lot of levels; and we build emotional and physical walls to keep things away.”

ECHO’S REACH is written and directed by Tim Barsky (most recently seen in the successful revival of THE BRIGHT RIVER: A HIP–HOP RETELLING OF DANTE’S INFERNO). Many of his collaborators worked on prior shows AND IF WE SHADOWS (2008) and KAMIKAZE HEART (2009). For ECHO’S REACH (2010) Barsky re-teamed with beatboxer Carlos Aguirre (Felonious) and hip-hop artist Delina Brooks. The live an original soundscore is written and performed by Kevin Carnes (Broun Fellinis) and Brandi Brandes.

City Circus’s ECHO’S REACH was presented April 30 and through May 30, 2010 at the Brava Theater in San Francisco’s Mission district.

CITY CIRCUS is a three-generation strong professional circus ensemble & training program based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is the performance arm of AcroSports, a physical and circus arts gym, founded by Bay Area resident, Dorrie Huntington, and performers from the Moscow Circus. San Francisco and Montreal are the two primary training centers for circus arts in North America. Frederick Street, located in the Haight Ashbury, represents a powerhouse for US circus, with two out of five professional circus schools in the U.S. on the same block in San Francisco.

In 2007, AcroSports appointed Tim Barsky to the position of Artistic Director of City Circus. Since his appointment, City Circus has gained a reputation as the world’s foremost training and performance program that specializes in Urban Circus Arts – a cross-platform performance discipline that unites traditional circus arts (acrobatics, aerial acts, and contortion) with 20th century urban art forms (breakdancing, parkour, and hip-hop in all its expressive forms). Urban Circus Arts has come to represent a major stylistic movement within the history of circus. Over the past couple of years, the movement has been blossoming in the ‘indie circus’ world. There has been an explosion of new styles appearing on underground stages, and AcroSports/City Circus rapidly became established as the foremost training and performance program that specialized in Urban Circus Arts. This multi-ethnic ensemble, which ranges in age from 14-34, is a product of the vibrant circus and hip-hop communities fostered by the Bay Area, and draws strongly from both traditions.