Smirkus at the Smithsonian
Circus Smirkus has been invited to participate in The Smithsonian Folklife Festival that includes a program which spotlights the Circus Arts and will feature intimate workshops, full-scale performances, and learning opportunities from master circus artists.
At the Folklife Festival, founder Rob Mermin will be joined by “Smirko” alumni to showcase their role in propagating the values and culture of the traveling circus and its place in circus education in America.
Co-creator of the CircusSecrets methodology Jackie Davis and youth development researcher Jen Agans will also demonstrate how the skills and allure of the circus can impart learning strategies that meet the needs of schools and students alike.
There will be eight Circus Smirkus demonstrations from June 29 – July 6. Click here to view the full schedule of events.
Meet the Troupers:
Chase Culp – Circus Smirkus
Chase Culp grew up going to any circus that came to town, and at age 3 had decided he wanted to be a circus clown.
At the age of 16 he began to tour with Circus Smirkus where he performed for 3 seasons. At 18 he joined Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, where he spent 2 years and was one of the final clowns to perform for them.
Chase has also performed for Circus Maine Cabaret, Six Flags, Ferrari World: Abu Dhabi and the International Clown Festival of India. He is currently touring with Cirque Us!, and is representing Circus Smirkus at this performance.
Delaney Bayles – Circus Smirkus
Delaney Bayles is from Salt Lake City, Utah and has been juggling for the past 5 years.
She recently won the World Juggling Federation’s Advanced Overall Championship.
This past summer she was on tour with Circus Smirkus. She is a student at Colorado College, and is coached by Richard Kennison. Delaney couldn’t be more excited to be performing with Cirque Us! this summer, and is representing Circus Smirkus at this performance.
Ivan Jermyn – Circus Smirkus
Ivan Jermyn grew up in Montpelier Vermont, where he discovered his love for circus.
He has been clowning around ever since. His skills include acrobatics, clowning, and manipulation. Previously, Ivan has performed with the Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour. Ivan is studying at Coastal Carolina University for a B.F.A. in Physical Theater.
He is excited to go on the road again and perform with Cirque Us!, and is representing Circus Smirkus at this performance.
Ripley Burns – Circus Smirkus
Ripley Burns discovered the circus world five years ago after a childhood filled with competitive gymnastics.
She has trained at Aircraft Aerial Arts, Esh Circus Arts, and the New England Center for Circus Arts, and is currently training at the École de Cirque de Québec. Ripley has performed with the Diamond Family Circus and spent three summers touring with Circus Smirkus.
When she isn’t doing handstands, Ripley loves reading, doodling, and wandering.
Cam Zweir – Circus Smirkus
Cam Zweir ran away with Circus Smirkus at age 16. He spent three years traveling with the Circus Smirkus Big Top Show.
He most recently performed in the National Broadway Tour of Pippin as a Acrobat.
He is excited to be performing with Cirque Us!, and is representing Circus Smirkus at this performance.
Meet The Circus Smirkus Education Team:
Jackie Davis is a pioneer, teacher, and advocate of circus arts education. She is a founding member of the American Youth Circus Organization (AYCO) which promotes the participation of youth in circus arts through biennial national festivals. and circus educator conferences. She also teaches and contributes to the American Circus Educators (ACE) biennial conferences.
Read More About Jackie
Jackie’s circus education work began in 1995 when she established a middle school circus arts curriculum at the Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton, NH. Jackie also founded the Silver Lining Circus Camp (1997), a summer day camp for children ages 7-14, and the Flying Gravity Circus (1999), a teen troupe that brought performances and workshops to school communities from Pennsylvania to Toronto. In 2006, Jackie united these programs under the umbrella of CircusLearning, LLC. Jackie has coached juggling, balance skills, and clowning at the Circus Smirkus summer camp in Vermont. Many of her students have risen to join the ranks of the Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour, the National Circus School in Montreal, and Cirque du Soleil.
While teaching circus at Pine Hill, Jackie became aware that circus might impart important educational and developmental benefits to children. She merged her interests in circus arts and academics (coining the term circademics) to earn a Master of Education degree in Human Development & Psychology in 2009 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Harvard she identified circus as a vehicle for physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development and constructed her theory of developmental circus arts (DCA).
In 2012 Jackie received a prestigious Killam Fellowship to pursue doctoral research in DCA at the University of British Columbia’s Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program. Her research supervisors were Dr. Adele Diamond, world-renowned expert in executive functions and Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, and Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl, a leading researcher in social and emotional learning.
However, in 2014, Jackie’s husband, Rick, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He passed away in 2015, and Jackie subsequently withdrew from UBC. Rick, a former clown with Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus, was a devoted circus teacher and the director of the Circus Smirkus Ringmaster Residency program for more than a decade.
Jackie continues Rick’s legacy by developing his “CircusSecrets,” ten tips for learning circus that are actually strategies for lifelong learning. Jackie has linked Rick’s CircusSecrets to five core competencies of social and emotional learning (SEL), providing the Circus Smirkus Ringmaster Residency program with a potent tool that employs circus to teach transferable life skills. She is helping Smirkus pilot this methodology in a year-long research project with 4 th -6 th graders in Greensboro, Vermont.
With decades of teaching behind her, Jackie is now embarking upon a career as an author of children’s and young adult books. She is transmuting her would-be doctoral dissertation into magical, inspiring stories about kids who need circus in their lives, how circus finds them, and the power of circus arts to change kids’ lives.
Her first project, currently under contract with Quarry Books, is a non-fiction circus education book with the working title The Do-It-Yourself Circus Lab for Kids: A family-friendly guide for juggling, balancing, clowning, and show-making, slated for release in spring of 2018.
Prior to her teaching and writing careers, Jackie was a professional mime who studied with Marcel Marceau, performing for nearly 4 years at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center. She taught mime at New York University’s Department of Undergraduate Drama several years before earning dual BA degrees in Theatre and in Non-verbal Communication in the Arts (self-designed) from the University of New Hampshire, summa cum laude.
Jackie resides in New Hampshire. Her adult daughters, Erin and Ellie, live nearby.
Jen Agans is a research associate at Cornell University and Assistant Director of the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE) at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. She is a developmental scientist focusing on the ways in which out-of-school time programs can contribute to positive youth development.
She also toured with Circus Smirkus in 2004.
She is an applied developmental scientist working to understand and promote positive and healthy development in adolescence and across the life span. Over the course of her career, she aims to further the scientific understanding of the ways in which youth participation in physical activities and out-of-school time programs can benefit concurrent and life-long health and well-being.
Rob Mermin trained in classical mime with Etienne Decroux and Marcel Marceau and has performed in European circus, theater, TV and film for forty years. He is an author, director, university lecturer, former Dean of Ringling Bros. Clown College, and founder of the award-winning international company Circus Smirkus.
Rob’s awards include Copenhagen’s Gold Clown; the Bessie Award; Best Director Prize at the former Soviet Union’s International Festival on the Black Sea; the Lund Family Center’s “It Takes A Village Award”; the Vermont Arts Council Award of Merit, and the 2008 Governor’s Award for Excellence, Vermont’s highest honor in the arts. Rob lives in central Vermont. Learn more at robmermin.com.