The only newspaper dedicated to the St. Louis Chinese community.
                                                 Issue: 706   Date: 03/04/2004

Far East Meets Midwest II
Presented by St. Louis Arches, Circus Day Foundation
with Xiaoyu Yan, St. Louis Modern Chinese School, Three Rivers
Aikido, St. Louis Osuwa Taiko Drummers, Hiroshi Tada, 
and Tchotchke Kaputnik, 
4:00 & 8:00 P.M. Saturday, February 28, 2004
St. Louis City Museum

Circus Connects Communities: Far East Meets Midwest II

By SCANews staff

Chinese Lions dancing on giant balls. Taiko Drummers flying through the air. Three American angels performing to Chinese harp music. Aikido artists sweeping to a Persian lute. These were some of the images from Circus Day Foundation's presentation, Far East Meets Midwest II, on Saturday, Feb. 28th in the circus ring on the third floor of City Museum. This show was conceived, choreographed and co-ordinated by Circus Day Foundation's artistic/executive director, Jessica Hentoff.

The Circus Day Foundation was thrilled to present Far East Meets Midwest II, its boundary-crossing, bridge-building, community-connecting multi-cultural performance using Chinese circus arts, other Asian cultural arts and local St. Louis youth to connect and entertain people in a wonderful way. For this show, the St. Louis Arches youth circus troupe performed several Chinese circus arts acts: Chinese Hoop Diving, Chinese yo-yos a.k.a. Diabolos, Chinese Vertical Poles and Group Bicycling. Other performers included St. Louis Osuwa Taiko Drummers, Lion Dancers from the St. Louis Modern Chinese School, Zheng (Chinese harp) virtuoso, Xiaoyu Yan, Japanese master top-spinner, Hiroshi Tada and special guests Three Rivers Aikido and Farshid Soltanshahi from Farshid Etniko. There were also two American clowns, the Brothers Kaputnik, who had been trained by Chinese circus teachers from the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe.

This year's Far East Meets Midwest II featured several unique and wonderful collaborations. The St. Louis Arches and St. Louis Osuwa Taiko Drummers performed an act called Tumble Drum in which Taikos tumbled and Arches drummed. Another first was the act that had Xiaoyu Yan playing the Zheng (Chinese harp) accompanying three young girls from the Arches as they performed a new Triple Trapeze act. Four beautiful young women from China, Illinois, Bridgeton and St. Louis displayed strength and grace in this marvelous mingling of music and aerial artistry. Several of the circus performers also attended Lion Dancing classes taught by Yingwen Wan at the St. Louis Modern Chinese School. This resulted in Chinese Lions walking on large balls and one little lion actually doing a back handspring on the back of a big lion! The cross-cultural cross training was fun and demanding for all involved. The result was exhilarating! Since you can't get from the Far East to the Midwest without going through the Middle East, Iranian master musician, Farshid Soltanshahi played the Persian setar to accompany a martial arts demonstration by members of Three Rivers Aikido. These creative collaborations were part of what made Circus Day Foundation's Far East Meets Midwest II an incredible, inspirational, international treat for all who attended. 

This was a one night only event! In addition to the two shows on Saturday, February 28th there was a buffet dinner and silent auction between shows to benefit the Circus Day Foundation's youth circus troupes. In addition to food from Crazy Bowls and Wraps, China Star and the Baby Elephant Caf? there was also live entertainment and the chance to win a signed die cast car from Dale Earnhart Jr., night at the Renaissance Grand, Stan Musial baseball and other items. 

In the world right now, especially in the Middle East, people yearn for peace. The path to peace is a path of cooperation and communication. . Teaching children from different neighborhoods how to stand on each other's shoulders may seem like a strange way to take this path. Bringing in teachers from another country to teach St. Louis children circus skills from a different culture may seem like a strange way to take this path Combining artists from different backgrounds and arts from different cultures may seem like a strange way to take this path. But it's the technique used by the Circus Day Foundation.