Briefs: Lights for Tburg conservatory, Hupstate Circus Festival

Rotary provides funding for T-burg conservatory lights

Dona Roman, new managing director of the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts, was on hand at a recent Trumansburg Rotary Club meeting to receive a grant to help the organization purchase a theater lighting system for the conservatory. The lights are already in use for the Conservatory’s Musical Theater Arts Week and will be used in the upcoming series of concerts and other performances, including those by Ithaca’s own Dart Brothers on Aug. 28, storyteller and musician Rev. Robert Jones on Sept. 17 and guitarist Pierre Bensusan on Oct. 19.

Funding was provided by Rotary District 7170 and the Trumansburg Rotary Club as part of the district’s Annual Grants Program.

The Rotary Club, a service club, meets Thursdays from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the American Legion and welcomes new members. Learn more at tburgrotary.org.

In this photo: Trumansburg Rotary Club President Tom Overbaugh (left) presents a check to Roman.

 

Hupstate Circus Festival coming to Ithaca Labor Day weekend

This Labor Day weekend, Ithaca will be bustling at the second annual Hupstate Circus Festival.

This multiple-day festival will bring dozens of circus artists to Ithaca from all over North America to perform from Sept. 2 through 5. Shows include free and ticketed, indoor and outdoor, geared toward all ages and adult-only offerings.

The Hupstate Circus Festival features multiple shows such as the highly anticipated Branché, a collective of circus artists from Montreal who create environmentally conscious site-specific circus shows with high-flying acrobatics occurring in the natural environment. The artists will be in residence in Stewart Park creating their show starting Sept. 2 and will perform free shows for the public in the park at 1 p.m. Sept. 4 and at 7 p.m. Sept. 5.

Stars Above All American Open Air circus, which took Ithaca by storm last year, will be back from Sept. 2 through 4 in the Press Bay backlot off of West Green Street. Its shows sold out to rave reviews last year.

The festival also features a collaboration with the Cherry Artspace, where aerial rigging was recently installed to support more circus performances.

The Artspace will host performances on Sept. 2 and 3: Circus Shorts, a compilation of three different circus show excerpts, and Contemporary Circus Night, comprised of Looped (New York City) — featuring flying aerial pole and live cello — and Surface Tension (Chicago), a 60-minute juggling and acrobatics show that explores queer friendship.

Finally, Freakshow, a 21+ event curated by local artist and culture bearer Billie Blackroot, will center an ensemble of circus, drag and movement artists. These performers will join forces to celebrate the politicized and queered circus history and the artistic expression of their most authentic selves at 8 p.m. Sept 4.

There will also be free performances on The Commons pedestrian mall as part of First Friday Gallery Night on Sept. 2, including a show by a circus troupe from Rochester, New York, a roving bubble artist Polly Solomon from New York City and hand balancer and Cornell University architecture student Emily Caywood performing in the storefront window of the beautiful Adrina Dietra lingerie and apothecary shop on West State Street.

For more information about the Hupstate Festival, visit Hupstatecircus.org.