Circus Coming to Harvey This Summer

Circus Coming to Harvey This Summer: Children living in Westchester and Fairfield counties will have an opportunity this summer to know what it’s like to perform under the Big Top!

The Harvey School has announced it is partnering with Westchester Circus Arts to offer area children training in a wide array of circus activities. Co-founder and co-director Hilary Sweeney, whose company has successfully operated a highly regarded circus arts program in Ardsley for a number of years, is excited that the circus camp is moving to Katonah where children living in the eastern portion of Westchester and in nearby Connecticut will have a chance to explore the fun and artistry of circus performance.

Photo by Liflander Photography

Sweeney’s business partner and mentor, renowned social circus educator Carlo Pellegrini with more than 40 years of professional circus experience, is the guide for the curriculum and program development. Sweeney said partnering with Harvey makes a perfect match. “We believe that Harvey’s core values are closely aligned with ours and we recognize and respect Harvey’s love for the arts, the school’s respectful, heartwarming staff, and its commitment to quality,” said Sweeney, a professional circus artist and aerialist.

No strangers to Harvey’s 125-acre campus, Sweeney and her staff have worked with children in the Harvey Cavalier Camp for a few summers in the past, offering workshops that introduced campers to a wide range of circus arts. But this summer, Westchester Circus Arts will be more than visiting. The company is setting up shop for the entire summer, offering enrollees, ages 6-18, a unique opportunity to train and perform with circus professionals.

“I can’t wait to set up our real circus tent on the sprawling grounds of The Harvey School,” Sweeney said. “The beautiful hilltop campus will serve as a magnificent backdrop to our program in which we inspire our campers to go after their dreams,” she added.

Sweeney’s campers are of all skill levels, from beginner through advanced, participating in diverse offerings that cater to a wide variety of ages, genders, and learning styles. “We place all our campers in a frame of mind that anything is possible and empower them to achieve success,” Sweeney said.

Circus campers will learn aerial arts, using aerial silks, a trapeze, and an aerial hoop. They will also learn acrobatics, featuring handstands, tumbling, Tumbl Trak, and a mini-trampoline. Other circus skills taught will be equilibristics/balance using a tightwire, rolling globe, rola bola,

juggling, balls, scarves, clubs, and rings, balancing props, and clowning/acting/physical comedy

“Pretty much anything you’d expect to see circus performers to do, our campers will learn to do,” Sweeney said.

LJ Studios Photography

At the end of each two-week session, the campers will perform in a showcase for families and friends.

Cavalier Campers Can Get into the Act, Too.

Harvey’s partnership with Westchester Circus Arts will also permit children enrolled in the more traditional day-camp program of Cavalier Camp opportunities to take circus arts classes as activity electives.

Cavalier Camp Director Vinny Alexander is delighted Sweeney and her staff of trained professionals will once again be available to instruct his campers. “I am thrilled that Westchester Circus Arts and its fine staff will be with us on campus all summer and available to work with our Cavalier campers who want to explore circus arts as part of their elective courses,” said Alexander.

Harvey Cavalier Camp: Design Your Own Schedule in Sport, Arts, Theatre, Science and more!

The Cavalier Camp is renowned for its unique, individually tailored program as campers design their own schedules, choosing from more than 50 electives in fine arts, creative crafts, theater, dance, music, martial arts, science, robotics, cooking, gymnastics, swimming, indoor/outdoor sports, tennis, ice skating, and now circus arts!

The trained professionals of Westchester Circus Arts will be joining the ranks this summer of Cavalier Camp’s staff of outstanding instructors in the fine and performing arts, the sciences, gymnastics and sports. They are talented and dedicated adults who share their expertise in a remarkable program that boasts a 3:1 camper-to-staff ratio!

With fun activities throughout the six weeks such as dance parties, variety shows, field trips, theme days and one huge scavenger hunt on Harvey’s sprawling 125-acre campus, children experience the fullest measure of an extraordinary day camp experience. Harvey Cavalier Camp is indeed, as one very happy child so aptly put it, “a day camp that feels like sleepaway except you get to go home every day.”

Discover the beautiful, bucolic campus of Harvey when the Cavalier Camp holds Saturday open houses on Feb. 3, March 3 and April 7.

For more information on the Harvey Cavalier Camp, visit http://www.harveycavaliercamp.org

For more information on the Westchester Circus Arts Camp, visit http://www.westchestercircusarts.com/