National Endowment for the Arts to Award More Than $82 Million for Arts Projects Nationwide, Including Big Apple Circus

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships in the NEA's second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016. Included in this announcement is an Art Works award of $30,000 to support Big Apple Circus' renowned community outreach programs: Clown Care®, Circus of the Senses, Big Apple Circus Embraces Autism, and Vaudeville Visits. This is the circus' third year of funding for the programs, helping to bring the arts to under-served populations for yet another season.

"The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected," said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. "Supporting projects like the one from Big Apple Circus offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day."

To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, please use #NEASpring16. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov.

Big Apple Circus Community Outreach Programs

As a nonprofit performing arts institution, the Big Apple Circus is committed not only to thrilling audiences in the ring, but also to bringing the joy and wonder of circus into the community. Big Apple Circus creates direct, shared connections inside its one-ring Big Top AND in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools, in its New York City home and in cities across America.

"These performers, many from circus dynasties, preserve an important tradition, reinforced by the nonprofit Big Apple Circus's commendable community-service activities, notably the
Clown Care program, which entertains hospitalized children. This company ... doesn't only have awe-inspiring acrobatic skills; it has a lot of heart, too."

- The New York Times, 2014 Critics' Pick

Big Apple Circus Clown Care® brings the joy of classical circus to hospitalized children at 15 leading pediatric facilities across the United States. Performers collaborate with doctors and staff to design a program to fit the needs of each hospital. Members of the Clown Care team bring the healing power of humor to children with acute and chronic illnesses, visiting nearly 225,000 young patients every year.

Big Apple Circus Vaudeville Visits, a unique program created in 2004 to cater to the elderly in residential settings in the greater Chicago area, recently expanded to serve those in the hospital setting at the Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. Twice each month, performers visit hospitalized elders in the Stroke, Respiratory Care, Long-Term Care, Cardiac Care, Abdominal Surgery, Orthopedic, and Neurology Units, bringing their own special brand of mischief and laughter and brightening the day for all. Vaudeville Visits is now also a pilot program at Gouverneur Health on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a public hospital that provides both critical and residential care to seniors and dementia patients.

Big Apple Circus offers a specially adapted performance of the show, Circus of the Senses,for children and adults with vision or hearing impairments and/or other disabilities. American Sign Language interpreters are positioned in spotlights throughout the tent, and wireless audio headsets transmit a live audio play-by-play description of the action in the ring. Braille or large-print descriptive programs are available for audience members. A "touch session" after the show offers a unique opportunity for pre-selected groups of visually impaired children to go into the ring to meet the artists and literally feel a clown nose, a juggler's clubs, or the silky coat of a performing dog.

Big Apple Circus Embraces Autismprovides performances with modified lighting and sound as well as a staffed calming center, to meet the needs of children on the autism spectrum. Inclusion is a core value at Big Apple Circus, which is dedicated to delivering the finest circus entertainment to everyone, regardless of physical or cognitive ability, or economic circumstance.

Circus for All!distributes free and subsidized tickets to schools and nonprofit organizations serving low-income children and families, enabling many of them to experience the excitement and wonder of the circus for the very first time.

Circus After School teaches kids life skills such as teamwork, responsible risk-taking, and perseverance, through a structured program of learning and performing circus arts.

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America's rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts and the agency is celebrating this milestone with events and activities through September 2016.

BIG APPLE CIRCUS

(Will Maitland Weiss, Executive Director; Guillaume Dufresnoy, Artistic Director)

Conceived and founded by Paul Binder and Michael Christensen to be a leading presenter of live family entertainment and a nonprofit performing arts institution, our nation-wide performances and community programs have made our 38-year history far-reaching and full. It all began in 1974, when American entertainers Binder and Christensen became juggling partners and took to the street corners of Europe. Their comedic juggling act was a hit, and they soon found themselves on the stage of the prestigious Nouveau Cirque de Paris. They returned home to America in 1976 with a vision: to entertain and improve the lives of millions of American children and families. One year later, they found a site for the first tent-raising in Battery Park, New York, and went on to create the award-winning, nonprofit Big Apple Circus. For more information, visit www.bigapplecircus.org.

BIG APPLE CIRCUS The Grand Tour!

Big Apple Circus continues it's 38th season traveling show,returning to Cunningham Park with the Queens Premiere of The Grand Tour!. Tickets start at $25, and the show runs from May 15 - June 12, 2016 under the Big Top at Cunningham Park, located at Union Turnpike and 196th Street in Oakland Gardens, NY 11363. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.bigapplecircus.org.

See high-flying acrobats, lovable clowns, the Wheel of Wonder, ponies, puppies and more! All seats less than 50 feet from the ring. In this all-new show, The Grand Tour transports audiences to the advent of the modern travel era, when the most adventuresome began touring the world in ships, planes, trains, and automobiles. Audiences will be awed by the world-class entertainers as they perform breathtaking acts from the four corners of the globe. Clowns, jugglers, acrobats, and aerialists from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America set off on a whirlwind adventure, accompanied by the live, seven-piece Big Apple Circus Band at each performance.

Four-time Big Apple Circus ringmaster John Kennedy Kane returns to introduce a variety of stunning performers: clowns Joel Jeske and Brent McBeth; third-generation circus animal trainer Jenny Vidbel with her pony and dog acts; aerialist Sergey Akimov; international juggling sensation AlexanderKoblikov; ninth-generation circus performer Chiara Anastasini with hula hoops; the Dominguez Brothers defying the law of gravity with their thrill-filled act featuring the Wheel of Wonder; Chinese hand balancers The Energy Trio; the African acrobatic troupe Zuma Zuma; and the Dosov Troupe soaring on the teeterboard.

The Grand Tour, conceived and created by Joel Jeske, is directed by Mark Lonergan (artistic director of Parallel Exit, the three-time Drama Desk Award-nominated physical theater company) with choreographer and associate director Antoinette DiPietropolo. Musical direction by Rob Slowik, with clown material created and directed by Joel Jeske. Set and lighting design by Maruti Evans, costume design by Oana Botez, and props design by Katie Fleming.

Big Apple Circus Embraces Autism will take place on Tuesday, May 31, 2016 at 11am. Big Apple Circus has joined with world-renowned Autism Spectrum Disorders experts to adapt The Grand Tour for families with members on the spectrum and create a joyful experience for all. The adapted show includes the same world-class artistry as the full performance with a shorter running time, adjusted lights and sound, a calming center, pictorial social narratives, and specially trained staff and volunteers to assure a memorable event for everyone! All tickets to this special performance, a 75-minute abbreviated show, are half price ($12.50-$37.50).

A special Big Apple Circus Member event, including dessert in the ring with the performers, will be held following the performance on Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 4:30pm. For more information on how to become a Big Apple Circus Member, please visit http://www.bigapplecircus.org/join-and-give.