Page 36 - the NOISE March 2014

FAREWELL TO THE WAVE
PHOTOS BY
forward into the future. During the last two years, Circus Camp also gave campers who had aged out of the program the chance to work as camp counselors. They were able to develop leadership skills that can only serve them well as they move into young adult- hood. Prescott has a generation of kids who can stilt walk, hula hoop, juggle and drum like pros because of Tsunami’s Circus Camp.
Over the years, an incredible range of per- formers played the Tsunami main stage. An early festival favorite was Tucson’s spectacu- lar fire and acrobatic stilt group, Flam Chen. From the first Tsunami show, their gorgeous sets, complex storylines and highly profes- sional performances set a high standard for the festival. Other huge hits included Arche- dream for Humankind’s black light dance shows and Prescott’s own fire troupe, Pyro Klectic.
Beyond the spectacle, a variety of differ- ent cultural performing traditions graced Tsunami’s stage. Indian temple dance, Taiko drumming, Apache Crown Dancers, Jones Benally Hoop Dancers, butoh dance mas- ters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano’s group Ha- rupin Ha, and the Burundi drummers group, Komezakaranga AZ are but a few. Perform- ers from across the globe came to Prescott, giving audiences unforgettable live perfor- mance experiences.
Local businesses and business owners like Barry Barbe (El Gato Azul), Ty Fitzmorris (Raven Café and Peregrine Book Company), Ida Kendall (The Art Store and The Frame & I), Margo Christensen (Springhill Suites, Residence Inn), Joe Livingston and Brian Spear (Motor Lodge), Bucky’s Casino, APS, Bill Tracy (Bill’s Pizza), the staff at New Fron- tiers Natural Marketplace and others sup- ported Tsunami over the years.
The festival was also supported by hun- dreds of volunteers. Parents and Big Broth- ers/Big Sisters volunteered countless hours at Circus Camp. Everyone who served on the Board of Directors over the years contribut- ed tons of time, energy and sweat equity to keep the wave rolling. The Burly Crew who set up the stage and took it down again at night, the Bucket Brigade volunteers who collected on-site donations from happy festival goers, the folks who put up flyers, shopped on the 5% Wednesday fundraiser at New Frontiers, photographers, artists, graph-
STORY BY ANGIE JOHNSON SCHMIT JOHN SEAMAN & LARRY GROMER
ic artists and countless others all made Tsu- nami possible. Given the chance, I suspect many are ready and willing to support the next amazing art event as soon as it arrives on the scene.
In order to keep the festival free, Tsunami also relied heavily on grants and donations from private individuals and the public. Af- ter the economic downturn, it simply wasn’t enough to fund the director’s position and it became a volunteer position for the last three years of the festival. The months of preparation and the extreme anxiety of try- ing to prepare and fund Tsunami cannot be overestimated.
The lessons for the future are clear. Tsuna- mi undeniably proved that bringing extraor- dinary live performance to the community is not only great for the audience, but an economic force to be reckoned with. With audiences between 7,500 and 8,000 people at the main festival, up to 100 Circus Camp- ers, and hundreds showing up for Flourish and Tsunami Tsunday, the festival brought people and their wallets to Prescott. So, yes, it can be done, but it in order for it to last, it must have a more sustainable structure.
Prescott seems to be more of an arts incu- bator than a lasting home for our finest art folk. Most of the Tsunami executive directors have washed up on farther shores, spread- ing magic in new ways. Original director Mr. Ruby and several of the original Carpetbag Brigade members landed in San Francisco, where they continue to perform in differ- ent incarnations. Mr. Tannous is in Flagstaff, where he is the director of the Coconino Center for the Arts. Ms. DeFreitas pursued her writing career in Portland, OR. Megan Buchanan Cherry moved to the east coast where she is still dancing. The final Tsunami on the Square executive director, Mr. John- son-Schmit, plans to remain in Prescott and pursue his passion for making movies.
It is almost impossible to describe the sheer, visceral rush of being in the midst of thousands of people chanting “Tsu!” “Na!”
“Mi!” And, it seems impossible that it won’t happen again. But the reality is that Tsunami was always a beautiful, impossible event.
| Angie Johnson Schmit is very much a surfer of the wave. slackerwriter@gmail.com
After 15 years of bringing performing arts and culture to Prescott’s Courthouse Square, Tsunami on the Square announced
the festival is throwing in the metaphori- cal beach towel. The Board of Directors met several times since last year’s festival and ultimately decided that it was time to bid farewell to the wave. The news was met with mixed feelings, many pointing to the festival as a highlight of the summer as well as one of the few local events that featured performing arts not normally available in Prescott. The overriding opinion seems to be the festival will be deeply missed and many are hopeful that something new and amaz- ing will come forward to fill the space.
Running a festival is never an easy task, but from the beginning, Tsunami was a labor of love with a bit of relentless optimism and sheer orneriness thrown in. Festival founder and Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theater director, Jay Ruby, wanted to see more di- versity in Prescott’s performing arts scene and decided to take matters into his own hands. After convincing a small group of like-minded people, including subsequent directors John Tannous and Andrew John- son-Schmit, to help him get the wave rolling, Ruby kicked off the first Tsunami to an audi- ence of around five hundred.
From the beginning, the festival was ambi- tious. By year two, a series of “Micro Tsunamis” was in the works. A core group of perform- ers, including Carpetbag Brigade and mem- bers of Flam Chen Pyrotechnic Theater from Tucson, took their Tsunami shows on the road. Starting with a performance in Prescott’s Granite Creek Park, the Micro Tsu- nami show then traveled to Clarkdale, Sedo- na and Flagstaff before the main festival in Prescott. While many memories were made on the tour, it was eventually decided the touring show was too expensive and labor intensive to be sustainable.
The attention then shifted to building a pre-festival event, which came to be known as “Flourish Before the Flood.” The first per- formance was held on the banks of Granite Creek, near the Dinner Bell Café in front of a relatively small audience. Over the years, the shows and performers changed, but the-site specific nature remained the same. Delisa Myles was not only a performer at the very first Tsunami festival, but she went on to di-
rect and perform in several incarnations of Flourish Before the Flood.
The final performance of Flourish in 2013 featured a mix of local dancers and visiting acrobatic stilt groups, Nemcatacoa Teatro of Bogota, Colombia and a return of Carpetbag Brigade, still under Mr. Ruby’s leadership. That last performance broke attendance records, with an audience of close to 300. It was sheer magic.
Clan Tynker, a family performing group from Santa Fe, appeared at the very first Tsu- nami. They were all just kids when they start- ed, but have gone on to perform around the world in Europe, Egypt, and Central America. Clan Tynker proved so popular here that Tsu- nami and the Prescott Public Library eventu- ally created a separate event, Tsunami Tsun- day, the day after the main festival for the hardcore Clan Tynker fans.
The next big addition came under Susan DeFreitas’ leadership. Several parents no- ticed that their children were not satisfied just watching the performances, the kids wanted to learn how to do all of that cool circus stuff for themselves. The first Tsunami Circus Camp for Kids began informally at Granite Creek Park with a handful of children learning circus skills from local performers. With the dedication of Anastazia Louise, director and founder of the Bad Unkl Sista butoh dance group, Penelope Davis and others, Circus Camp rapidly grew so large that the camp was moved to Prescott Mile High Middle School.
Circus Camp not only attracted local per- forming artists and arts educators, but often gave campers the chance to learn from visit- ing performers. Clan Tynker taught for a few years, sharing their knowledge of juggling, stilt walking, ribbon dance, drumming and balance. Another huge hit was Philadelphia’s black light group, ArcheDream for Human- kind. In 2013, campers learned stilt walking from Nemcatacoa Teatro and Carpetbag Brigade, marking the first time Circus Camp was able to offer a bi-cultural and bi-lingual program.
Circus Camp was one of the most influen- tial elements of the festival. Local youth not only had the opportunity to learn from world class performers, but the increased confi- dence and expanded sense of personal pos- sibilities gained are qualities they will carry
36 • MARCH 2014 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
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