Look, Mom! I’m center ring
The next afternoon, when Mirette came for the sheets, there was the stranger, crossing the courtyard on air! Mirette was enchanted. Of all the things a person could do, this must be the most magical. Her feet tingled, as if they wanted to jump on the wire beside Bellini.
From “Mirette on the High Wire”
by Emily Arnold McCully
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Celeste Strong used to dream of walking on a tightrope. Her mother thinks it was McCully’s book that inspired her.
In the Caldecott Medal-winning story set in 1892 Paris, a young girl learns to walk a tightrope under the supervision of a former master who has lost his confidence.
Celeste, 8, realized her dream of walking the tightrope after enrolling in Zenkidz circus lab, a circus and movement class designed specifically for children. Watching her move confidently across the steel rope, parasol in hand, she appears to have achieved that all-too-elusive state: perfect balance.
“Now everything is the circus,” her mother says with a laugh.
Walking in to Zenkidz’s circus lab for 8- to 10-year-olds is like walking through an old-fashioned Fun Zone where the children are arbiters of their own amusement.
Zoe walks on stilts while juggling scarves, Zola keeps multiple Hula-Hoops going simultaneously, Linus treads an enormous walking globe while whipping a streamer in the air. Others juggle bowling pins and spin plates on sticks, causing Zenkidz’s airy space at the Electric Lodge Performing and Visual Arts Center in Venice to bristle with activity.
The business is a product of the minds of two women who are also mothers: television writer, producer and actress Christine Nazareth and choreographer, producer and director of theater, music videos and TV Sarah Elgart.
“Zenkidz came about when I had a surprise child at the age of 45,” said Nazareth, a dynamic woman who not only is co-founder and director of Zenkidz but also teaches the classes.
Like many parents moved by the birth of a child, Nazareth found herself questioning her priorities after her son, Ben, was born.
“Motherhood completely changed my life,” Nazareth said. “I found myself in the peculiar position of being a writer for a kids TV channel while not allowing my own child to watch TV. So I couldn’t do it. My soul wasn’t in it.... I fell so much in love with the whole universe of children -- they are so authentic.”
Nazareth wanted to spend more time with her son and do something that involved children. Many of her friends worked in the entertainment industry and were involved with the circus, working on cruises, music videos and other ventures.
“Every time I would go visit them,” said Nazareth, “my child would take a rope and create a whole universe of his own.”
That gave Nazareth the idea of a circus workshop for children. Nazareth joined forces with choreographer Sarah Elgart, who had been teaching movement and imagination workshops for children. Together they formed Zenkidz.
“As a choreographer who became a mother, I became aware at a certain point that movement was instinctive for children,” Elgart said. “I wanted to draw from my own experience and my own approach to child-raising and engage a child’s imagination -- they can be led almost anywhere.”
Back in the class, their eyebrows furrowed in concentration, 10 youngsters work hard to master new feats while clearly having a lot of fun. “The boys like the goofiness of it as well as the challenge of acquiring new skills,” said Mary Hunter Ellegood, mother of class member Parker Chusid.
Classes are offered at different levels for different age groups: some play-centered, fantasy-filled classes for 3 1/2- to 5-year-olds (Circus Tots), some for 6- to 8-year-olds (Circus Kids), some for 8 years and older (Circus Lab). Zenkidz has programs for those who want to bring their kids in for a single class here and there, or in eight-week series. All are designed to help children with balance, focus, creativity and self-esteem.
Many activities, such as juggling, are said to improve fine motor skills, needed for such fundamental activities as writing.
“Fine-motor research points to the concept that it is the hand that informs the brain,” said Elgart. “Developing coordination and motor skills from an early age helps create connections in the brain that inform general intellectual, cognitive and creative ability as well as a sense of overall well-being.”
“It’s more than self-esteem though,” Elgart added. “It’s a sense of magic. It’s really important for me to preserve a certain tone and dynamic where there is that feeling of magic and possibility.”
The magic is evident in a coordinated circus performance held at the end of the Circus Lab, directed by Elgart, that is of goose-bump quality.
Even juggling motherhood, different Zenkidz classes and after-school programs at Village School and Seven Arrows in Pacific Palisades, the team members show no signs of slowing down.
Nazareth hopes to add more classes on clowning, magic and weekend sessions for families that would enable parents to join in: “Juggling helps promote concentration, persistence and calm,” Nazareth said. “Every head of state should learn how to juggle and walk a tightrope.”
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Zenkidz
Where: Electric Lodge Performing and Visual Arts Center, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice
When: Circus Tots (ages 3 1/2-5), Tuesdays, 3:30-4:30 p.m.; Circus Kids (ages 6-8), Fridays, 3:30-4:30 p.m.; Circus Lab (age 8 and older), Fridays, 4:30-6 p.m.; Movement Imagination Workshop (ages 2 1/2-5), Wednesdays, 2:15-3:15 p.m.; Movement Imagination Workshop (ages 5-7), Tuesdays, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Cost: Single class, $20-$25; eight-week series, $136-$184; free trial classes available
Info: (310) 392-2232 or (310) 306-5506
