Alan Llavore | Office of Marketing and Communication | (909) 537-5007 | allavore@csusb.edu
During the first three weekends in May 2024, the Great All American Youth Circus® in the city of Redlands held its 82nd performing season: “The Great All American Youth Circus Show: A Circus Mystery,” featuring children and adults from Redlands and surrounding Inland Empire communities.
“Circus Mystery” included 36 acts by 300 performers, ranging from 3 to 70 years of age (and even older) during the three-hour show. Some of those children and adults are current students, faculty or staff at Cal State San Bernardino.
An initiative based at the YMCA of the East Valley, it is the oldest community circus in the world. Some of its alumni have gone on to become circus professionals and stunt performers.
Tiffany Jones, a CSUSB history professor, is a prime example of someone who got involved first as a parent, then as a volunteer for the annual show, and finally as someone who has begun circus training herself.
It started with a yoga class.
“There was an instructor there who trained a circus class,” said Jones, “and she said to my daughter, ‘You should join the circus.’” In spite of an initial, “Circus? What circus?” reaction, Jones signed her daughter up when she said she wanted to do it.
As a parent, Jones accompanied her. “I was completely ignorant – I didn’t even realize there was a show. Around April, we were told to show up for rehearsals, so I took her to rehearsals. I thought it would be something like a mini-stage play.”
And then Jones walked into the show prep. “There were people there doing Cirque de Soleil-like acts! I texted my husband that this was a real circus. When he took the kids to rehearsal the next day, he was just as blown away with the acts as I was.”
The 2025 Great All-American Youth Circus® will take place Saturday through Sunday, May 2-4, 9-11 and 16-18, with showtimes at 7 p.m. on Fridays, 5 p.m. on Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays.
Tickets are $22 per person and only available at the front desk of the Redlands YMCA, 500 E. Citrus Ave.
Information, call (909) 798-9622.Watch "Great Y Circus" on YouTube with scenes from the 81st circus.
During her first year, Jones signed up to help with costuming backstage. And now with the 2023-24 season, she is in her ninth year. Both of her daughters have become circus kids. The eldest, soon to head into 10th grade, has become an aerialist and does acrobatics. The younger, soon to head into eighth grade, does the unicycle, aerial, stilts and diabolo.
But parents don’t necessarily stay on the sidelines forever.
“Two years ago, in addition to costuming, I started training unicycle,” she said. “And I started juggling. Myself.”
Jones sounded as if she couldn’t quite believe it. This summer, she will be adding beginning juggling instructor to her circus activities, and in the fall, she will begin training a synchronous trapeze class with her oldest daughter, Devon Jones-Heal.
Circus participation is a commitment. “I spend about 14 hours a week with the circus,” she reported. “With both daughters’ involvement, it’s five days a week.”
As a fully-fledged “Circus Mom,” Jones cautioned that coming over to her house will mean confronting her aerial rig and juggling supplies. The balloon animals that previously invaded her home, however, seem to have diminished. They sometimes reemerge, however, at public events, such as the time her daughter made them for an orphanage in South Africa during the CSUSB 2023 South African study abroad program. She also underscored the closeness of the approximately 300 people involved. “It’s almost like a family. We co-parent each other’s kids.”
While the circus’ director, Emilie Gleisberg, and her assistants are paid by the YMCA, everyone else there is a volunteer. “Before each show, we have a circle where we join hands, commit to a ‘good, safe, fast show’ and listen to a guest speaker,” said Jones. “And each year, we have an annual alumni night where circus alum come to cheer us on.”
She mentioned other CSUSB staff and faculty and their families who are heavily involved. One faculty member is an incredible circus performer and has his whole family in various acts. There are quite a few students, such as Destiny Franco, a senior criminal justice student, who are circus alumni or still train/perform each year.
The husband of another faculty member is currently in her juggling class, and his daughter was in a beginner aerial class last year in which Jones’ oldest daughter was helping to train. A student member of the cheer squad and English major, Emma Price, is a former circus kid. Jones also shared that a member of the Redlands City Council, Jenna Guzman-Lowery, is a former circus kid who keeps coming back to help out and even briefly served as co-director in 2016-17.
The Great Y Circus is a year-round initiative. The summer months bring the Summer Circus and planning for the next year’s May show. August is audition time for the larger roles for the coming May show. The training season begins in September.
Even those who have gone into non-circus-related careers are happy to return over and over again to coach future generations into following in their footsteps. Circus folk are passionate, and that passion is catching. The result is a multi-generational, close-knit circus family, for whom the Great Y Circus is truly home.
“My kids are circus kids,” said Jones. “It becomes part of you.” And there was zero regret in her voice.
