Emergency Circus is an Unstoppable Voters Project – a series of Center for Artistic Activism supported works that ensure every vote is counted in the 2020 U.S. election, relieve tension, and build healthy institutions in the aftermath.
Emergency Circus
Bringing circus joy to where it’s needed most. We are taking circus performer clowns across hotly contested Arizona directly to the doors of poll workers and counters to thank them for risking their lives to count the vote. It’s a short socially distanced show for poll workers and their families, often by surprise. Circus-a-grams are completely self-contained, Covid safe, and use humor, skill, and inspiration to lift spirits. Friends, family members, and the poll workers themselves all across Arizona can simply call 1-(NOW)-CIRCUS-1 and have a sweet show filled with magic, music, clowning, and circus tricks delivered to their door free of charge.
Composed of superhuman circus performers from around the globe, Emergency Circus administers inspirational circus shows and workshops to the hospitalized, the homeless, the imprisoned, & the under-circused everywhere.
This non-profit seeks to inspire, entertain, and enliven humanity in peril. Through spectacle, performance and the power of the human spirit, the Emergency Circus are out to achieve the seemingly impossible. To replace fear and grief with laughter and joy, if only for a little while.
Clay Mazing, Emergency Circus Captain: For over 15 years Clay Mazing, the lasso-spinning, comedic vaudevillian, and multi-instrumentalist has performed all over the world from county fairs, to opera houses, to stadiums, to television and film.
As founder and director of the non-profit humanitarian project called the Emergency Circus, Clay has performed alongside Dr. Patch Adams and with Clowns Without Borders for Syrian refugees in Jordan, occupied Palestinians in the West Bank, hurricane shelters in the US, and hospitalized children all over the world, to name a few.
Unstoppable voters projects throughout the country relieve tensions and look to the future as every vote is counted
Experts predict that election returns will be slow and chaotic. Artists are preparing by answering critical questions: How can we counter tension, fear and potential violence? How do we inspire resilience and hope to defend the basic tenets of democracy? How do we respond with so many unknown factors?
The Center for Artistic Activism’s Unstoppable Voters Project has gathered a group of artists and culture makers who know how to transform emotions and support a weary nation through early voting and the transfer of power during a challenging election season. As the nation awaits election results and their aftermath, projects will help folks relieve tension on the streets, at counting sites and in their homes, with Counting Cheerleaders, the creation of Social Emergency Response Centers, of-the-moment songs created and distributed by the Peace Poets, and continued performances by Emergency Circus and dancing mailboxes Delivering Democracy, among other projects.
