- December 27, 2024
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When most people hear the word “conservatory,” they either think of delicate plants or classical music.
Yet that’s the word Pedro Reis and Dolly Jacobs chose when they rebranded Circus Sarasota as the Circus Arts Conservatory in 2013.
With a new name and the youth Sailor Circus Academy under their umbrella, Reis and Jacobs were announcing to the world that their performers were artists who could hold their own among actors, musicians, dancers and singers.
If there was any doubt about that, they laid it to rest this past summer when the CAC traveled to Massachusetts to present “Summersaults in the Berkshires” in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Once the playground of the rich, the Berkshire Mountains region is now an arts mecca. It is home to Tanglewood, the summer residence of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the live theater company Shakespeare & Company.
“Dolly and Pedro have elevated our community’s opinion of the circus from a form of entertainment to understanding and celebrating the circus as a true art form,” says Joseph Caulkins, artistic director of Key Chorale. “Through their leadership and passion they have shown us that the circus arts can be respected and live alongside other performing arts like dance, music and opera.”
Although many people didn’t realize it at the time, the Berkshires residency was the capstone of a long collaboration between Reis and Jacobs, who met when they were fellow circus performers in 1984 and founded the predecessor organization to the CAC in 1997.
On Nov. 19, the husband-and-wife team announced they were stepping down from their leadership positions at the CAC and turning over the reins to Chief Operating Officer and Vice President Jennifer Mitchell. A 16-year veteran of the circus arts nonprofit, Mitchell assumes the role of president and CEO immediately.
Although Reis and Jacobs are relinquishing their top management titles, they will continue to provide guidance and support to the CAC. Reis will hold the title of founder while Jacobs will serve as vice president. Reis will continue to work as a producer for Circus Sarasota and to pursue his dream of bringing a circus arts festival to Sarasota.
Reis and Jacobs declined to be interviewed for this article because they are making preparations for their new life and because they want their successor to have the spotlight.
Nevertheless, it is the end of an era. The partnership of Reis and Jacobs has contributed immeasurably to the elevation of circus arts both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to entertaining audiences, the pair has used circus arts to enrich the lives of children with magnet school programs, summer camps and youth performances.
If anyone exemplifies the influence of circus arts on a young life, it is Mitchell’s daughter, Emma Clarke, who is performing professionally at this year’s Wonderland circus at the Big Top near University Town Center. Wonderland, founded last year by Sarasota superstar aerialist Nik Wallenda and the CAC, has quickly become a holiday tradition.
“It was out of our admiration and deep respect for Dolly and Pedro that we approached them to collaborate on the ‘Wonderland’ holiday shows. We feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to do so for these first two seasons of this new Sarasota holiday tradition,” Wallenda says. “Erendira (Wallenda’s wife) and I have forged similar paths to Pedro and Dolly. We are honored to carry on their proud legacy through the circus arts, in our community and beyond.”
Given that Sarasota’s connection to the circus began in 1927 when John Ringling moved the winter home of his circus to Florida, the Observer asked The Ringling's Jennifer Lemmer Posey to weigh in on the legacy of Reis and Jacobs.
Nicknamed the “Queen of Circus History,” Lemmer Posey serves as the Tibbals Curator of Circus at the museum that John Ringling endowed by leaving the state of Florida his mansion and art collection in his will.
Commenting on the passing of the trapeze (Sorry, we couldn’t resist!), Lemmer Posey said, “Beginning with little, aside from a powerful vision and their own extraordinary talent and deep commitment to the circus community, Pedro and Dolly built an extraordinary organization that reminds the Sarasota community, and beyond, of all the reasons to fall in love with the circus arts.”
She continued, “They are recognized as icons stewarding the traditions of the American circus and now have furthered their contributions by gracefully mentoring a new generation of leadership for the Circus Arts Conservatory.”
While John Ringling brought the circus to town, it was Reis and Jacobs who helped resuscitate it in Sarasota. Changing consumer tastes led Palmetto-based Feld Entertainment to close Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 2017, 50 years after it acquired the company. (Last year, it revived the circus with a new look.)
Meanwhile, Reis, a native of South Africa, and Jacobs, daughter of famed Ringling Bros. clown Lou Jacobs, rewrote the circus playbook, taking a page or two from the glamorous French-Canadian troupe Cirque du Soleil.
“When Dolly and Pedro started Circus Sarasota, our community was one with a rich circus heritage but no working circus,” notes Key Chorale’s Caulkins.
The couple banded together with other Sarasota circus stalwarts such as the Wallenda family of aerialists to breathe new life into what some considered an outmoded form of entertainment.
“Dolly and Pedro have been mentors to my wife, Erendira, and me; I have looked up to Pedro throughout my career,” says Nik Wallenda. “As a young, up-and-coming professional, I saw him take nothing and turn it into what it is today: something incredible and a well-known institution across the U.S. and throughout the global circus community.”
Brian Hersh, president and CEO of the Arts & Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, sees the big picture since his group administers a portion of the county’s tourism tax to local arts organizations.
“Dolly Jacobs and Pedro Reis have made an incredible impact and have established a meaningful legacy,” Hersh says. “Their continuous care, commitment and investment in our community will ensure the Circus Arts Conservatory’s dynamic presence in Sarasota County and beyond.”
The numbers tell a powerful story. In the last fiscal year, the CAC presented 250 performances to 117,000 audience members, educated 9,000 students across 45 schools and five counties in Florida and trained more than 120 year-round student athletes through the Sailor Circus Academy.
The organization also trained 1,000 summer campers and mentored 110 in-school circus students through magnet programs.
In addition to entertaining locals, CAC’s Circus Sarasota and Sailor Circus performances help attract tourists to the area.
“Pedro and Dolly’s legacy to this community has been monumental,” said Erin Duggan, president and CEO of Visit Sarasota County, the tourism bureau. “I am incredibly appreciative of the knowledge they have shared, and the rich cultural ties they have sustained in our community.”
It would take a book to outline all of the accomplishments of Reis and Jacobs at the CAC. (Indeed, one was published last year in honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary.)
But among the most notable are the CAC’s participation in Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2017 and the completion of a $5 million campaign to renovate and add air conditioning to the Sailor Circus Arena.
In a statement announcing the CAC management transition, Mitchell was credited with these achievements, but it was teamwork all the way. Mitchell also served as the lead strategist in developing circus magnet programs at Sarasota High School and Booker Middle School.
But it was Reis who got his hands dirty when it came to the installation of a new big top near UTC Mall last year. Reis and Jacobs decided to acquire the $500,000 tent in honor of Circus Sarasota’s recent 25th anniversary and the 75th anniversary of the youth Sailor Circus.
It wasn’t just circus arts that Reis and Jacobs elevated in Sarasota; it was black tie events. “Pedro and Dolly have long been Sarasota’s most magical power couple,” says Robert Plunket, author of “Love Junkie” and a retired gossip columnist. “They’re gorgeous and glamorous, astute business people, civic minded and educators at heart.”
The former “Mr. Chatterbox” recalled his brief time as a guest ringmaster at the Sarasota Circus. “I ended up scaring the horses,” Plunket says. “But Dolly and Pedro didn’t even mention it. They have the best manners of anyone in town.”
In emailing and telephoning arts leaders around town for comment on the retirement of Reis and Jacobs from the top rungs of the CAC, the words that kept being repeated were “always willing to help.”
One of the CAC’s most successful collaborations led to the advent of the Cirque des Voix (Circus of Voices), its annual co-production with Key Chorale. The first Cirque des Voix, in 2011, was a modest affair. But it has since grown beyond what its original visionary, the late music critic Richard Storm, could have ever imagined.
The annual extravaganza brings together world-class circus artists, a 40-piece orchestra and a chorus of more than 100 voices under the same tent.
Another example of Reis and Jacobs’s willingness to collaborate was the closing event of the inaugural Living Arts Festival produced by Sarasota Rising. Held Nov. 17 at the Sailor Circus Arena, the “Celebration of Youth” featured the next generation of Sarasota’s performers.
Among the organizations represented at the blockbuster affair were the CAC, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Cuban Ballet School, Sarasota Ballet Studio Company and Venice and Riverview high schools.
Jeffery Kin, who was the longtime artistic director of the Sarasota Players before founding Sarasota Rising in 2021, had this to say about the circus couple: “Pedro and Dolly together created not only an organization, but a true lifeline for artists of all ages to gather, work, create and grow.”
Just like not all student-athletes go on to play professional sports, Kin notes that not all the young circus performers nurtured by the CAC will earn their living under the big top.
But the legacy of Reis and Jacobs “can’t be limited to the professional circus performers they launched,” he says. “It must include the thousands upon thousands of students out in the workforce today. Those students’ tenacity, their drive, their ‘can do’ attitude were all instilled by their time with the Conservatory.”
Even without the energetic, beloved duo at the helm of CAC, the show must — and will — go on.
