We took a circus to Mexico, it did not go as planned

Dark Side of the Circus– a circus intricately choreographed to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon– sold out its run at Dance Mission in 2022, and now returns to SF at CounterPulse May 10-19, 2024 (tickets on sale now HERE). But in 2023, the show went on a mini-tour of NorCal and Mexico. Here are some stories from that tour.

As I walked across the border from Tijuana, I felt my body relax as I entered the United States. We had done it– we took a circus to Mexico. The surrealness of the last 10 days all started to come back to me as I sat on the train to downtown San Diego, from which I would fly back to San Francisco the next morning. I didn’t know it then, but from this point on nothing would ever seem so difficult. In fact it would become a frequent mantra exchanged between me and Bow & Arrow Circus’ other two founders, Bethlayne Hansen and Marie Cartier: “We took a circus to Mexico. We can do anything.”

For many circuses, touring a show just below the border of California in the town of Mexicali might not be such a huge benchmark. But for our tiny company, where we do everything ourselves without the aid of grants or corporate sponsorship, this was an enormous accomplishment. It all started after our hit production of Dark Side of the Circus in San Francisco, where circus and Pink Floyd fans came together to enjoy the convergence of some of the best music ever written with the Bay Area’s top circus talent. A friend had a connection to a theater in Mexicali, and we jumped on the opportunity to tour. Our cast had become very close over the course of the show, and several of them would be moving away soon. So we were all down for an adventure.

From left, Landyn Endo, Jo Celso, Ash Rexford, Marie Cartier, Bethlayne Hansen, Os Roxas and Ivy Leon performing the show in Garberville, CA. Photo by Lark Doolan

The ten days in Mexico could easily comprise a novel, so here is the brief version. While Mexico is of course a beautiful place with many wonderful things about it, like many countries it does have ~some issues~ when it comes to the government. Theaters in Mexico are generally run by the state. At first, I thought “How amazing! The government actually supports art!” It soon became clear that this is a method of control. We had planned to do six shows. The paper tickets had to be physically stamped by the governor’s office in order to be sold. But the governor of Mexicali owned rival theaters to the one we were performing in, and refused to stamp the tickets due to a small error in our paperwork that otherwise would have been overlooked. So one by one, our shows started getting canceled.

In an attempt to counteract the sabotage effort, we were able to book an appearance on Hola Mexicali, a local access show. The hope was that the exposure would help encourage the governor not to cancel the shows, as a matter of optics. We were given an address and a time, and the next morning, we arrived in costume at the small TV studio.

The lady at the front desk looked perplexed as we all walked in. “Somos el circo?” we told her awkwardly. She made a phone call and then told us to wait in the lobby. We were soon led to a small studio where we waited in the corner. On one of several sets, the host was interviewing a cop and a woman dressed as a maid. Why? My Spanish is not good enough to have figured it out. We had no idea who to give our music to, or when we would be on. Finally, they told us to prep on one of the sets as they sold jewelry on another. We had our one Spanish-speaking performer answer the interview questions, and then we performed the one-minute excerpt we had prepared that morning. I am not in the show (I’m the director), but I insisted on still being in the performance. We had already been through so much, I figured I deserved to at least get a Mexican TV experience out of it.

I pose with the cast on the set of Hola Mexicali! From left, Ash Rexford, Marie Cartier, Genie Cartier, Landyn Endo and Bethlayne Hansen. Photo by Jeremy Vik

We did manage to do one really good show, in the end, but not without hijinks. The tech guy didn’t speak any English. Marie and I had to rely on our high school Spanish to respectively do the lighting design and call the cues for the show. (Meanwhile, Bethlayne was doing Rosetta Stone on her phone in the hotel all night, having never taken a Spanish class at all.) It felt like I was in a weird anxiety dream as I tried to remember how to say numbers in Spanish while making sure I got the cues right. But other than that struggle, the show went off without a hitch, and the full theater of people expressed their gratitude that we brought them a show they would never normally have been able to see.

After the show was done, we all drove to Rosarito to relax for a few days. We had to explain our trunks full of circus equipment at every toll stop, and even had the quintessential Mexican experience of being forced to bribe a cop to get out of a driving violation he had clearly fabricated.

Due to the timing of who was driving home when, there was no seat in the car for me so I was given a ride to Tijuana, where I could cross the border on foot. When I got off the train in San Diego, my first stop was to eat. It was a Tuesday, but the restaurants were all full of people. I finally settled on a place and sat down by myself with my book, the waiter giving me a weird look when I said “table for one.” I looked at my phone. The date was February 14th. I was sitting alone in a restaurant with a book on Valentine’s Day.

The show at Solaura Festival in Mendocino. Photo by Genie Cartier

Later in the year, when we took the show first to a small community theater in Humboldt, and then performed it at the Solaura Festival in Mendocino, touring felt like a breeze. Calling the show in English was luxurious. Even when someone tripped over the power cord and the sound went out in the middle of the show, that felt like nothing compared to everything we’d been through. Isn’t showbiz glamorous?

Dark Side of the Circus plays May 10-19 at CounterPulse in San Francisco. Tickets and more information can be found here. We hope to see you there so you can witness how far we’ve come!