Circus Juventas (formerly Circus of the Star) is a youth performing arts circus school located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, serving youth throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1994 by Dan and Betty Butler, and offers circus arts training to young people ranging from 3 to 21 years old.

Emulating the style of Cirque du Soleil, Circus Juventas's first show was at Saint Paul's Highland Fest in 1995. From there, the school's enrollment quickly expanded and the organization initiated a campaign to fund a $2.1 million permanent big top facility, which opened in 2001 on Saint Paul parkland in the Highland Park neighborhood. That year, it began to produce annual summer performances showcasing the work of its most advanced students, each with a distinct theme. Yearly themed December holiday shows were added starting in 2020 after that year's summer show was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These shows have proven popular with local audiences and have been well received critically, with reviewers praising the professionalism and fearlessness exhibited in the productions, while noting students' occasional missteps during performances. Circus Juventas students have performed and competed both around the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area and abroad. As of 2014, Juventas was the largest youth performing arts circus in North America. The school had tentative plans to add a second facility elsewhere in the region.

History

The founders of Circus Juventas, Dan and Betty Butler, met as teenagers at the Sailor Circus of Sarasota during the mid-1970s. Dan was a catcher on the flying trapeze, and Betty was an aerialist on the cloud swing. They began dating at age sixteen, Dan became a successful real estate broker in Atlanta, but faced bankruptcy and chemical dependency.

thumb|left|Hillcrest Recreation Center, the original home of Circus Juventas (then Circus of the Star)|alt=A beige building with a large windowed rotunda stands before a wide lawn.

The Butlers founded Circus Juventas as a nonprofit corporation in October 1994, citing a desire to give back to the community as one of the reasons for its creation. The Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Department approved the program, and assumed liability for approximately fifty children who enrolled the first year. After this performance, interest in the program increased. In an article published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1997, the estimated cost of the project was quoted at $700,000, with a groundbreaking planned for April 1998. By August 1999, they had raised $1 million of their expanded $1.6 million goal for the circus expansion, with plans to break ground on the new facility that November. A total of $627,183 was disbursed for the circus through the program, split between three STAR components: $450,000 as part of Neighborhood STAR which sought to fund local initiatives, $122,183 as part of Cultural STAR which funded arts and culture programs, and $55,000 from 3rd Ward City Councilmember Pat Harris's discretionary Neighborhood Investment Initiative budget. The Butlers had found the space for the school through coincidence; after driving along Montreal Avenue in Saint Paul one night, they turned into a parking lot, noticed an area beneath some trees, and realized it was an ideal location for their school's expanded facility. The big top took about a year to complete, during which time the school also changed its name to Circus Juventas, named for Juventas, an ancient Roman goddess of youth and rejuvenation. It was working with various city agencies to resolve the shortfall and faced "no looming threat." and concessions sales. Betty Butler estimated that 90 percent of work on the school's shows is done by parent volunteers. The circus operates with the equivalent of 40 full-time employees.

In 2010, the circus school enrolled students from ages 6 to 21, with an additional enrollment of about 150 toddlers and other younger participants as young as three years old. By 2013, the enrollment had reached over 800 and the school's annual operating budget exceeded $2 million. Circus Juventas has also held circus arts fitness classes for adults, taught by the school's regular instructors. The school is a member of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association and the Fédération Mondiale du Cirque. A listing on the latter organization's website notes that as of 2014, Juventas is the largest performing arts circus school for youth in the United States; other sources indicate that it is the largest in all of North America.

Facilities

Circus Juventas's big top is located in the Highland Park neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It stands tall and encompasses of floor space built on concrete slab. The structure is supported by an aluminum frame and covered with flame-resistant vinyl-coated cloth. The circus school's original bleachers could seat 1,200 audience members. In the ensuing investigation, it came to light that Juventas had not had the bleachers inspected each time they were set up, as required by their lease with the city. They had been issued a permit in 2006 for the bleachers, and had not had them inspected since. and installed new bleachers with molded plastic seats the next March.

Future

In early 2014, the Butlers announced plans to expand their big top facility by an additional . In response, the Butlers were considering building a new facility of up to in the western suburbs of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. In the meantime, the school is performing a small expansion to its Highland Park space, on which the Circus has a lease for at least 17 more years, as of 2014. While the earliest shows were focused primarily on technique and the individual acts, by 1997 or 1998 the school began to emphasize the artistic side of performances, including integrating those acts into Cirque du Soleil-style narratives. Holiday shows were introduced beginning in 2020 after the planned summer show that year was cancelled on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. The school also hosts an annual gala in late autumn that includes portions of the year's earlier summer performance. Circus Juventas does not utilize animal acts in its shows.

Big top summer shows

  • 2001: Mythos, a production dealing with Greek mythology
  • 2002: Cirque Napoleon, a show that delved into the history of circus, taking place in a French circus in 1859 and honoring Jules Léotard, an early trapeze artist.
  • 2003: Taroq, a production set in Morocco following four traveling nomads on a quest to determine the meaning of life.
  • 2004: Swash, a pirate-themed performance that entailed a quest for lost treasure.
  • 2005: Dyrnwych, a production that included "an amalgam of fairy-tale types, with wicked hag witches, trolls, forest spirits, and warrior women."
  • 2006: Pazzanni, a retelling of the story of Cinderella,
  • 2007: Atlanticus, a performance set under the oceans in the domain of Poseidon.
  • 2008: RavensManor, a haunted house-themed show, based loosely on the Haunted Mansion ride located in Disneyland. RavensManors story, set in New Orleans, included a tragic romance and zombies.
  • 2009: Yulong: The Jade Dragon (sometimes shortened to Yulong), a presentation derived from Chinese legendary and circus traditions. Produced in collaboration with the Chinese American Association of Minnesota, the show spotlighted three Taiwanese guest artists and included an emphasis on Chinese circus acts such as Chinese pole and hoop diving.
  • 2010: Sawdust, a performance evoking the traditions of historic American circuses. Special guests in the show were veteran circus performers Willie Edleston and Tony Steele who played slightly fictionalized versions of themselves.
  • 2011: Grimm—Happily Ever After! (sometimes shortened to Grimm), a show retelling a number of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales. Characters included Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and the Frog Prince. The performance included portrayals of historical figures including Lillie Langtry, Black Bart, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp, and featured a seven-man highwire pyramid, becoming the second youth circus to complete this trick.
  • 2013: Oz, based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The performance retold Dorothy Gale's travels through the Land of Oz and incorporated a "maison" trapeze, a cubic apparatus replicating Dorothy's house that gets swept away and carried to Oz by a tornado. and featuring a cradle act.
  • 2015: 1001 Nights, a retelling of Scheherazade's One Thousand and One Nights.
  • 2016: Wonderland, an adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • 2017: Nordrsaga, a hero's journey based on Norse mythology in which a young librarian teams up with Thor to help recover Mjölnir from Loki.
  • 2018: Steam, a steampunk time travel tale inspired by H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
  • 2019: Twisted, a retelling in which several fairy tale characters rewrite their own stories.
  • : None, cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • 2022: Confetti, a show commemorating pivotal moments in the history of the circus arts.
  • 2023: Excalibur, which retells Arthurian legend.
  • 2024: Jangala, a jungle adventure inspired by Tarzan of the Apes, The Jungle Book, and The Swiss Family Robinson.
  • 2025: Lumière, a tale of five children traveling from 1985 to the era of classical Hollywood cinema, then returning through a Twilight Zone-inspired world to their own time.

Big top holiday shows

  • 2020: A Hygge Holiday, narrated by Kevin Kling.
  • 2021: Blizzard!, a performance about three elves at the North Pole who cause trouble.
  • 2023: A Hygge Holiday, a remount of the 2020 show.
  • 2024: Blizzard!, a remount of the 2021 show.
  • 2025: Solstice, a remount of the 2022 show.

Other engagements

In addition to shows at their Saint Paul big top, Juventas students have performed across the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area and at domestic and international shows and competitions. Performers have appeared at local events including the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, Minneapolis mayor R. T. Rybak's 2002 inauguration at the Minneapolis City Hall, and at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Flint Hills International Children's Festival. Students have presented their work at a variety of local public, retail, and theater spaces.