Name: Dear San Francisco
Start: 2021-10-12 00:00:00
End: 2025-01-04 00:00:00
Location: Club Fugazi

"A love letter to city and the human body"
San Francisco Chronicle

“There couldn’t be a better time for Dear San Francisco”
"It’s hard not to smile, gasp, clap, or drop your mask-covered jaw in amazement."
"Explosive–street-smart rough and street-smart sexy... they are creating their own legacy"
Culture Vulture

"If it were possible to actually see the heart of San Francisco, it might look like the beautifully diverse group of awe-inspiring acrobats bouncing around the stage in Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story"
Theater Dogs

"This living, breathing love letter of a show finds joy in every leap, razzle-dazzle in every flip and absolute joy in every moment."
Theatre Dog

"Acrobats take over Club Fugazi with strength, grace and glee"
“Bursts with warmth…capture(s) the spirit and resilience of San Francisco”
San Francisco Examiner

"We LOVED IT and will be back." —Deanna H. (Audience Member)

"Intimate, dynamic, riveting, beautiful" —Sarah A (Audience Member)

"Awesome show and something totally unique. Incredibly talented performers." —Juliet K. (Audience Member)

“Amazing from start to finish. Takes you away while welcoming you home.” — (Audience Member)

Dear San Francisco

Dear San Francisco is an acrobatic love-letter to our wondrous city by the bay.

A kaleidoscopic journey through some of the most iconic and enduring themes of the city’s history, focusing on the overarching theme of repeated booms and busts and rebirths, the show hits a powerful chord just as the entertainment industry itself dares to rebuild post 2020.

A city of acceptance and daring and revolution and boundless beauty, the show seeks to capture its very essence within the historic walls of the Club Fugazi.

Official Website

Calendar

"A love letter to city and the human body"

Club Fugazi has become a jazz and poetry cabaret, but one where performers read stirring lines from the Beats before diving through a dangling hoop, each acrobat zhushing the twists and turns of the jump with his, her or their unique showmanship and aura.

In another moment, the freshly renovated North Beach venue has morphed into a playground for a human with insect capabilities, as one performer bops along the interior perimeter of the gleaming white proscenium — up the wall, then upside down, supported by his castmates....

"Give me a pulsing, human troupe like The 7 Fingers any day"

If it were possible to actually see the heart of San Francisco, it might look like the beautifully diverse group of awe-inspiring acrobats bouncing around the stage in Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story. And this is not just any stage: this is Club Fugazi, the storied North Beach theater built in 1913 where Beach Blanket Babylon ran for most of its nearly five-decade run....

Video // Interview with Gypsy Snider & David Dower

“A high-flying success”

Club Fugazi is back — filled with nine sexy acrobats diving through hoops, sliding down poles, standing on top of each other, bouncing off a teeterboard, and, as the name of their show declares, soaring through the air.

“Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story” features The 7 Fingers contemporary circus troupe from Canada in the North Beach theater where, for decades, “Beach Blanket Babylon” delighted audiences with goofy songs and huge headgear until it closed in 2019....

Shana Carroll
Gypsy Snider

As co-founding artistic director of The 7 Fingers, Shana Carroll directed and/or co-directed Dear San Francisco, Passagers, Cuisine & Confessions, Séquence 8, Traces, Psy, Loft, La Vie, Le Murmure du Coquelicot, and FeriAmuse. Through 7 Fingers collaborations and special projets, she created the show within the Queen of the Night experience at the Diamond Horseshoe in New York City and co-designed the first segment of the Sochi Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Shana has also frequently collaborated with Cirque du Soleil, most recently as co-director of their first show on ice Crystal, and previously as acrobatic designer and choreographer of Paramour (Broadway) and Iris (Los Angeles), and as director-choreographer of their performance at the 2012 Academy Awards.

Shana is well known for her acrobatic and circus choreography. She choreographed four gold medal-winning numbers at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. Shana has received Best Choreography nominations at the Drama Desk Awards (Traces) and the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards (Circumstance).

Shana worked on the conception and staging of Moment Factory’s Soul of the Ocean, a permanent show at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park, opened in December 2019. She is currently directing and choreographing Duel Reality, an immersive circus show based on Romeo and Juliet for Richard Branson’s new Virgin Voyages Cruiseline, opening in March 2020.

Originally from Berkeley, California, Shana began her career as a trapeze artist with San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus and went on to a 20-year career in the air with Cirque du Soleil and many others before founding The 7 Fingers.

Directing Credits

Dear San Francisco (The 7 FIngers, Club Fugazi, 2021)
Duel Reality (Virgin Voyages, 2020)
Passagers (The 7 Fingers, 2018)
Crystal (Cirque du Soleil, 2017)
Cuisine & Confessions (The 7 Fingers, 2014)
Queen of the Night (WorldWide Variety, 2014)
Le Murmure du Coquelicot (The 7 Fingers, 2013)
Feriamuse (The 7 Fingers, 2013)
Séquence 8 (The 7 Fingers, 2012)
Cirque du Soleil performance at Academy Awards (2012)
Cabaret à l’Olympia (The 7 Fingers, 2010)
Il Fait Dimanche (École nationale de cirque, 2010)
Psy (The 7 Fingers, 2009)
La Vie (The 7 Fingers, 2007)
Traces (The 7 Fingers, 2006)
Loft (The 7 Fingers, 2002)

Acrobatic Design & Choreography

Temporel (The 7 Fingers & Lemieux-Pilon 4DArt, 2017)
Paramour (Cirque du Soleil, 2016)
Cité Mémoire (Lemieux-Pilon 4DArt, 2017)
Sochi Olympics Games - Opening Ceremony (2014)
America’s Got Talent special performance, Traces (2012)
Iris (Cirque du Soleil, 2011)
Québec 400ieme, ciel de trapèze (2008)
Paris Masters tennis tournament, special televised performance (2007)
Circumstance (Pickle Family Circus, 2002)

Co-founder and artistic director of The 7 Fingers Gypsy Snider wrote and directed Dear San Francisco, SisterS, Réversible, Intersection, Amuse, Un Dia, Traces, and Loft.

Constantly branching out into new mediums, Gypsy has choreographed televised feature performances for America’s Got Talent, Her Majesty’s Royal Variety Performance, the illusionist Darcy Oake’s Edge of Reality, and several large scale fashion shows for Bench in the Philippines. In 2013, working with director Diane Paulus on a new vision of Pippin, she choreographed and wove circus into the revival of the Broadway musical. Gypsy’s work on Pippin earned her a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Gypsy began her circus career at the age of 4 when her parents founded The Pickle Family Circus. She grew up touring the West Coast with the company. In 2002, she returned to the Pickles to write and direct the show, Circumstance. Gypsy has now come full circle back to her home town of San Francisco. The 7 Fingers have moved in to the iconic North Beach theater, Club Fugazi where Gypsy is co-writer/director of Dear San Francisco.

Adding to her diverse range of projects, Gypsy wrote and directed Ships in the Night, a gender blending contemporary musical dance revue for Richard Branson’s new Virgin Voyages cruise line. In 2020 Gypsy created and choreographed the televised EUFA Draft opening dedicated to the 12 participating cities the European Football league. During the darkest time of the pandemic lockdown, she wrote and co-directed her first film Out of Order (En Panne).

Gypsy is also a guest teacher and guest director at the National Circus School of Montreal. In 2015, she received the Evolving Circus Award in New York City presented by Diane Paulus. She was invited to speak at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington DC in 2017 on the evolution of Circus Arts in the United States.

Directing Credits

Dear San Francisco (The 7 Fingers, Club Fugazi, 2021)
Ships in the Night (Virgin Voyages, 2020)
Out of Order (A movie by The 7 Fingers, 2020)
Sisters (The 7 Fingers, 2018)
Reversible (The 7 Fingers, 2016)
Edge of Reality (Darcy Oake, 2015)
Intersection (The 7 Fingers, 2014)
Amuse (The 7 Fingers, 2012 & 2013)
Crime (National Circus School, Montreal, 2009)
La Vie (The 7 Fingers, 2007)
Traces (The 7 Fingers, 2006)
Undercover Montréal National Circus School Immersive performance (2006)
Typo (Cirque Eloize 2005)
Loft (The 7 Fingers, 2002)
Circumstance (Pickle Family Circus, 2002)

Acrobatic Design & Choreography

EUFA Draw Ceremony 2019 (Romania, 2019)
Bench Denim and Underwer Fashion Show (2014 & 2017)
Canada Day performance for Justin Trudeau (Canada, 2017)
Pippin Tony Awards Performance (2013)
Pippin, The Musical (Broadway, 2013)
Canada Day performance for Prince William and Kate (2011)
America’s Got Talent (USA, 2011)
Peter Pan 360 (ThreeSixty Enternaintement, 2015)
Moulin Rouge, The Musical (Broadway, 2019)
Royal Variety Performance (UK, 2009)

Co-conceived and co-created by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider

A production of Les 7 Doigts
Directed by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider

With Dominic Cruz, Susan Gabriela "Gaby" Diaz Cardozo, Eduardo Grillo, Maya Kesselman, Jose Martinez Gomez, Shengnan Pan, Ellie Rossi, Zoe Schubert and Enmeng Song.

Creatives
Venue and Production Designer Alexander V. Nichols
Composer Colin Gagné
Sound Designer Jake Rodriguez
Costume Designer Keiko Carreiro
Associate Video Content Creator & Programmer Ahren Buhmann
Lighting Programming Christine Cochrane
Props Master Charis Lam
Script & Dramaturgical Consultant Sara Felder

Music
Original Music and Lyrics Colin Gagné
In collaboration with Guillaume St-Laurent (additional music and arrangements - Hand Balancing), Jean-Sébastien Leblanc (additional music and arrangements - Hoop Diving), Antoine Seychal (additional music and arrangements - Trapeze, Teeterboard), Raphaël D'Amours (additional arrangements - Rollerskating), Isabella Diaz (Additional music and Lyrics - Diabolo)

Singers Alexandre Désilets, Mykalle Bielinsky, Ricardo Isaias Collier, Maude Brochu, Véronique Gauthier, Maude Côté-Gendron, Dominique Côté

Instruments Luzio Altobelli (Accordion), Raphaël D'Amours (Guitars), Guido Del Fabbro (Violin), Alex Dodier (Tenor Saxophone), Jonathan Gagné (Drums), Gabriel Godbout-Castonguay (Piano), Jean-Sébastien Leblanc (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet), Mathieu Roberge (Upright Bass), Guillaume St-Laurent (Piano)

Live musicians / singers Isabella Diaz , Natasha Patterson, Jérémi Lévesque, Ruben Ingwersen, Kalani June Ridolfi-Dunn

Producers
Executive Director David Dower
General Manager Eric Eislund
CEO of The 7 Fingers Nassib El-Husseini

Co-Producers
Deborah Barrera, Erica & Russel Berg, Clair & Rob Hamner, Terry Lorant & Pete Jacobson, Timothy Mott

FOUNDING MEMBERS

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