Rachel David got hooked on the circus as an eight-year-old. Now she’s betting that a new generation will fall in love with it too.
David runs Big Top Circus Camp, which taught kids trapeze, stilts and other circus disciplines at Harbourfront Centre for 39 years before being told in November, that there would no longer be space for them this summer. She spent an uncertain winter scouring the city for a lot large enough to host the camp’s massive tents amid the World Cup buildup.
A new home was secured in Leslieville, but the fight for survival is far from over.
David says she’s gone “thousands of dollars” into debt and needs about 500 campers this summer to stay afloat while running the camp without Harbourfront Centre’s marketing and administrative support.
“We’ve overcome that challenge of getting the space, and now we need to fill the tent with kids,” David said.
Organizers say the camp is one of the few places in the city where kids can be themselves, as their “social circus” approach emphasizes self-acceptance and community for campers who often struggle to fit into a traditional mould. The challenge now is preserving that culture while building an independent future.
Between a lack of awareness about the move, equipment costs, renting a massive outdoor space, paying instructors, providing transportation and keeping the camp affordable, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. But David has seen too many kids fall in love with the circus to believe they can’t make it work.
“It brings in different people who just don’t fit in, and everyone comes together, and everyone can be their own weird self,” David said.
The camp, formerly known as Harbourfront Circus Camp, lost its longtime home as Harbourfront Centre reshaped programming and prepared for a busy summer that includes new partnerships and major events. David said she’s spent the last few months talking to former campers who mistakenly believed the camp had shut down entirely.
They’ve erected two towering white tents at the foot of Leslie Street and Unwin Avenue, one for six-to-eight-year-olds and the other for nine-to-14-year-olds. The first week is spent trying all 10 disciplines, including silks, trapeze and trampoline, before campers choose a specialty in the second week.
Fire jugglers, tightrope walkers and stilt-walkers gathered at the new site near Ashbridges Bay on a chilly spring afternoon to test the floors and equipment as staff continued unloading materials and preparing for summer.
Their tents have moved a few times over the past four decades while operating under Harbourfront Centre. Morganne Campbell, a spokesperson for the centre, said in a statement that the decision not to host the camp this year was based on “space requirements” and “significant programming activity taking place across the site this summer,” though Harbourfront donated the circus tents now being used at the new location hosted by CreateTO.
The camp was founded in 1987 by aerialist Marsha Kennington, who wanted to bring the social circus model to Toronto after years performing with the Ringling Brothers.
The first iteration saw about 20 children, including David, learning circus skills along the waterfront under Kennington’s first tents that were so poorly constructed they often flew off in the dead of night.
David eventually went from camper to counsellor and, later, professional performer. Even while working on international circus contracts, she returned to the camp each summer. Three years ago, she took over its operation.
“It’s such an amazing feeling when you look at something and think, ‘I could never do that,’ and then you do something that yesterday felt impossible.”
It’s the feeling many of the teachers still chase.
Eric David, Rachel’s brother, is now a software engineer but still helps out at the camp and even started a juggling club at his office.
”(The camp) saved my life,” Eric said. “It sounds crazy and an exaggeration, but I was a very shy, very reserved, very quiet kid.”
“You’re performing something, you’re practicing with other people and people depend on you, it gives you the confidence to do something crazy and test your boundaries.”
Kennington, 74, remains involved with the camp and continues spreading the lessons she learned over a lifetime in circus arts.
She repeatedly emphasized that the camp was “born in the dirt” as she reflected on its legacy.
Her own training began in Mexico in 1974, when there were no circus schools in North America and performers often had to make their own equipment. Kennington built her first trapeze bar herself.
“It’s the only thing I’m good at in this world,” Kennington said.
For Kennington, circus people are nothing if not survivors who forge their own path. It’s why she’s confident the camp can endure — and hopeful it will still be around another 39 years from now.
