HICCUP circus founder and director
I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii from 1981 until 2017 and was a community development pioneer for 32 years. I was chairman of Hawaii Sustainable Community Alliance, chairman of Hawaii’s Volcano Circus, the founder of Bellyacres Ecovillage and a ringleader of the HICCUP youth circus until 2014. In 2015 I moved to Waimea worked at the Kahilu Theatre and founded Cirque Ohana.
‘Bellyacres’ is an unintentional community of bohemian jugglers in the Puna jungle on the Big Island of Hawai'i which I founded in 1987. It is a social experiment, mostly with international vaudevillian performers, and involves the homesteading of a remote jungle ‘oasis’. I created a locally reknown youth circus program that morphed into a uniquely crafted community center hosting a school, a farmers market, a performance arts theatre, and even a church. At its peak, ‘Bellyacres’ accommodated over forty resident adults and children, and, with its energy, food, economic and organizational structure, arguably became one of the most sustainable ecovillages in the world. Wow !
I'm a passionate advocate of social circus and strongly believe that any definition of social circus needs to include healthy community development. Reg Bolton, the founder of social circus, recognized that circus programs had the capacity to bring positive changes not only to individuals but also to whole neighborhoods and communities. He mentions it in his books and doctoral thesis. He also witnessed and commented on this after visiting the HICCUP circus in 2003 in Hawaii. He never got to see S.P.A.C.E. the performance arts arts center which we opened in 2007 and which evolved from a home for the circus to a fully fledged community center hosting a charter school, farmers market, many other arts classes and performances, neighborhood events and even a church. Our HICCUP (Hawaii Island Community Circus Unity Project) had a major impact on developing the community of Lower Puna in Hawaii from 1987 until 2014. Had he lived to return I'm sure Reg would have endorsed this as an example of social circus in action and would have wanted healthy community development included as a purpose in the definition of social circus.
