Riverdale's "Circus School" Brings Joy to the Community
PICA’s circus-themed signs fill the paths of jones lawn – Photo Courtesy of mr. enright
The change that immediately caught the eyes of both students and faculty when they first entered the Riverdale campus for the start of in-person learning was the addition of more than 20 circus-like tents to Jones Lawn.
The reaction to these tents have been mixed among students; however, the Projects in Contemporary Arts (PICA) class at Riverdale was immediately intrigued.
PICA is a class that explores contemporary art and the ways in which it can engage and impact the entire community. Much of their art has been, and continues to be, displayed on a wall in Mow. This year, however, they took advantage of the new outdoor classroom setup at school and decided to expand their artwork showcase with the addition of new pieces on Jones Lawn.
Mr. Tom Taylor, the head of the Upper School, thought that with the joking remarks about the campus looking like a circus with all the tents, PICA could further “poke fun” at the circus idea. So, as their first project of the year, the PICA class decided to add to the carnival-like atmosphere by creating a “Riverdale Circus School” sign on Jones Lawn.
“I think our PICA class saw this as an opportunity to gently poke fun at ourselves and recognize that even in this moment which is impossibly difficult in so many ways, finding some joy and some humor can be a helpful strategy for getting through these moments,” Mr. Taylor said.
As with every other PICA project, the class started off by brainstorming how they were going to execute the transformation of Jones
Lawn. They decided to create street names for all the paths between the tented classrooms. Mr. Nicky Enright, a Riverdale art teacher and the head of PICA, explained that they first made a long list of all the circus-related street names that they could think of. The list was then pared down to twelve different, alliterative street names: Lion Tamer
Lane, Kettlecorn Krossing, Cotton Candy Creek, Popcorn Plaza, Acrobat Alley, Trapeze Terrace, Dancer Drive, Ringtoss Road, Tightrope Trail, Juggler Junction, Clown Cove, and a sign that says “Riverdale Circus School” at the entrance. After that, they found a sign maker, negotiated the cost, and began to put this project into action.
“For such a simple project, it was actually very complicated and also amazingly smooth,” Mr. Enright said.
Christelle Katalay, a junior and member of PICA, agreed with Mr. Enright that the process of creating the signs and placing them on Jones Lawn was quite complicated.
“We had a setback for getting it approved. We realized that there were so many technicalities with actually putting the signs up, because we had to think about whether it was going to damage the grass on the field,” Katalay said.
Another member of PICA, sophomore Isis Rodriguez, explained that the whole purpose of playing with this joke about the campus’s appearance was to create a more fun and lighthearted environment amongst all the chaos that the pandemic has brought.
“We just wanted to create something to liven up the mood when you come to school because, with remote learning, it can be difficult to find motivation and feel happy when you’re in a mask all day and you’re separated from your friends,” Rodriguez said.
The “Riverdale Circus School” project has had an overall positive impact on the Riverdale community and has been something that everyone on campus is able to enjoy.
“People love the project,” Mr. Enright said. “I have received so much positive feedback from students and faculty saying they love the circus.”
