Outreach

Our teen pre-professional performance company, the Zig Zags, will entertain guests at your next event with circus arts! Let us dazzle your community with atmospheric antics or performances:

> Stilt walkers, acrobats, aerialists

> Great for school auctions, carnivals, and festive family events

> Talk to us about your upcoming event, and we will create an original performance tailored to your unique wishes!

Looking for more interactive entertainment for guests? Add a Circus Play Area to your event! Our interactive Circus Play pop-ups include:

> Circus arts options for kids and adults

> Juggling equipment, mats, stilts, obstacle course led by instructors & youth demonstrators

> Bring circus fun to your block party, carnival, or community event.

CORPORATE TEAM BUILDING

ETC workshops are great for corporations, non-profits, clubs, and any group that wants to build trust within their community. Using movement exercises, partner and group acrobatics, creative problem-solving, and aerial challenges, your team will grow together. Workshops are inclusive, playful, and accessible for all ages and all body types. We will provide opportunities to challenge assumptions, explore supported risks, collaborate, and laugh together. 

We will create a curriculum based on your team’s goals, with classes tailored to your interests. Choose Your Ingredients: Trapeze, Acrobatics (Partner/group challenges), Aerial Fabric (Silks), Obstacle Course/Group Challenge Courses, Aerial Harness, Mindful Movement, Aerial Yoga, Physical Theater, Juggling and Object Manipulation

Team Building Details:

1 – 12 students: 1 hr, $150; 1.5 hr, $200; 2 hr $250

13 – 20 students: 1 hr, $200, 1.5 hr, $275; 2 hr $350

Our mission is to provide spaces for people to create fearlessly. Please let us know if you have limited resources. We are happy to work within you.

CARING FOR CARE-GIVERS

Treat your staff to the gift of self-care…CIRCUS STYLE! Be together in a playful and healing environment, where you can focus on your own needs and deepen your connection as a community. Learn, grow, take supported risks, breath, and laugh together.

Classes can be combined and tailored to your team’s interests and goal. Choose Your Ingredients: Aerial Yoga, Mindful Movement, Play for Grown Ups, Physical Theater, Juggling and Object Manipulation, Aerial Playground, Acro Yoga, Trapeze, Acrobatics (Partner/group challenges), Aerial Fabric (Silks), Obstacle Course/Group Challenge Courses, Aerial Harness

Caregiver Details:

1 – 12 students: 1 hr, $100; 1.5 hr, $150; 2 hr $200

13 – 20 students: 1 hr, $150, 1.5 hr, $200; 2 hr $250

Our mission is to provide spaces for people to create fearlessly. Please let us know if you have limited resources. We are happy to work within you.

DanceAbility uses improvisational dance to promote artistic expression and exploration between people with and without disabilities. This class cultivates a common ground for creative expression of all people. The material is drawn from the group present in a given situation and isolates no one. The method supports self-empowerment by offering ways that all individuals can participate fully in expressing their creative choices, including respecting one’s own limits.

DanceAbility International’s mission is to create opportunities for people with and without disabilities to dance and move together. Our vision is that through dance and movement, people from very diverse backgrounds experience the art of being together.

If you need accommodations, please contact us at 971-267-ECHO (3246), or hello [at] echotheaterpdx.org.

Instructor: Aaron Wheeler-Kay (certified DanceAbility instructor)

IN-SCHOOL RESIDENCIES

Our residency, Theater in Motion, is an all access pass to Circus Theater for K – 12 students of all abilities. Our goal is to introduce students to physical theater, acrobatics, and creative problem-solving in a safe and supportive environment.  We are creative problem-solvers ourselves and love to adapt our curriculum to the needs and interests of a given group. 

We will work with you to create a 3 – 6 week curriculum that meets your needs. In the past, we have used circus skills and theater to help students embody lessons such as: forms for energy (MELTS), balance and motion, life-cycles, rhythm and rhyme, and collaborative storytelling, to name a few. Skills include acrobatics, partner and group acrobatics,  juggling, object manipulation, stilt-walking, and more. We have decades of experience using collaborative circus theater to illuminate your curriculum.

School Residency Details:

We recommend 6 sessions of 30 – 55 minutes for each classroom. We will send at least 2 teachers for each session to allow for safe and successful instruction.

Cost is $110 per hour of instruction, plus $60 for the initial meeting. Any additional expenses related to travel or access will be discussed in advance. 

Our mission is to provide spaces for people to create fearlessly. Please let us know if you have limited resources. We are happy to work within you.

IN-SCHOOL WORKSHOPS

Bring Circus Theater to your school! Play, learn, and grow together in these versatile workshops — great for students of all abilities (ages 3+). Focuses include partner and group acrobatics, juggling and object manipulation, creative movement, and collaborative physical theater. Students build confidence, strength, and grace in a creative and supportive environment.

School Workshop Details:

We recommend 30 minutes for ages 3 – 5 and 60 minutes for ages 6+. We prefer to send 2 teachers for each session to allow for safe and successful instruction.

Cost is $110 per hour of instruction. If the group is small or the curriculum allows, we are happy to send 1 teacher for $60 per hour of instruction. Any additional expenses related to travel or access will be discussed in advance.

Our mission is to provide spaces for people to create fearlessly. Please let us know if you have limited resources. We are happy to work within you.

WORKSHOPS at ECHO THEATER

Bring your group to the Echo Theater for aerial fun! Using trapezes, aerial silks, and more, we will take our workshop into the air! Focuses include team-building, trust, creative problem solving, collaboration, and more. Play physical theater games, swing on a trapeze, climb the silks, spin on a lyra, and create amazing pyramids in community with friends. Together, we can create fearlessly!

Theater Workshop Details:

1 – 10 students: 1 hr, $150; 1.5 hr, $200

11 – 16 students: 1 hr, $230, 1.5 hr, $280

17 – 24 students: 1 hr, $300; 1.5 hr, $350

Our mission is to provide spaces for people to create fearlessly. Please let us know if you have limited resources. We are happy to work within you.

“The work Wendy and Aaron did to get a workshop going with my students at the Woodburn Arts and Communications Academy, has made me a super fan of Echo for life.

Woodburn Arts and Communications Academy is a Title I school in Woodburn, OR, 100 % of our students get free lunch, and I am the theatre department. It has been my goal to get students out of Woodburn to experience as many different sorts of theatre as possible. Some of my students have actually never been to Portland until they go on a field trip with me. That said, it’s been tough to expose them to some of the more interesting types of theatre. Smaller places don’t advertise down south as much. So, when I heard about an Echo Theater show, I knew I had to get my students up to see the show.

This experience was perspective changing for my students. They had never seen the acrobatic/circus type theatre performed that evening. When I mentioned that we might be able to have a workshop with some of the performers we saw that night, the cheers were ear shattering. The only trouble? Budget! Well, Wendy was excellent at responding quickly to work out terms for a workshop. She was able to give us a discount and was organized and clear in her communication. She was also able to get Aaron to agree to drive down to Woodburn five times to work with us. Both the discount and the drive time were greatly appreciated. So besides the excellent performance, organizational and creative skills displayed by the Echo Theater team, I suppose the big question is how are they at providing an educational artistic experience for students?

One word? Amazing! From the first moment Aaron joined us on stage at the high school, he was an excellent addition to the start of our creative process. You see, we are writing a play called Poems from the Playground, which is a first for my actors, and we want to include some of the balances, tricks and movement which are a specialty of Echo Theater. Aaron was an excellent collaborator with me as the classroom teacher/director. He asked about our vision, worked to build lessons which fit our needs, and was so clear and precise with instructions that my students felt successful and confident trying things they had never attempted before.

My students were so inspired by the opportunity to learn more about Aaron’s artistic skill set. Each day they waited outside the theatre for the chance to explore the new skills Aaron brought to the workshops. With each new trick they were taught, the students grew in confidence, teamwork, and caring. This wasn’t because of some magical process, but rather was because of Aaron’s clear, gentle, and specific teaching. My students learned new vocabulary, how to work together safely, and how to explore in new ways. This workshop was an incredible experience for my students. ”

— Amy Sidwell, Woodburn Arts and Communications Academy

“For the past three years, we have been privileged to take our students to visit Echo Theater. The kids absolutely love going to Echo Theater. They work hard to meet academic and behavioral requirements to make the trip. This behavior continues for weeks afterward. As staff members, we too enjoy getting into the air and working with Echo and effect it has not only on the students but ourselves.”

— Bill Alton, Cascade Academy

“One weekend, I attended a performance. I was amazed at the strong connection with the students’ work and the theater’s work. It was diverse (culturally and style) in movement and in acting. Definitely creative and for a very diverse audience. … For two years, I have been talking to my colleagues about Echo Theater. Once again, I highly recommend Echo.”

— Joyce lliff, Woodstock School