North Beach Citizens’ guests after the event enjoying seeing one another and sharing their enthusiasm for the amazing performance.

Club Fugazi hosted North Beach Citizens donors at the updated acrobatic theater show in support of our programs to help our community in need, and over 100 guests took advantage of this offering.

The show casts itself as a valentine to the city, incorporating readings of actual love letters to the city, some anonymous, some from celebrities, some from each night’s audience members. Often, these charming missives segue cleverly into acts. A letter that reads, “Thank you for being the place I felt safe to come out,” inspires a hand-to-trap (short for hand-to-trapeze, a form that Carroll invented) sequence with non-heterosexual pairings and throuplings.

Seeing circus in an intimate venue means you can appreciate anew how much strength and discipline and grace goes into each effect — the way acrobats mount a trapeze with seemingly little more than a held breath, a glance upward and a wish for it; the way pectorals and even facial muscles twitch when one performer hoists two others on his shoulders; the way diaphragms pump in search of more oxygen.

Montreal-based The 7 Fingers is one of the largest contemporary circus troupes, providing a stripped-down version that retains the breathtaking essence of acrobatics, modern dance, and some obscure circus art like the Chinese pole, Korean plank, and hoop diving. The creators behind this spectacle include The 7 Fingers co-founders and Bay Area locals Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider and they smartly frame the tableaus with the history of San Francisco represented through local music, video projections and the Beat poets of the 50's and 60's.