SF business owner fought surprise $64K charge, now she’s taking on downtown

rewrite this content and keep HTML tags The Circus Bella company poses together. Daisy Rose CobyAbigail Munn was a recent college graduate when she ran away to join the circus, but she first fell in love with the art form back in third grade. Now, the born-and-raised San Franciscan is running her own local troupe — which will be taking over a sliver of downtown for the rest of the year. “We’re very San Francisco,” she says of the show, called Kaleidoscope, which runs from Dec. 15 to Dec. 31 at The Crossing at East Cut, at Howard and Beale Streets. “Zany, goofy, beautiful. There’s a sense of humor.”The opportunity to perform downtown feels significant for Munn, not only because she’s a local who’s seen the city’s neighborhoods evolve, but also because her company almost didn’t survive the last several years. She took on a massive insurance fight several years ago that almost crushed the company.  AdvertisementArticle continues below this ad“Now I can smile about it, but it was a real battle,” she said. The issue arose when Circus Bella decided to switch to classifying its performers as employees (instead of as independent contractors, like most circuses). Among other things, that meant it would be on the hook for paying workers’ compensation insurance. Based on an external estimate she received, Munn budgeted for that added cost — but the actual fees ended up being way higher than the estimate.“I got this bill for $64,000 like three days before Christmas,” she said. “There was a lot of crying.” She didn’t feel like the costs made sense and they certainly weren’t tenable: The worker’s comp charge for her position was higher than her salary. Part of the problem, she realized, was the way that state officials classified Circus Bella, lumping it into the same category as carnival companies with rides or bigger productions with live animals. AdvertisementArticle continues below this adSo, she contacted the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California and prodded officials to conduct an employment survey. That effort ultimately led to the reclassification of circus performers as theater workers, which she says caused workers’ comp rates to plummet by 80% for all circus companies in California. That change made it possible for Circus Bella to remain in business. “We still barely break even, but I’m so proud that we’re paying all these artists and musicians in San Francisco,” she said. The Circus Bella All-Star Band poses together. Emil AlexThe 90-minute production features more than a dozen acts, including contortion, aerial acrobatics, juggling and, of course, clowning. As the performers execute their respective feats of strength and silliness to the music of a live band, viewers will find themselves gasping and guffawing in equal measure. AdvertisementArticle continues below this adThe show’s “very San Francisco” vibe is fitting as Munn, a local, has her roots in performing with The Pickle Family Circus, an influential, genre-bending performance group, in the ’80s. Her parents signed her up for one of their classes and she instantly fell in love: “It was something about the sounds and the smell and the energy of the room that made me realize, ‘Yeah, these are my people,’” she said. She continued taking circus and dance classes throughout her schooling. Shortly after graduating from college, she packed up her trapeze and bolted to Chicago to spend the summer touring with the famed Zoppé troupe. It was then that she and another performer, slack-rope star David Hunt, first discussed starting their own circus back in San Francisco.They both moved back to the Bay after their tour with Zoppé and spent countless Thursday afternoons drinking coffee at Boogaloos in the Mission and dreaming up their plans. Their primary tenets were having a live band, blending traditional and new art forms and performing in a ring. (The magic of a ring, Munn says, is that audience members can see both performers and their fellow onlookers at the same time, which creates a “community, all of us together,” feel.) The duo officially launched their company Circus Bella 15 years ago. Abigail Munn, pictured on the left as a child performing with the Pickle Family Circus and on the right as the co-founder of Circus Bella. Left: Courtesy of Abigail Munn Right: Dwoira GalileaAlthough Munn has given up her trapeze, she juggles many other roles for the nonprofit company. She’s served as Bella’s truck driver, laundress, caterer and costume coordinator (SF legacy business Dark Garden  makes the performers’ ornate outfits). Primarily, she acts as the circus’ ringmaster.  AdvertisementArticle continues below this adPutting on a winter show at The Crossing — an outdoor hub with fitness and food options where “a huge cross-section of the city is all coexisting in a few-block radius,” as Munn puts it — is an exciting departure from the group’s usual summer shows, which it puts on for free in parks.Munn hopes that this inaugural run will be successful enough to make Bella’s holiday show an annual tradition. The East Cut Community Benefit District has been “unbelievably generous in space and resources,” she said, though the production also required serious fundraising (individual donors contributed the bulk of the necessary cash). “We’re always hanging on by a thread,” Munn said, but she’s hopeful that San Francisco will find ways to support more events like this in the future: “The city is into art programming right now, so I’m optimistic.”“Kaleidoscope 2023” presented by Circus Bella. Dec. 15-31 at The Crossing at East Cut (Beale and Howard streets). Tickets: $55-$75; www.circusbella.orgAdvertisementArticle continues below this ad

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