Circus & Clown Desert Intensive
Welcome to the fundraising campaign for The Circus & Clown Desert Intensive, a CSUN Theatre Students performance training event. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you for visiting our page!
The Circus & Clown Desert Intensive
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for CSUN acting students to train for a week with internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil artists on a ranch outside of Las Vegas in the Mojave Desert at a Circus Camp for Clowns! This unique program is created specifically for CSUN Theatre students by Professor Sonia Norris, theatre/circus director and Head of Acting in the Theatre Department.
The week-long performance training intensive is held at the Sandy Valley Ranch, providing five days and nights of workshops for 26 students, with professional circus and clown artists currently performing in Cirque du Soleil and Speigelworld Vegas productions. Students receive 30 hours of instruction in ten performance disciplines including: Aerial Silks, Hoop, Trapeze, Cyr Wheel, Stilt walking, Juggling, Acrobatics, Mime, Fire spinning, and Clown performance. In the evenings, students will travel to Las Vegas to watch their instructors perform in Cirque du Soleil productions and receive backstage tours to meet the performers and walk on stage.
In the desert, there is space to dream. Students are housed on the ranch in magical glamping sites, sleeping out in the desert in teepees, covered wagons, tin trailers, bell tents, and tiny homes (https://sandyvalleyranchnv.com/accommodations). They will have three meals a day provided by our company chef and experience living and working in community, discovering how our connections with each other and with the natural world inspire our imaginations and artistic practice, and make us conscious of being part of a larger universe – watching the sun rise over the mountains and gazing at the stars in the desert night sky. All while learning a wealth of new skills.
Watch the video of the 2025 Circus & Clown Desert Intensive and see the magic of the clowns in action! https://youtu.be/PQKvZZTs9QQ?si=Atj7S5LtOBSIcjMW
Artistic Director’s Message
Circus and Clown training challenges us to confront our limiting beliefs – physical and psychological - and to go beyond what we believe is possible, exceeding our expectations of ourselves and discovering just how extraordinary we can be, as performers and individuals. It is transformative training for performers because it requires that we face our fears of failure, build courage, imagination, and daring. It reveals how much more we are capable of being, and, how amazing we already are.
Clown training transformed my life – as an actor and as a person. It gave me the courage to stand up inside myself, both on and off stage, and taught me how to share the truth of who I am - foibles, failings, faults and all. It taught me resiliency and how to find my pleasure to play in a world that often makes me rage. It gave me a ferocious joy to be alive. This is what I want to share with my students.
I created this intensive to share this transformative training with CSUN Theatre students to expand their vision of who they are, what they can create, and what is possible in the world.
This generation of students needs to believe they have the power to affect change in the world and to create something magical - and our world, teetering precariously right now, needs their creative imaginations, ignited with the clown’s radical joy for living, to take us into the future. SEND IN THE CLOWNS!
Thank you for sponsoring a clown and supporting this opportunity for CSUN students.
Sponsor a Clown!
Your donation will ensure finances do not prevent students from participating in this event. All donations will help pay for the costs of running the intensive and support CSUN Theatre students to challenge themselves with the extraordinary worlds of circus and clown performance while connecting with the majesty of the desert – sponsor a clown to expand their vision!
What Your Donations Make Possible for a Clown
Instructor Fees: the clowns will work with eight circus and clown artists performing in Vegas productions including Atomic Saloon, O, The Party, Mad Apple, Kooza, and the Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Accommodation: the clowns will sleep soundly under the desert sky at the Sandy Valley Ranch in magical glamping sites.
Catering: because hangry clowns might be funny, but they’re no fun to be around.
Equipment Rental: the clowns will learn how to hang upside down on aerial rigs, strap themselves into rolling Cyr wheels, and fall from the sky on a piece of silk. Fun for a clown? Darn tootin!
Venue Rentals: so that the clowns don’t get blown away like tumbleweeds when the desert winds howl.
Cirque du Soleil Show Tickets: the clowns will travel to Las Vegas to see their instructors perform on spectacular stages and dream about one day being up there themselves.
Travel Expenses: the clowns can buy gas for their cars rather than run all the way to the desert from CSUN - although that could be funny!
Donations to The Circus & Clown Desert Intensive are 100% tax deductible.
California State University Northridge Foundation is a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) public benefit California corporation.
Other Ways to Support a Clown
Sharing our campaign page and socials is greatly appreciated and will help to get our message to a wider audience. Whether you donate or spread the word, the clowns appreciate your support and thank you from the bottom of their hearts - and red noses!
Our Instagram is @CircusandClownDesertIntensive
Thank you!
Testimonials from the 2025 Circus & Clown Desert Intensive:
“I did things I never thought I could do! One of the most rewarding things I’ve done for myself as a human being - I faced who I am as an artist in ways I haven’t had the opportunity to before. Clown work forces us to fail in ways that are extremely beneficial to our endurance and courage as performers. I proved to myself that I am far more capable than I believe I am, and that the boundaries I previously set for myself are not at all the limit. I would recommend this intensive to everyone. Would do it a million times over again! I now know why people run away to the circus!” – Hanna Brown
“Blew my mind – Life changing! Given the opportunity to go again, I would drop everything to make it happen.” – Zarion Denney
“Throughout my experience at clown camp I was gifted this incredible space to play and do things that I would cower away from before. I left with a newfound confidence that has pushed me to pursue my instincts as an actor – I credit a lot of my confidence to my clown camp experience!” – Rian Schotmeyer
“My experience at this intensive allowed me to learn and trust my body more than I ever have previously. Being thrown into the heat of the skills we were learning left little room to hesitate when we were put on the spot. At this camp, where everyone else was unsure but attempting new feats despite their fear, it was difficult to not seize every opportunity presented to me, which has stuck with me since this experience. Clown is obnoxious and takes up space, something I struggle with in auditions or when I’m second guessing myself, but now having these skills in my body, I feel all the more courageous, which is something I am proud of and incredibly grateful for.” – Angela Bahena
