Whale Song: a dance beach show for all

Since 2021, Beyond Pearls has offered by donation shows at or by the beach in Santa Monica. Inspired by the street shows Jennifer did while in Manhattan, Copenhagen, Edinburgh and Boulder, Jennifer decided to offer full, high-quality shows at or by the beach instead of just the street. Why have high quality dance, circus and theatre only be inside?  Each year,  Beyond Pearls comes up with a beautiful show to entertain and elevate the people in the area after gathering a crowd. 

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This season we're building Whale Song, a piece that blends dance around a story that's been living in Artistic Director Jennifer Dinoia's memory since childhood: Humphrey the Humpback Whale, who wandered into the San Francisco Bay in 1985 and needed an entire city to bring him home. It's a story about displacement, about belonging, about what happens when a community decides to show up.

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The show opens the way all great street/beach performance opens, with 30 minutes of intentional crowd-gathering. No rope line, no ticketing. We use juggling and direct audience interaction to turn a stream of passing strangers into an actual crowd, following the tradition of Edinburgh Fringe performers who understand that the audience is half the art.

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Once gathered, the performance begins. Jennifer Dinoia's choreography mirrors the tides, literally in the way bodies move through space, and structurally in the way the piece builds and recedes. The soundscape layers actual humpback vocalizations over ocean rhythms.

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Caiyal Thomas embodies the role of the lost whale. 

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And then the show ends the way we think all shows should end: with food. We dissolve the "stage" into a shared meal on the sand, supported by partners like Lazy Acres and Trader Joe's, because the point was never just the performance. The point is what happens after.

Where: by the water north of Lifeguard Tower 20 at Santa Monica State Beach

Parking available at Bicknell and the boardwalk.

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When: Saturday July 25th 2 pm and 6 pm with optional pot luck picnic afterwards 

Sunday July 26th 2 pm

FREE-please bring a beach chair or lounge chair

donations appreciated but not required

Cast party for team and special annual donors over $50 at 4 pm

Photo of David Prottas in believe you can, October 2025. Photo by Taylor Briggs.

copywright all images by Beyond Pearls 2025