Beyond Pearls
Dance - Theatre - Circus
Season
CIRCUS JAMS
Community Connection
Circus Jams have been running since 2004, open sessions at the park above the boardwalk where anyone can show up, move, play, and learn. No audition. No prerequisites. Just people discovering what their bodies can do. We put our cell phones down to play, connect and learn a new skill or perhaps hone an advanced juggler joins to teach. Two facilitators present to hold space, teach and invite passerby's to join the fun!
2026 schedule:​​
When: Sundays 12pm to 2 pm
JULY AND AUGUST
Where: Park by 2600 Ocean Front Walk, Santa Monica, Ca
FREE​​
Props donated by:
Jennifer Dinoia, Dube Juggling, Renegade Juggling, Spin Force, Jugglequip & Fabric Planet
Whale Song: a dance, theatre, circus 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, clowning, and juggling 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 boardwalk 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.
The costumes, fluid blues and greys designed by Dinoia with mentorship from costume designer Daniel Tobias, make the whole thing feel like it emerged from the water.
Award-winning clown Joe Pisanzio (if available) weaves through the crowd during the performance: ocean trivia, physical comedy, genuine connection with kids who've never seen a live clown and didn't know they needed to.
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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.
2026 schedule: August​
Photo of David Prottas in believe you can, October 2025. Photo by Taylor Briggs.
copywright all images by Beyond Pearls 2025
