January 2 Vallejo/Vacaville Arts and Entertainment Source: The Raphael Cruz Fund honors Vallejo Native

Raphael Cruz found the circus at a young age and carried it with him all his life. His legacy in the performing arts will be honored with the Raphael Cruz Fund, supporting Bay Area Youth interested in the circus.

“There’s a big history of circus in San Francisco emanating out to the world and Raphael was one of the shining lights of that history,” says David Dower, executive director of Club Fugazi, a performing arts theater in San Francisco. “We decided to make the fund in his name and have it support the path that he and his brothers, along with many other San Francisco young people, have traveled into professional circus life.”

Dower says the idea to form the scholarship fund had two inspirations. Club Fugazi used to be the home to Beach Blanket Babylon, a performing arts theater, which is now permanently closed. Its closure marked the end of the theater’s well-known scholarship fund.

The second reason to start the fund was Cruz.

“Raphael Cruz was one of three brothers who came up through San Francisco circus infrastructure,” says Dower. After studying in the Bay Area, Cruz went to Montreal’s National Circus School and performed with The 7 Fingers, Cirque du Soleil and Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre before his death at age 31.

The scholarship in his honor will support students in each stage of the education process, says Dower.

On a more minute level, the funds will go toward ticket subsidies for Bay Area Youth, summer training at Circus Center or Kinetic Arts Circus Camps in the Bay and scholarships to attend the National Circus School in Montreal, like Cruz did.

“We wanted to kind of support the spark, and then the initial training, and then the launch into the life,” said Dower. “Those seemed to be the three stages where support was both fuel and fodder for the life our acrobats do.”

The fund isn’t entirely selfless, with its recipients continuing the tradition of the circus in San Francisco, he says. “We’re hoping to build a community of circus performers who can sustain San Francisco circus, not just our show.”

Dower has been thinking about starting the fund since Club Fugazi first opened in 2021. “We’d been noodling on it, ‘how and when do we launch it?’” he said. “But in the final moments of it, it came together in about four months.”

Club Fugazi will be hosting a fund-raising show in congruence with their 1000th performance of “Dear San Francisco” in early March although there is no date set, says Dower.

As of now, they are receiving donations from their audiences as well as putting the word out where they can. Families with students in the VOENA choir in Vallejo will have received an email with information on the fund. Raphael Cruz is the son of VOENA Founder and Director Annabelle Marie.

“This fund touched my soul so deeply and thinking about how David launched this in honor of my son has me in such amazement,” said Marie.

Learn more about the fund at clubfugazisf.com