Spiegeltent ZaZou is pitched on the traditional unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes including the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. The region has long been a center for these people to gather, trade, celebrate, heal, and maintain kinship ties. Today Chicago is the home of one of the largest urban Native American communities in the United States. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to practice traditions, celebrate their heritage, and care for the land and waterways. We continue to honor their lives and work both in the past and the present.
We acknowledge that cirque traditions have a long history of profiting on the backs of those who were excluded from “polite” society, the strange, the different, the foreigner, the unacceptables. At Teatro ZinZanni we seek to celebrate what makes each performer, staff member, and guest unique and beautiful. This goes beyond what their bodies look like or can do to include their gender, gender expression, race, religion, creed, place of origin, sexuality, and life experiences. We have not always succeeded in this work and know that we will fail again but are willing to pick ourselves up and continue to listen and learn from those in our community and beyond who have so much to teach us. The legacy of racism, classism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, gender bias, and xenophobia has no home here and we stand with those working to deconstruct these legacies and bring equity for all people.
Randolph Entertainment, Teatro ZinZanni, Rockin’ Good Foods, and all our partners are committed to equity, diversity, inclusion, and active anti-racism. Cirque is better when we all are able to fully celebrate and support each other. We strive to acknowledge our unconscious biases and eliminate them step by step. We ask our audiences to join us in celebrating all who walk through these doors as worthy and beautiful humans and hope you depart with a new joy and appreciation of your fellow beautiful humans.
