Tag Archive for: NEA Award

By Marty Clear – Bradenton Herald

If you said 2015 has been a great year for arts and entertainment in the Bradenton area, it’s unlikely anyone would put up much of an argument. Just in case, here are just a handful of the year’s highlights.

Locals Honored

This year, two Sarasota artists received prestigious and high-profile national awards. Both happen to be named Jacobs, but that’s just a coincidence.

The National Endowment for the Arts named Dolly Jacobs a National Heritage Fellow. The NEA has been giving the award to a handful of people, usually about a dozen or so, each year since 1982. Jacobs — a world-famous circus aerialist and a co-founder…MORE

Quad City Times – By Bill Wundram   
Dolly Jacobs likely was a toddler
the first time she saw Davenport. She might have played in the grass in a big circus lot in the 3000 block of Rockingham Road. She was a circus kid. Her dad, Lou Jacobs, was a legendary circus clown and the first living American to have his image on a U.S. postage stamp. Her mom was a fashion model turned flyer (aerialist) with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. By the time she was a teen, Dolly was riding elephants. Eventually, she learned the difficult Roman rings and flying. The little girl who once a regular performer in Davenport still performs high in the big top in Sarasota, Fla. And now, she is a world ambassador for the circus as an art form… MORE

By Jacob Ogles | SRQ Magazine – The National Heritage Fellowship award since 1982 has been given to folk musicians, potters, tailors, welders and more. But never had the award gone to a circus performer until Friday night. Dolly Jacobs, legendary aerialist and co-founder of The Circus Arts Conservatory, now bears the distinction of being the first circus artist to earn this recognition… MORE

By Nick Reichert | YourObserver.com: Dolly Jacobs, co-founder of Circus Arts Conservatory and lifelong circus performer and aerialist, is bringing the magic of the Sarasota big top to the nation’s capital. As a recipient of this year’s NEA National Heritage Fellowship, Dolly Jacobs along with 10 other artists will perform live and streamed nationwide at 8 p.m. October 2 from Washington, D.C. MORE

By Marty Clear – BRADENTON HERALD
Awards and honors are nothing new for Sarasota native Dolly Jacobs. She’s been inducted into the Circus Ring of Fame and the Gallery of Acrobatic Legends. She received a Florida Folk Heritage Award three years ago from the Florida Department of State.

In 1988, in Monaco, she received the Silver Clown Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the circus world… But the award she received most recently was something special. Earlier this month, the National Endowment for the Arts named Jacobs a National Heritage Fellow. MORE

Herald Tribune Article by Carrie Seidman

SARASOTA – About two weeks ago, Pedro Reis, CEO of the Circus Arts Conservatory, received a message that someone from the National Endowment for the Arts had called… MORE