Ruth Juliet Wikler, "a woman whose vivaciousness borders on exuberance and whose smile could light up a room during a blackout,"* is a performing arts curator, producer, leader, and strategist with a global, inclusive, equity-centered lens.

 

Active in the US, Canada, and beyond, Wikler's work to develop the North American presenting and touring market for circus, via her direction of the MICC (International Market for Contemporary Circus, a project of TOHU, Montreal) from 2019 to 2023, had a transformational impact on the sector. Under her strategic and programmatic direction, the MICC's in-person and virtual convenings, programs, and working groups fostered the development of fluency, curiosity, and touring partnerships for the art form across the North American performing arts presenting field, dramatically increasing the quantity and diversity of circus works and artists being presented on North American stages. Read about the 2023 edition here. 

 

As Deputy Director of Programming for TOHU and the Montréal Compl­ètement Cirque Festival during this period, Wikler oversaw season and festival programming, spearheading groundbreaking presentations from Morocco, Mexico, Cambodia, and around the world. She guided Canada's premier artist residency program for circus, creating the Laboratoires de cirque, a national artist development program, and forging multi-year commissioning partnerships with Fira Tarrega (Spain), Chamaleon Theater (Berlin), and The Utopians, a 15-member, 6-country commissioning consortium which she launched under the MICC umbrella. Wikler also supervised TOHU's extensive collection of circus history and art objects, directing the online pedagogical exhibition Circoluza,  under the aegis of Digital Museums Canada.

 

Prior to her work with TOHU, Wikler curated seven seasons of contemporary international theatre and performance for Boom Arts in Portland, Oregon, which she also founded, introducing Portland audiences, educational and cultural institutions, and grassroots community organizations to the unique perspectives of key theatre and performance artists from around the world: Kristina Wong, Snehal Desai, The Team, Penny Arcade, Touretteshero, Teatro Linea de Sombra, and many others.

 

Wikler previously served as Associate Director of Programs for the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (The Graduate Center CUNY); in fundraising and administrative capacities for arts organizations in New York City; and as founder, director, and producer for the Brooklyn-based troupe Cirque Boom. She holds an MA in Theatre from Hunter College, where her research focused on neighborhood-based collective theatre creation in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her Barnard thesis on agit-prop theatre during the Spanish civil war was published in Yale's Theatre Magazine (Erika Munk, editor). Wikler is an alumna of the APAP Leadership Fellows program (Cohort 4) and holds a Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell.

 

WIkler consults for the performing arts field from her current base in the Pacific NW, where she also teaches, mobilizes community support, and develops performing arts programming for Clark College (Vancouver, WA).

 

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*Oregon Arts Watch/Photo by Friderike Heuer