Big Top Bits: Circus in the Eye of the Beholder...

Circus, a word denoting many things ... Today, we cringe at the phrase “Circus Maximus,” yet, so say the history books, multitudes of sadistic voyeurs once thrilled to the gory spectacles staged in the Roman Coliseum when those two words were infamously linked ....Today, “circus” to some still means snarling animals and daring wire walkers, but ... tomorrow? Give the world another fifty or a hundred seasons, and what they call “circus” might be far more ethereal, far less real... You’ve seen statically choreographed aerial workouts on the "bed sheets" (credit Sarasota Central for that phrase). You’ve seen the hula hoops ... Dream on, those of the circus ballet class, your era may yet dawn ...Circus in Petaluma under a small colorful tent meant affordable amusement to grateful parents, I assume,...

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Circus in Games, Gossip and Teenage Rage...

BigTopolis Rocks the Rails. Youngest person, so far, to play my new board game. Name’s Ryan. Top of his class, he told me. Child prodigy I’d say. Sauntered up my way on the train, looked at my pc and told me I should spell check. Kept leaving and coming back. Saw my game board (I was working on changes after playing BigTopolis over the rails three times between CA and NY), and ended up nearly begging me to play him a game. No table around, I said. So, we can play it right here, he protested. And we played ... BTW: when you “invent” a game, try it out on as many people as you can. That’s how you learn. That’s how the game is changed and gets better.... Asked this crafty Ryan, “Can you steal a city from another circus owner?” Well, there is now...

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Star Turns Transcend Big Apple’s Choppy “Celebrate!"

Circus review: Big Apple CircusCunningham Park, Queens, May 16, 11 a.m.The reason, I believe, that Paul Binder and Michael Christensen have been able stay in the biz for a commendable thirty year run is due to their respect for the best acts available. That is the one consistent I have noticed, having only seen four editions over the three decades. So my impressions that follow may be deemed by the skeptical as too sketchy. What Binder and Christensen, I regretfully find myself thinking once more, are not so smart at doing is production. Then again, Binder’s passion is a European thing — it’s all about the act, period — and old Europe, which may still linger on in his mind, was never much about the sort of presentational showmanship that has...

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The Ways of Cirque du Soleil ... My "Interview" That Went ssssss Into the Montreal Mist

Reader advistory: For all I know, they operate on another planet, and have their mail routed by space ship.At the outset, let me put this into global context, kids: I am on record as naming three seminal forces in circus performance art during the last century: Anatoly Lunacharsky, a close friend of Lenin’s who, following the Russian revolution of 1917, elevated Soviet circus art to new heights; John Ringling North, who did the same for three rings in 1938; and Guy Laliberte of Quebec (when he is visiting earth), the ultimate mastermind behind the modern-day phenomenon known as Cirque du Soleil. So ...November 25, 2004: I send both a letter and e-mail to Mr. Laliberte , seeking an interview and offering a number of options including meeting him in Los Angeles at a future time when he might...

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New Book Due Proclaims American Circus Heyday "Largest Showbiz Industry the World Has Ever Seen" --- Go, USA!

My, does that make me feel good, especially since it's coming from outsiders looking back at our three-ring extravaganzas. I kind of all along felt that without ever trying to confirm my hunches. (Okay, we'll overlook Hollywood in the forties luring into movie houses 90 million people every week.)The book, due out in June, is so clinically titled -- The Circus: 1870-1950 -- that considering its touted sweep, I would have called it The Circus: 1871-1956, but then I quibble. It bears the work of one (only one?) editor, two authors -- outsiders named Dominique Jando (now a San Francisco resident) and Canadian Linda Granfield -- and a "contributing author," fact checker extraordinaire Fred Dahlinger,Jr., once of the Circus World Museum library....

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