Big Apple Circus Dizzy – “Play On!” Gets Lost in the Music

Originally posted 6/30/09Circus Review: Big Apple CircusEisenhower Park, East Meadow, Long IslandJune 18Somewhere near the end of this year’s offering, I felt a strange sense of disorientation. I had just endured an acid rock drumming exhibition (which roused the crowd and struck me as oddly out of place) and was about to witness the Rodion Troupe, a group of pole vaulters from Russia, decked out in flowing white. Talk about musical whiplash and time warp — as if suddenly you are whisked back into the old Soviet Union at the circus watching a preciously choreographed number -- after being dragged through the loud seedy sixties. And I wondered as I sat there, where have I just been — and where am I going under this tent?Alternately co-starring...

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Pop Icon to Freak Show ... A Jacksonian Death Self-Destined ...

Who was Michael Jackson? Talented boy singer lucky to connect with the right songs at the right time? Pop music icon who turned himself into post-stardom side show to sustain the public’s attention?Even I am amazed at the adulation given his death, a death that hardly surprised me, for I could see it coming for years. But when you look at people the world over mourning Jackson's passing at the age of 50, you have to admire his powerhouse talents as singer and dancer to craft a music that would encircle the globe and give it a shared beat. Perhaps this is his greatest legacy.I recall, silly as it seems in recall, the L.A. disco scene in the 1980s, dancing to some of Jackson's best tunes. And the best ones electrified us all. Billy Jean. I still...

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Sunday Out of the Past: Call it “Greatest” Again – Ringling-Barnum Rebounds on Rich, Robust Return to the Big Top

This first appeared on June 24, 2009Preface: I cannot repost this review without offering my sincere apologies to Vicenta Pages. Although I am sticking by my essential reaction to her performance on the roman rings, I have revised some of the text. Looking back, I regret having indulged so insensitively in making Ms. Pages the object of a cheap attempt at easy humor. That she did not deserve.Circus Review: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Boom A Ring!Brooklyn, New York, June 18.Tickets: $10 to $65 – Now through September 7What a difference a tent makes. And a live band. And the right acts. And the right direction. And the absence of so many things that never should have been there. What a giant difference, indeed. Somehow, Ringling...

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Happy 25th, Cirque du Soleil!

June 16, 1984 -- June 16, 2009: You are 25-years old this year. You went from an upstart kid eating fire, walking on stilts, juggling clubs and clowning your way into a global giant. You took the world. You have thrilled, challenged, confused, let us down and lifted us back up many times over.Here are some photos of you in your precocious youth. Such sweet images of a troupe of Canadian street performers turning their talents and vision into one of the most remarkable circus empires the world has ever known ... The first Cirque du Soleil logo, above, designed by Josee Belanger, 1984. The images in black and white are of La Fete Foraine in 1983, the precursor to CDS, described by CDS as a gathering of street performers "inspired by the communal...

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MIDWAY FLASH ... MIDWAY FLASH ... Ringling-Barnum Rebounds on Rich, Robust Return to the Big Top

NEW YORK, June 18. Opening to sell-out crowds under canvas, Ringling strikes a powerful note, daring a simpler approach in a single ring. Read all about it in the days to come when Showbiz David reviews Boom-A-Ring at Coney Isla...

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Lawn Bowling’s “The Family” Deserve Their Own Reality Show

Given all the years I have sat in the sun and watched the older set move their bowls (never call them “balls) back and forth across the green, the little white ball being the goal, not until today did I almost laugh out loud.You see, and I must be discrete about this (the game is so generally discrete), there is a fanatic of a middle aged man who lives nearby with three sons, all of them now lawn bowling. The youngest, who just popped up, might be around eight or nine. The older one, Jonathan, now about in his mid teens, is developing a sense of humor. I’ve watched him over the last maybe seven years grow up, for when the local clubs get together on the Oakland greens, there comes “the family.” I think they hail from Berkeley. The boys are...

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In a Krishnamurti Mood: The Circus Judge I Might Have Been

Top of the heap. Number one. What a Voice! Where is SHE from? Destined to win, assumed the suddenly discovered Scottish Sunday school teacher who claimed never to have been kissed. Far from tabloid pretty. In fact, homely. Just one Susan Boyle, who moved Simon nearly to tears. Across the finish line on a British TV show called "Britain's Got Talent" she flew. Not so fast! Shockingly, a group of kids getting the win stole her spotlight away, driving her over the cliff and into a local nut house for same day repair.Ego. Ego. Ego. We all have one. Well, I do. Do you?Last year, I was called and pitched to be a judge for "Celebrity Circus" by a Hollywood casting agent working for NBC. "You are a circus critic," he said, having done some homework. I was impressed. "This opportunity may never come...

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John Ringling North II Three Years Later -- Might the Party Soon Be Over?

Showbiz David SpeculatesNobody that I know of has put out more positive prose heralding the return of the House of Ringling to the big top than myself. Three years later, I am looking at things a little differently. Now, I must warn you in advance, this is NOT a review. These are only impressions of the current show gleaned from blogs, You Tube clips, photos, e-mails, and a close look at the actual lineup of acts supplied to me by show manager James Royal. I have learned that not until you actually watch a performance from start to finish can you really know what to think of it.I also know how long it took Cliff Vargas to achieve near-greatness for a few fleeting seasons in the mid 1980s. It took him about 10 years. Perhaps Mr. North is in...

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Ding! Ding! Cho! Cho! I'm Railing Off ...

You’ve no doubt heard of 48-year-young Susan Boyle, Scottish teacher who claims never to have been kissed, but boy can this amateur (if that’s what she really is), sing. She took her voice to the television show Britain's Got Talent. Then the world kissed her. Even Simon You Know Who got all teary-eyed. Judges sure she’d ride all the way to triumph, but, at the finish line, some young upstarts stole away her glory, causing Boyle to Boyle over, all the way into what once was called the nuthouse ... Now she’s out, and maybe regrouping ... Fame that lasts only fifteen minutes can leave burns that linger a lifetime ...Meanwhile, destined to blast off big time is one Guy Laliberte, he of Cirque du Soleil, said to be Canada’s first space passenger...

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Showbiz Roller Coaster: Boyle to the Nuthouse, Laliberte to Outer Space ... Big Apple in Premature Melt Down? Here We Go! ...

You’ve no doubt heard of 48-year-young Susan Boyle, Scottish teacher who claims never to have been kissed, but boy can this amateur (if that’s what she really is), sing. She took her voice to the television show Britain's Got Talent. Then the world kissed her. Even Simon You Know Who got all teary-eyed. Judges sure she’d ride all the way to triumph, but, at the finish line, some young upstarts stole away her glory, causing Boyle to Boyle over, all the way into what once was called the nuthouse ... Now she’s out, and maybe regrouping ... Fame that lasts only fifteen minutes can leave burns that linger a lifetime ... Meanwhile, destined to blast off big time is one Guy Laliberte, he of Cirque du Soleil, said to be Canada’s first space passenger...

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Circus Bella Beguiles with Wry Shennanigans, Relevant Music

Circus Review: Circus BellaSan Francisco, May 31, 2009, 12 p.m.Admission free, at Yerba Buena GardensGoing to a new circus founded by ambitions young performers is always an adventure loaded with a mixture of apprehension and hope. New could mean theatre circus. Could mean ballet circus. Could mean kinky “performance art.” Or the Aussie self-annihilation angle. Could also mean a bright new future. Remember, it was out of such a situation that Cirque du Soleil was born. Indeed, tomorrow belongs to the young.The good news out of one-year-old Circus Bella, based in Oakland, is that some of the best musical scoring you will come across on any lot is on this lot. Moreover, there’s a cool tilt to the company's camaraderie, a playful approach to taking...

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