Hoping for a Great Week at the Fair

by Renie Workman

From: wnep.com

September 21, 2012

 

 

 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents BARNUM BASH
playing Mohegan Sun Arena November 1 – 4, 2012
WILKES BARRE, PA

 

BIG APPLE CIRCUS NEWS---

 

Big Apple Circus is always a hit when it comes to Louodun! The shows runs through Oct. 8.
(Sept. 20, 2012) - The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region—through a generous donation from an anonymous supporter—has invited over 1,600 low-income children and family members to see the Big Apple Circus on Sunday, Sept. 23 at 12:30 p.m. at Dulles Town Center. (The donor bought out the entire Big Top that day for the festivities.) Tickets were distributed to non-profits in the DC metro area that serve children and families, including homeless shelters, foster care groups, afterschool programs, and those who work to prevent domestic violence.

“So many children and families in our region don’t have access to this kind of opportunity. This is where the generosity of our donors can make such a difference,” said Terri Lee Freeman, President of The Community Foundation. Terri will serve as Honorary Ringmaster for the event (ringmaster hat and all). “I’m grateful for this incredibly generous donation, and the joy it will undoubtedly bring to our families. I’m also excited about the chance to perform – and my staff can’t wait to see pictures of me in the hat.”

The show, LEGENDARIUM!, will take place at Dulles Town Center in Dulles, Virginia. The event is free for low-income children and families, and because no circus is complete without popcorn, each ticket comes with a complimentary $10 concession voucher.


Giraffe Dies of Cardiac Arrest After Escaping From Circus

 

 (Barcroft Media /Landov)
 From: abcnews.com
Sept. 22, 2012
A giraffe shocked townspeople in Italy Friday when it sprang free from a local circus and ran through the streets for four hours.  Police managed to tranquilize it, but it died shortly after of cardiac arrest.

The giraffe escaped from the Rinaldo Orfei circus in Imola, Italy, the BBC reported.  Police chased the 16-foot, 2,000-pound giraffe as it galloped through the streets during rush hour, scaring passersby and damaging vehicles with its hooves.

Photos show police chasing the giraffe down a highway and a group of people desperately trying to push the giraffe into a cage using a ladder.

Two giraffes died at a zoo in Lodz, Poland in May after vandals broke in and threw benches and other debris into the animal cages, the BBC reported. One giraffe died of a heart attack shortly after the break-in and the other was found dead the next day from stress.


Texas Zoo Uses iPads to Communicate with Orangutans

From: nbcnewyork.com

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

In an effort to raise awareness and protect orangutans, the zoo adopted a program called "Apps for Apes."

 

Circus from Beijing features thrilling acrobatics, feats of endurance

 

Story by Diane Carroll
JCCC
Sep. 21st, 2012
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – The National Circus of the People's Republic of China will show off its hair-raising acrobatics and mind-blowing feats of endurance when it performs at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12, in the Carlsen Center's Yardley Hall at Johnson County Community College.

 The company from Beijing will perform its Cirque Chinois family show as part of its Coast-to-Coast tour of the United States and Canada.

 Tickets, which are $46 and $37, are available from the college box office at 913-469-4445 or at jccc.edu/TheSeries.

 The circus company, founded in 1953, is one of the longest-running and most distinguished troupes in China. It made a profound contribution to the circus world during the 1980s when it started to change the concept of the animal circus to one without animals.

 The change influenced the then-pioneers of Cirque du Soleil, who invited coaches from the company to teach them acts such as Balancing Chairs and Bicycle and Chinese Poles. That effort culminated in the revolutionary program called Circus Reinvented!

 The unique acts in the Cirque Chinois show include the Great Teeterboard, Grand Flying Trapeze, Group Contortion, Straw Hats Juggling and Girls' Balance with Bowls.

 Many of the artists in the troupe have won international awards. They include Ms. Li Liping, the first Golden Clown winner from China at the renowned Monte Carlo International Circus Festival, and Madame Xia Juhua, the "Chinese Ulanowa" of the Circus World and chairwoman of the International Chinese Circus Society since the early 1980s.

 The company has won more than 20 gold and silver medals and other awards at festivals, including the Monte Carlo International Circus Festival, the Wuqiao International Circus Festival and the Wuhan International Circus Festival.

KLOWN KLUB

 

 

 REITHOFFER SHOWS

ANTIQUE MERRY-GO-ROUND

 

 

FROM: THE UNOFFICIAL

BLOOMSBURG FAIR WEBSITE

Street Experience at Halloween Horror Nights 22 explained by Universal Orlando Show Director

Published on Sep 20, 2012 by AttractionsMagazine

Universal Orlando Show Director Laura Wallace give a rundown of all the hordes that are a part of the new street experience of Halloween Horror Nights 2012.

Tornado Engulfed by Fire: Swirling Inferno Caught on Tape After Flames Engulf Active Twister

Published on Sep 18, 2012 by ABCNews

A rare phenomenon that looks like a burning tornado is seen in amazing video.

 

Getting hooked on circus thrills

 

Photo from Great Moscow Circus website

September 20, 2012
Circus tricks still have an ageless appeal in the era of 3D films, video-streaming and music from the Cloud, according to veteran showman Greg Hall.

The Australian tour manager of the Great Moscow Circus said the live thrills (but hopefully not the spills) under the big top captured the imagination of even the most cynical audience member.

The 48-member circus, whose performers come from around the world, began its three week Perth season at Langley Park tonight.

from Great Moscow Circus website
One of the more hair-raising acts is The Globe of Death, a spherical steel cage in which five motorcyclists whiz around inside the 4m diameter space at more than 60km/h.

The 20 acts in the show - the diablo, Russian swings, knife-throwers and even the human cannonball - told stories about Russian history and culture, Mr Hall said.

from Great Moscow Circus website

"This is just staggering to see for this new electronic-age group coming through. Listen to them coming into the tent and then listen to them coming out. It is just so different. They're hooked."
The circus runs in Perth until October 14 and then tours the South-West and Goldfields.

Circus in the Parks a family affair for Midnight Circus members



Five-year-old Samantha Jenkins is part of a family tradition of circus performance. She will be on-hand for this year’s “Circus in the Parks” program with the rest of her family.
 PHOTO BY TANYA CHWOJKO
from:  suntimes.com
BY MISHA DAVENPORT
September 19, 2012
In 2007, the Jenkins family heard the playground in their neighborhood park was about to be downsized due to a lack of funding, they sprang into action.

“We were at Welles Park with our son, Max, who was a newborn at the time,” Jeff Jenkins recalls. “The park was desperately in need of a renovation and the funds just weren’t there. There was talk about the playground being removed.”

For many families, raising funds for the local park usually entails a bake sale, but not the Jenkins family.

Jeff and Julie Jenkins perform regularly with Chicago’s famed Midnight Circus, and the pair came up with a far more entertaining idea.

“We approached the park supervisor and alderman and convinced them to allow us to do a weekend of circus shows in the park,” Jeff Jenkins says. “Admittedly, it was an out-of-the-box idea. I have to take my hat off to former 47th Ward Alderman Gene Schulter. He got behind this and really championed it. I have to give some credit to former Mayor Daley as well. It isn’t always easy to get things done in Chicago and both of these guys could see what we could accomplish.”

It was a gamble that paid off. In its inaugural year, the Circus in the Parks program raised $20,000 for Welles Park.

 

'Midnight Circus' performs Saturday afternoon October 8, 2011 at Mount Greenwood Park in Chicago, Illinois. The show, part of the Chicago Park District 'Circus in the Parks' tour, will also be presented Sunday October 9 at the park, 3721 W. 111th Street.
 Art Vassy~Sun-Times Media
It was a colossal amount of money to be raised in a single weekend for the Park Advisory Council,” Jenkins says. “More importantly, it brought thousands of people into their neighborhood park. After those first performances, we heard from people who told us they didn’t know the park was there or that it offered the many events that it does.”

The event also helped strengthen the community, Jenkins says.

“People came out for the circus and actually got to meet their neighbors.”
The Jenkins family isn’t just clowning around, either. The program has grown in size and scope every year.
“Probably our biggest addition thus far came last year,” Jenkins notes. “We added a 70-foot tent that was a real game changer for us. We are no longer at the mercy of the weather and the tent offers an intimate entertainment experience.”
read more:
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/weekend/15236344-421/circus-in-the-parks-a-family-affair-for-midnight-circus-members.html

from Casey Gibbs---

"you won't beleive it!"

Steve Frayne

Elmsford's Mount Carmel Hosts Circus Family Night

 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel hosts its third annual circus this weekend.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Zerbini Family Circus
from:  dailyvoice.com
by Natalia Baage-Lord
September 21, 2012
ELMSFORD, N.Y. – The circus is in town this weekend as the Zerbini Family Circus brings its animals, fire performances and high-flying acts to Elmsford.

On Saturday, Sept. 22, Our Lady of Mount Carmel will host its third annual circus show at DeLuca Park to help raise money for the school.

"The circus is fantastic," said Theresa Gilberti, a teacher at Mount Carmel for 16 years. "They do a great show. It's a fun family night. It's like the Ringling Brothers, except on a smaller scale. They do trapeze, they do big animals. It's really cute."

The circus has been a big hit over the past two years. The children especially enjoy the fire acts and seeing the live alligators, Gilberti noted.

"It's all for the kids," she said. "That is what it's for. It is all about them. That is what's important. As long as they have fun and I see their little smiles, it's all good. It's very cool and it's a great show for the kids. My students loved it."

The circus was also a hit with adults. After witnessing the Zerbini's show, Gilberti said parents asked for the event to be repeated the following year.

"Everybody loves it," said Toni Mauro, an office assistant and computer teacher at Mount Carmel. "They enjoyed it very much."

The event is one of several fundraising events that Our Lady of Mount Carmel holds throughout the year. In the past, Gilberti said the money has gone toward purchasing computers, computer programs and installing air conditioning systems in the classrooms.

"It goes toward whatever it is that the school needs for the kids at the time," she said.

The two shows are at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, priced $10 in advance or $12 at the door. The school is located at 59 E. Main St. in Elmsford.

 

 

Circus Rolls into East Peoria

 

By: Eugene Daniel
from:  centralillinoisproud.com
September 20, 2012
EAST PEORIA-The circus has landed in central Illinois.

"You are my sweet heart, huh? You're my babies." Ian Garden said as he kissed a pair of camels.

Garden loves the circus. How couldn't he? It's been in his blood for four generations. His great-grandfather started a touring circus.

"I would say you're not going to find too many people in this industry that don't have a generation or two in their back pocket," he said. 
   
The Piccadilly Circus is invading the East Peoria Event Center this weekend.  According to Garden, it features all the acrobatic acts and tricks you can imagine.  There are lots of animals.  Garden says the animals, like his zebras, are pretty talented.

"I send them in. I make them waltz. I change directions. They do what's called no bleak, when one puts their head on the other one's back," he said. 
   
Then, there's Oka the Elephant. She's the only elephant in North America that balances all four legs on a ball.

"What she does, she'll get up on their tub and then she proceeds to get up on a ball, that  actually is not stable. It rolls," Garden said.
   
To Garden, acts like Oka the Elephant, and the high-flying Romanian trapeze artists, never get old. But that's not why he does it.

"You know I get out in that ring everyday, and one of the greatest feelings of all is those people are cheering and clapping at whatever you're doing in there. And that makes it all rewarding," he said.

The show will runs three times per day until Sunday. To purchase tickets, visit www.thefuncircus.com, or call 877-373-0477.

 

FROM CASEY GIBBS

FROM CASEY GIBBS---


NOTICE THE MEAT ON THE BONNET  OF THE VEHICLE

IMAGINE THE RUSH YOU GET SITTING IN THAT SEAT! 

 

 

This is the Werribee Open Range Zoo in Victoria , Australia and only the hood of the car is outside the glass cage with lions.
The rest of the car is on the inside.  It’s a very interesting way of interacting with the lions.
The seats are cleaned after every feeding time.

KELLY-MILLER

The Kelly Miller Circus comes to Lyons Thursday


By Lloyd Nelson
From mysuburbanlife.com
Brookfield Suburban Life
Sep 20, 2012

 

Brookfield, IL —Elephants are trampling along in Lyons right now as the Kelly Miller Circus has arrived in Smith Park.

The shows, which include dancing dogs, clowns, elephants and tigers, start at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. at Smith Park. Tickets cost $15 for adults and $7 for children ages 2 through 11.

BIG E

 

 

 

VA STATE FAIR

 

Photos of last year's fair from
The Virginia State Fair Website.

 

"FLASH IS CASH!"

 

 

 

BLOOMSBURG #1

BLOOMSBURG READY'S FOR
THE FAIR


Bloomsburg, PA is the largest attended fair the state!
These photos are from--
"THE UNOFFICIAL BLOOMSBURG FAIR" web site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

more pics to come!

When Jumbo Was Toast of the Town

 

Collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Tibbals Collection
 May Wirth (1894-1978) was billed as "the world’s greatest female bareback rider."
From: nytimes.com
By GLENN COLLINS
September 20, 2012
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, direct your gaze to this thin circlet of elephant tusk from 1885. Its spidery inscription reads “Jumbo King of Elephants.” It is a relic of both the 13-foot-tall Jumbo and a lost golden age, when the circus was New York City’s most popular entertainment.
Scholars of the arts in New York have long ignored the circus in favor of the city’s theatrical, musical and literary histories. But an ambitious new exhibition aims to fill that void. “Circus and the City: New York 1793-2010,” opening on Friday at the Bard Graduate Center Galleries, chronicles the rise, triumph and ultimate fragmentation of the circus through the lens of the city, making the case that the circus transformed entertainment, media and advertising and that the city itself played an important role in the evolution of the American circus.
“Circus has primarily been thought of as a global and national phenomenon,” said Matthew Wittmann, curator of the show. “But New York City was an incubator for circus since it first arrived in America.”

Geography mattered. “A lot of circus people and animals first came through the port of New York,” said Susan Weber, the founder and director of the Bard Center, who helped assemble the exhibition. “And many of the features associated with the American circus were developed or adapted in New York.”

Those include, according to Dr. Wittmann, the American debut of the flying trapeze; the proliferation of thrill acts involving cannons and bicycles; the advent of the three-ring circus; and, in 1796, the introduction of the first elephant to America.

The $250,000 exhibition advances its thesis in formidable detail. There are 222 props, prints, costumes, paintings, sculptures, photographs, posters and other artifacts in a 3,000-square-foot gallery space arrayed over three floors. The three-year effort to mount the show has also produced two colorful books: a massive, 472-page history, “The American Circus” (Yale University Press, $65), and a 208-page exhibition catalog
Circus buffs and fan magazines have kept big-top lore alive, but until recently many museums and historical societies did not deem the itinerant, ephemeral circus worthy of documenting or preserving. “We know much about the development of the arts in New York City, but we know very little about the development of the circus,” said LaVahn G. Hoh, a circus historian who is professor of drama at the University of Virginia (and is not connected to the exhibition).
READ MORE AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/nyregion/circus-and-the-city-at-bard-graduate-center-galleries.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

 

from: "Circus" Pete Adams---
SRQ Circus Lunch Bunch Bunch will meet September 21st FRIDAY at 1:00 p.m.
Lockwood Diner3232 17th StreetSarasota, 34325
941-366-5523
Please bring an 8x10 photo of your act for the Circus Wall framed preferably
Anyone and everyone invited. You do not have to belong to any organization to attend. No formal agenda just announcements related to shows and show people and fans of the circus.

*************************************************



World Animal Day at Big Cat:

 October 4, 2012 from 3 pm to 7 pm

 

Save the Date! Thursday, October 4, 2012 from 3 pm to 7 pm, Big Cat Habitat and Gulf Coast Sanctuary will celebrate our First Annual World Animal Day in collaboration with other local non-profit animal welfare organizations.

We will be celebrating animals through educating the public about our mission and the current issues facing animals both in our local and global communities.

Admission and parking are free; however we request that you please leave your pets at home.

The Big Cat Habitat in Sarasota, Florida is a must-see attraction for the entire family

Uncle Sam's American Circus, UK

Uploaded by bobbymihailov on Sep 29, 2011

Uncle Sam's American Circus Tour 2011

Ringmaster sought after circus man does vanishing act
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Grimsby Telegraph
HE'S packed his trunk and said goodbye to the circus....
The sudden departure of the ringmaster at Russells International Circus has left the troupe dangling like a trapeze artiste

 

photo--russells web page
Upset at the sudden departure of his previous circus show compere, owner Rusty Russell said he is looking for a new ringmaster.

And he has invited any Grimsby Telegraph readers who always dreamed of being a ringmaster or someone who fancied a career change to go along and have a go.

The circus has arrived in Cleethorpes for its seventh year in a row, but the ringmaster went missing en-route from Mablethorpe.

Clown Alex Morley said: "We were in Mablethorpe last week. We all set off and came to Cleethorpes but could not find him.

"Now we are looking for a new ringmaster. All that people have to do is turn up. We shall have an interview and see what experience they have and give them a go."

Rusty said: "At first we were worried why he had not turned up and then we heard he had joined another circus.

"In our circus we are all good at multi-tasking. We have about five weeks left of the season so just need someone for a short while.

"This is our seventh time in Cleethorpes. It is becoming a tradition. We put on a new show each time and are looking forward to entertaining the audiences."

The circus was voted the best circus in Great Britain in two separate polls last year.

 

This year, the circus is introducing Albert with his unique freestyle balancing routine and has come fresh from Russia's Got Talent.

He is joined by Vladislav, formerly of The Moscow State Circus, and muscle man Kristian is back with his aerial straps routine.

There are many of the familiar acts, including Disney characters Goofy and Mickey and a feature from Toy Story.

Sponge Bob Square Pants is also thrilling scores of children at the circus which is in the field next to Pennell's garden centre, in Humberston Road.
For more details, visit www.russellscircus.co.uk or call the booking line on 07752 218805.

Circus unable to visit town due to travellers
by Keith Wilkinson

 

 An order has been made to evict travellers from a field in Worcestershire which should have been used this week for a circus

 Photo: ITV Central
from: itv.com
Wed 19 Sep 2012
UK~Circus~Pinders
An order has been made to evict travellers from a field in Worcestershire which should have been used this week for a circus.

Pinders Circus had to cancel four shows on Monday Tuesday and today because travellers had moved onto the site they were due to use in Droitwich.

Credit: Pinders Circus
The circus is now to go ahead with performances at Evesham from tomorrow until Sunday.

 

A district judge at Worcester County Court has today given Wychavon District Council an order for the travellers to leave the field or face eviction.