THE BALLOON MAN

Barnum & Bailey Circus rolls into Phoenix
Elephants, a crowd favorite, lead the way as Ringling Bros. gets ready for Phoenix show
 

Elephants from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus cool off Monday in the spray of hoses. They arrived in downtown Phoenix by train two days ahead of the circus’ opening at US Airways Center. Performances will run until next Monday.
Nick Oza/The Republic
By Rebecca McKinsey
from:The Republic
azcentral.com
Mon Jun 24, 2013
In two days, their feet will dance to Korean pop artist Psy’s hit song “Gangnam Style.”
But on Monday, seven female Asian elephants traveling with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus stepped onto a downtown Phoenix street that had been cooled down just for them with a fire ’s hose.

The elephants — Tonka, Luna, Mabel, Assan, Banko, Siam and Baby, ages 7 to 56 — are part of the show that will be in Phoenix from Wednesday through next Monday.

They’ll be joined by unicycle-riding basketball players, tigers and their trainer, synchronized horses, clowns, acrobats and a woman being shot out of a cannon.
The circus, which has come to Phoenix for 20 years, will open at 7 p.m. Wednesday at US Airways Center and will have a total of 10 performances. Visitors who arrive an hour early can catch a preshow that will allow them to try on costumes, meet circus members and see the show up close, said Taylor Albin, the show’s boss clown.
“It’s not very often I can say to ladies, ‘I probably wear more makeup than you,’ but I do,” said Albin, who does his own makeup and has wanted to be a clown all his life. He oversees the show’s clowns and is an “Auguste clown,” which essentially means, he said, that he’s the brunt of the other clowns’ jokes.

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