BILL PRICKETT VISITS---
ANSAR SHRINE CIRCUS, Springfield, Il, Nov. 2 thru 4, 2012
A fantastic show was presented by the Hanneford Circus for these dates. Different acts, beautiful wardrobe and costumes, great lighting, and music. Billy Martin is the Ringmaster, Angela Martin performed her beautiful aerial act, and Armando Loyal had three elephants and four lovely girls styling for the elephtants- LISA, BECKY, and TRACY and the Olate Dogs.
Show order was:
1. Brunon Blaszak cats assisted by Jennie
2. Lopez Trio - high wire
3. Unicycle: Rinny family and Valla family
4. Angela Martin
5. Olate Dogs
Shrine clowns
6. Ice Babies - Dulce with hair hang
7. Rolo Bola - Jonathan Rinny
8. Quick change - Dulce and Bernito
9. Wheel of Destiny
Shrine clowns
10. Elephants
11. Motorcycle Globe - Lopez riders
Finale


 Billy Martin, RM, giving Hannah Crist a kiss for her 25th Birthday,
11-03-12.

 

Armando Loyal and LISA


 Vlastek Valla - snake photos and Unicycle with family

 Jennie-Brunon Blaszak ass't  

 View above pony ride 

 

View of seats 

. Juan and Marta-Olate Dogs  

 Jose and Juan-Olate Dogs

. Larry Stout - Musical Dir

Kim Sue Valla, Billy Martin, and Angela Martin

 

Dennis O'Keefe (the HAY MAN) and Bill Prickett 

ALL PICTURES BY BILL PRICKETT!

CIRCUS SMIRKUS CAMP

 

Description:This is for anyone who's ever dreamed of running away to join the circus.(5:42)

Big Apple Circus: Legendarium - Awesome Acts in an Intimate Setting

 

The hilarious Acrobuffos
from:  mommypoppins.com
By Raven
Nov 5 2012
I've been going to see the Big Apple Circus' annual show at Lincoln Center since I was my seven-year-old daughter's age, and I admit, I'm not great with change. So last year when the troupe's veteran clown, Grandma, said goodbye, I worried that Big Apple would never be the same. And you know what? It's not—it's much better. No offense to the old girl, but an infusion of fresh blood is clearly what this circus needed. In terms of acts, pacing and overall thrills, Legendarium is one of Big Apple's freshest productions in years.

Legendarium dispenses with plot and puts the focus where it belongs: On the performers. Yes, you've probably seen other people fly high on silks, juggle balls and contort their bodies into painful looking shapes, but rarely with such ease or in such close proximity. With no seat more than 50 feet from the stage, Big Apple shows are way more intimate than those by Cirque du Soleil or Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey. If you're ringside, you can literally see the stars sweat (and smell the horses poop) but even those in the last row are treated to a fairly up close look at the action, which really keeps young kids engaged.
read more at:
http://mommypoppins.com/big-apple-circus-legendarium-lincoln-center-nyc-kids

November 22 - 25, 2012

 

SAD NEWS FROM LAS VEGAS

 

FROM CASEY GIBBS---

Hi All , Sad news from Las Vegas today Antar Wazzan passed away today after a hard fought fight with cancer. He was a dear friend to many of us. Casey
Hello Friends,

I have very sad news to tell all of you, our Pop passed away this morning, he went to sleep last night and didn't wake up. As most of you know Pop has been at home for the past few months just kind of hanging on, so as much as we will miss him we are very thankful that he was spared a lot of pain/hospital stay etc. and went in his sleep.

Our father was 1 of a kind man, Antar & Allissa and I, have many fond memory's and great stories to remember him by and we know that all his great friends have many more as well and we are very thankful for all of you!

We are not sure of the service plans yet, but we will let you know as soon as we can. I know I will not send this to everyone so please feel free to pass this email on to any of Pop's friends.

With love,
Omar  



BILL PRICKETT VISITS---
The Byrd Family-Bellatti Tent, #164, CFA, held a fall dinner in Springfield, Il, on 11-01-12.
Ten tent members
were in attendance and eleven performers, and family, from Royal Hanneford Circus were guests. The

Hanneford group is appearing for the ANSAR SHRINE on Fri, Sat, and Sunday. Armando Loyal was one of the featured speakers. He gave a very interesting talk on the Loyal-Resepsi family and his mother,

Lucy, wo left for the big lot in the sky just a few months ago. Struppi Hanneford and Billy Martin also presented remarks on the Hanneford Circus.


Armando Loyal

Nancy Prickett, Roxann Williams, Paula Purdue and Struppi Hanneford

Billy and Angela Martin, Rick Purdue, Pres., and Dave Williams

Bill Prickett, (V-Pres), and Hannah Crist

 

Larry and Amanda Stout

 Larry Stout,
Charlie Bellatti, (Sec)., Dave Williams, and Billy Martin  

Hannah Crist, Armando Loyal, Martin Gozales, Barry Loter

 Vlastek, Vincent (10), Violet (3), and Kim Sue Valla

 

Alex Hinton and Kim Sue Valla
ALL PHOTOS BY BILL PRICKETT!

 

YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE DICK'S GONNA SHOW UP!

Memories of Sally Rand

 

Published on Aug 26, 2012

Sally Rand was the sensation of the Chicago World's Fair 1933-34 and her story of becoming that was just as incredible of how she crashed the opening party wearing nearly nothing on horseback to get noticed. I live in Chicago and am involved in much of it's history both in song and story and her name comes up constantly. This song surfaced just a few years before and would have been known by most attending.

 

 

Mexican rodeo a hit at Louisiana State Fair
from:  arklatexhomepage.com
By: Stephanie Claytor
Updated: November 4, 2012
Hundreds of people came out to Hirsch Stadium Sunday evening for the Louisiana State Fair's annual "Jaripeo" Mexican rodeo.  This year it expanded to having 10 bull riders, up two from 2011. There were plenty of families there, enjoying the live music.

"I'm actually hoping to see a lot of bulls, a lot of interesting rides or montas as they say in Spanish, and I'm hoping to hear some great music and just have fun," said Freddi Lopez, of Bernice, LA.
"I just like watching the bulls and the people," said Christian Tristan, of Tyler, Tx.  " I'm hoping they don't get hurt, but mostly they do get hurt."
There were three bands there to perform including "Banda Tierra Guanajuatense", "Solitario de Tierra Caliente," and the headliner, "Los Terribles del Norte. "
The jaripeo is different from a traditional rodeo because it only features bull riders, and has princesses that dance with the performers.
The bull riders said the hardest part is judging each bull's personality.
"You don't know because each bull is different," said Arturo Cruz.  "You don't know how is going be the bull,  strong or slow."
The bull riders featured in the show were from Texas and Mexico.
read more at:
http://arklatexhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=281882

Ringling Bros.' 'Dragons' is one of circus' best
REVIEW: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ★★★½

 

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus presents "Dragons"
(November 4, 2012)
from:  chicagotribune.com
Chris Jones, Theater critic
November 4, 2012
Ever since David Carradine played a warrior monk on the run in that 1970s TV classic "Kung Fu," the Shaolin Warriors of the Henan province in China have been the public face of qigong, that uber-disciplined form of exercise that makes the rest of us feel like the rough equivalent of the strawberry jelly sloshing around inside a Dunkin' Donut.
There is one such tasty treat aside my keyboard right now, which perhaps explains why I could never be a member of the barrel-chested Shaolin Warriors and also why their feats at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus so blew me away Saturday night.
These gentlemen — whose pride did not prevent them from joining the circus parade and waving to the giant lollipop-holding, sugar-dosed American kiddies — not only bent steel with their necks and chopped oak with their skulls (I had a vicarious headache), but, in one truly heart-stopping moment that one young member of my family was constantly talking about even a full day later, one of these terrifying brothers dove through a spinning octagon that was outfitted with sword blades and filled with flame. Just for kicks, he then stuck a hood over his head and, so blinded, traced his w-a-a-y back through the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, eventually diving again and landing bang in the middle of the tiny target, apparently through some kind of osmosis one develops at the age of 4 on the slopes on Mount Song.
read more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/theaterloop/ct-ent-1105-ringling-review-20121104,0,2640609.column
 

‘Kooza’ is part Cirque and part circus history

 

The cast of Cirque du Soleil’s “Kooza,” which will stop in St. Petersburg Nov. 8-Dec. 9.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CIRQUE DU SOLEIL
By Jay Handelman, Herald-Tribune
from: heraldtribune.com
November 2, 2012
From its creation by a small group of street performers nearly 30 years ago, Cirque du Soleil boldly claimed that it would reinvent the circus.
It eliminated animal acts that have long been a circus staple, created overarching storylines for each production and made individual performers and troupes into characters that served that story.
Audiences responded. More than 100 million people have seen a Cirque show since 1984, and roughly 15 million people this year will see one of the company’s 20 shows that are touring the world or playing in Las Vegas, Walt Disney World and other permanent venues. More traditional circuses, including Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, have tried with varying degrees of success to emulate the Cirque style on occasion.
With so much reinvention and such odd titles as “La Nouba,” “Allegria,” “Saltimbanco,” “Dralion,” and “Quidam,” perhaps it was almost inevitable that Cirque would eventually circle back to tradition, as it does with “Kooza,” the touring production that first opened in 2007.
read more--
http://arts.heraldtribune.com/2012-11-02/featured/kooza-is-part-cirque-and-part-circus-history/

Old Time Medicine Show!

Uploaded on Sep 6, 2010 by MWOldThreshers

One of the great things about the Log Village is the entertainment! Check out this Medicine Show that takes place Daily!

The Roof is Here: Seven Weeks to go for New Warriors Arena
The ceiling is on the ground. Come Thursday, it should be raised, like a barn.


Portable roofer from New Zealand, who travels the world building roofs. Credit: Brad Kava
By Brad Kava
from:  scottvalley.patch.com
November 4, 2012
For a week the crew of Fabritecture, from Australia, has been putting the ceiling structure together on the cement pad that is the foundation for the 4,000-seat new downtown Santa Cruz basketball arena.
One of the crew members, from New Zealand, didn't want to be identified, but gave Patch some insight into his job, traveling the world putting up portable roofs.
He worked for a year and a half with Cirque du Soleil putting that Canadian traveling circus's tents together, as well as building effects for the show.
"I get called out all over the world to build roofs quickly," he said. "If a 747 goes down somewhere, we have to build a roof over it for the investigation right away. People are surprised how quickly we can get it done."
 

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. One week assembly, lift and have a roof. Credit: Brad Kava
One of his coworkers is bound for New York as soon as the Santa Cruz Kaiser Permanente roof is finished, in the next week or so.
"The canvas on these is much different than the old circus tents," he said. "This is really meant to last."
The crew has built the roof structure for one week, working over the weekend.
The structure that now covers the concrete will be lifted by a huge crane on Thursday and will unfold like a giant spider, the worker said. It should be dramatic. After that, the canvas goes on and the building takes even more form.
read more--
http://scottsvalley.patch.com/articles/the-roof-is-here-seven-weeks-to-go-for-new-warriors-arena#photo-12035087

After Hurricane Sandy, Coney Island's Future Hangs In The Balance

 

from: huffingtonpost.com
11/03/2012
CONEY ISLAND, N.Y. -- The night the sea swept over Surf Avenue, Dick Zigun, the modern day P.T. Barnum who helped breathe life back into this strange and iconic corner of New York, was at home on West 15th Street, three blocks from the historical freak show that he resurrected and two blocks from the beach. Like many of his neighbors, Zigun had decided not to obey the city's orders to evacuate.
But he and his cohorts had taken some precautions, boarding up the windows of the old theater and lining the walls of the theater and his home with sandbags. When the water started seeping under his door, Zigun looked outside and saw that the street was already flooded. He waded across the street to where Stephanie, the snake charmer at the freak show, was drinking herself into oblivion, while her 10-foot and 8-foot Burmese Pythons were locked in their cages on the ground floor of the theater a few blocks away. As the pair sat inside the third-floor apartment, the rising water started slowly short-circuiting the doorbells.
"It was the creepiest thing," Zigun said, "first someone's ringing on the first floor apartment, then the second floor and finally the third floor. You have this weird image where if you held your breath and went downstairs, the drowned captain of the Titanic would be there with a mermaid, waiting to pull you into the tide."
Zigun is the head of Coney Island USA, the beloved New York institution behind the Mermaid Parade, the Coney Island Circus Sideshow and the Coney Island Museum. When he came to Coney Island in the 1980s with a couple of theater degrees and the "crazy notion" that Coney Island could be the staging ground for his unusual ideas of what constituted valuable art (burlesque shows, fire-eaters, Penguin Boy), the neighborhood was reeling from decades of economic decline. Over the following years, Zigun and his friends and co-conspirators managed to salvage what remained of the amusement district's glittery heyday in the early part of the 20th century, attracting a new generation of visitors to the boardwalk.
read more---
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-coney-island_n_2069243.html#slide=1713584

Pumpkins reign in Sussex
Punkin Chunkin's fame draws people near and far


The Chunkin Up team is one of 20 entrants in the adult-crewed air cannon category, which drew the most contestants at Saturday's World Championship Punkin Chunkin near Bridgeville.
 Chuck Snyder/Special to The News Journal
Written by Jeff Montgomery, The News Journal
from: delawareonline.com
Nov 3, 2012, 11:48 PM
Timothy Shirk, of Lancaster, Pa., made it absolutely clear on Saturday that spectacle, and not science, prompted his family’s three-hour trek to Bridgeville for an hours-long vigil near the 27th Annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin’s firing line.
“Nope, I’m a drinker,” Shirk summed up as wife Rosanna, son Darrius and friend Sheldon Martin huddled around a lunch of barbecue and beverages, watching frozen gourds trace improbable arcs across Saturday’s gray and windy skies after the whoosh of a catapult or drawn-out “chuff” from an air cannon.
“We were here last year and we enjoyed it. We saw it on the Discovery Channel for a number of years before we made it out here. It’s something that we like – it’s just a cool thing to do and watch. We left at about 5:15 this morning to get here.”
Thousands of visitors from Delaware and beyond thought much the same thing at about the same time, jamming the two-lane roads around the still-damp cornfield for Saturday’s first round of launchings. Waits of an hour and more were not uncommon just to reach the furrowed farm field turned parking lot.
For Punkin Chunkin spokesman Frank Shade, it was nothing less than just right.
“The crowd is excellent,” Shade said Saturday afternoon. “We’re very happy with the people who have shown up after all we’ve been through with the storm. We have a full midway and we haven’t had any significant problems.”
Hurricane Sandy’s recent approach and near miss dumped about 8.5 inches of rain on Bridgeville over a roughly four-day period, and 9 to 11 inches of rain on areas surrounding the Punkin Chunkin grounds. Standing water remained here and there in fields used for parking, and continuous traffic turned some low spots into muddy traps.
None of that took attention away from the 114, full-house lineup of launching teams, representing 14 states as far away as Colorado. The largest category – adult-crewed air cannons – drew 20 entrants. Trebuchets, a kind of counterweight-powered sling used for sieges during the Middle Ages, were the second-most popular, with 17.
read more here--
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20121104/NEWS/311040043?source=nletter-top5&nclick_check=1