The Circus is in town today / But the family circus industry is shrinking, along with the U.S. economy

A pink poodle demonstrates its skills on a scooter as the Jordan World Circus sets up Friday at the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden.




By Charles Trentelman
Standard-Examiner staff
Saturday,Jan 29,2009


OGDEN -- Actually, yes, some people do still run away to join the circus.

It's not easy, because there aren't that many circuses left. The ones remaining are run, and staffed, mostly by people whose parents and grandparents -- and even ancestors back six generations -- were in the circus, too.

It's very much a family thing, but Lana Steeples managed to break in.

It was 21 years ago, she said. The circus came to her small town in Newfoundland, Canada. With it was Ari Steeples, the bear trainer, and that was that.

"Two weeks later, I left in a van to drive 5,400 miles from Newfoundland to Alaska," she said Friday morning as she hefted bear-act equipment out of their semi-trailer behind the Golden Spike Arena.

"And my mother just stopped crying a week ago," this last said with a grin.

Life has been a circus ever since.

Lana said she did marry Ari, "but you know they say 20 years of marriage in the circus is like 40 years anywhere else, because you're always together."

The couple, their two children and their two bears all travel in a semi-trailer with the Jordan World Circus, which opened Friday night in Ogden and has shows again today at 3 p.m. and7 p.m. at the Weber County Fairgrounds.

The circus also is scheduled Feb. 6 and 7 at the Davis County Fairgrounds Arena.

On Friday morning, circus workers were busy setting up.

The bears were still sleeping, but the pink and blue poodles were happily frisking around while Steeples fussed over one of the three elephants' sore foot.

Roustabouts were laying out the three rings. Giselle, who does a single-trapeze act, was hanging her equipment from roof beams. Workers were using a hoist to assemble a big steel ball in which three guys on motorcycles would later roar around, defying death.

"We've got a little of everything," Steeples said. "Lion, tigers, bears, high wire, hula hoop dancing, the giant Wheel of Destiny."

As circuses go, Jordan World Circus is relatively new.

DeLisa Jordan, who manages the business end from Las Vegas, said her father, John Jordan, bought out a partner in another circus 23 years ago.

Her father has since died, so now she and her brother, Jody, run it.

Circus life is never a sure thing, she said.

With the economy tanking worldwide, circus employees have no idea how the year will be. All they can do is hit the road and hope for the best. They're just a week into the season now.

Jordan isn't a circus with tents. It plays in stadiums and arenas, in big cities and small. It plays all over the U.S. and Canada. The circus has two groups of performers, one that plays the East Coast, one the West.

Circus life is no way to get rich.

Most performers in the Jordan World Circus are on contract, Steeples said, which means the circus pays them to bring their act along.

Ari Steeples, like the others, gets a lump sum upfront. From that, he pays all his costs: gas, food, vet bills, laundry, the works.

What's left is his.

"If I take home $40,000 for the year, I'm doing well," he said.

That sort of arrangement can be hard.

Vincent Von Duke, from Sarasota, Fla., has five big cats in the show: male and female lions, a Siberian tiger, a Bengal tiger and a white Bengal tiger.

He's a sixth-generation circus performer.

Costs to stay on the road are what's the worst, he said. "Last year was horrible," with diesel costing $5 a gallon. It cost another $250 a day to feed his cats.

"And what's tough, every state has permits. In some, you have to have permits just to drive through," and if he has to pay out $700 just to go into California, he said, it makes him think twice.

"It's a dying art," he said. "And it's a shame, because everything's getting expensive."

He admits he even has some thoughts of hanging it up. He's got a palm tree farm down in Florida to fall back on and ponders opening up a combination bed-and-breakfast and wild-animal park.

For the Steeples family, no such thoughts occur. The circus has always been their life and seems destined to remain so.

Ari is the ringmaster, while Lana runs the bear act. Their youngest child baby-sits for others in the circus.

And their son, Angelo?

"He's doing his first act this year," Ari said. "He's 12 years old, and he does a sword-balancing act," an act he debuted in Tooele just two days ago.

"He's earning a living, traveling around the country and going to school," Ari said.

Leave the circus? "What else would we do?"

The IMPERIAL CIRCUS

The Chinese circus is a favorite form of art among the Asian people. It has a long history with a distinct national style, evolving from the Chinese peoples' everyday life and working experience. Hence, the evolution to this edition of the IMPERIAL CIRCUS featuring many superstars from China.

The Chinese circus tradition finds its beginnings more than two thousand years ago in the period of the Warring States. Chinese artists, acrobats and contortionists are clearly recognized in ancient artifacts as early as the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C. - 220 A.D.). Historical records, ancient relics, relief carvings on tombs, stone and brick, murals in temples and grottoes and decorative patterns on utensils show the modern historian that for centuries audiences have been fascinated by the dazzling performances of Chinese artists, acrobatics and circus.

Although many kinds of acrobatic acts were in existence during the Ch'in Dynasty (255-207 B.C.), it was the Han Dynasty that saw the art form reach new heights and become a popular form of entertainment. Most troupes were formed along family lines and developed skills and routines which, with some alterations, are still performed today. Known as the "Pai Hsi" or the "Hundred Acts", during this period the circus evolved into a lengthy show consisting of a wide variety of tumbling, juggling and magic acts.

Zh`ang Heng, a great man of letters in the Eastern Han Dynasty, recorded in one of his writings, "The Western Capital Fu" many exciting acrobatic acts and magic tricks. They included "Balancing on a High Pole", "Jumping Through Hoops", "Hand Feats" and "Rope Walking" to name a few. Modern Chinese circus, however sophisticated it may appear, was created and performed by the ancient Chinese acrobats.

These acrobats were court favorites throughout the Northern Wei Period (386 - 534), into the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279), as discovered in Bas relief's, books and paintings from these eras. During the Sung Dynasty, the art of acrobatics was practiced by Taoist metaphysicians in an effort to perfect their physical skill and mental concentration.

As time went on, the audience for Chinese circus changed and performers were well received by the common people rather than the courts. The circus Artists joined puppeteers, storytellers, magicians, dancers and other Artisans already performing across the Chinese countryside. The Chinese government however, became less enchanted with the circus and began to closely regulate the movement of entire troupes and individual Artists. As a result, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Chinese circus existed in a much less structured format. Traveling as individuals rather than troupes for the most part, the performers were demoralized and generally distrusted by the audiences.

In 1949, The Peoples Republic of China began to fund Chinese circus acts.
Troupes then had hopes of revitalizing an ancient and prized art form.
Guided by the principle of "Letting a Hundred Flowers Blossom" and "Weeding Through the Old to Bring Forth the New", Chinese circus has re-emerged as a popular art form. A large number of new programs have been created, collated and transplanted. As musical accompaniment, costumes. props and lighting have improved, Chinese circus has developed into a comprehensive form of stage art, so magnificently illustrated by the featured performers in the IMPERIAL CIRCUS.

The Russian State Circus Company

Artistic Director and Producer - Yana Schevchenko.
Costume Designer - Natalia Chistova.
Composers – Konstanin Kobanoff.
The new program is a two-part show-divertissment, lasting 120 minutes (not counting the intermission).
The troupe consists of 35 artists.
The young director of the troupe, Yana Schevchenko, is an outstanding personality. With musical and artistic education to her credit, she acquired the experience of work in the circus as a gymnast and animal trainer and then she got down to producing acts, attractions and big programs. Having created the attractions "Exotic Jungles and the Amazon", "Aqua-World", and later the "Circus on Water" troupe she showed her worth as a tireless inventor, a romantic designer and a remarkably talented organizer. Yana is capable of devising a scenic costume and a new aerial apparatus, to work out a light score and to inspire her associates for putting into life the projects that, on the face of it, seemed most incredible.
In her new show she comes out with a fresh original lay-out of acts, more complicated stunt array, offering her artistic vision of the ice circus. The young artists perform their acts so ardently and skillfully that the spectators remain astonished and delighted throughout the whole show from the first to the last act.
The program features all circus art genres: very complicated combinations of acrobatic jumps over the skipping rope, jugglers with Indian clubs, illusion, equilibrists on unicycles, aerial gymnasts, choreographic compositions, acrobats with Rhein wheels, eccentrics, with all the acts being performed very swiftly on skates. Along with the clowns you will become involved in pranks and practical jokes!




The audience is invariably delighted with the acts featuring trained animals. None other program on ice has got such a diversity! The funny dogs, the lyrical duet with pigeons, the remarkable act with cats, as well as the attraction with California sea lions give rise to strong positive emotions of both children and adults.


It is in this program alone that you will be able to enjoy the world’s only unique attraction "Northern Lights" presented by the charming animal trainer Yulia Denisenko – the trained white Polar bears on ice! This is really a tremendous show!

The new program directed by Yana Schevchenko has already been seen in Russia, the Ukraine, Baltic states, Qatar, India, Hungary, China, France, Tunisia, Romania and the United States.

"Yana Schevchenko’s show is enchanting and fantastic" – this what the press unanimously writes, appraising the show, in different countries!

Chazen Celebrates The Circus

It's spring, and the circus is coming to town -- in the form of two new art shows that will open Saturday at the University of Wisconsin's Chazen Museum of Art, 800 University Ave.

The shows are "Ringmaster: Judy Onofrio and the Art of the Circus" in the large Brittingham Galleries VI and VII and "Harry A. Atwell: Circus Photographer" in the smaller Mayer Gallery.

Both exhibitions will be on view through June 29. Admission is free and open to the public.

The Chazen will also host a special weekend of circus celebrations, featuring performers, music and food, on May 9 and 10. Information about these events and other exhibition-related programming will follow. (For more information, including parking and gallery hours, call 263-2246 or visit www.chazen.wisc.edu.)

The Onofrio show features life-sized sculptures of performers, animals and circus acts and will be exhibited alongside examples of banners, posters and carvings drawn from the Circus World Museum collection that have inspired her work.

Onofrio constructions are carved, molded, painted and assembled from wood, fiberglass, beads, ceramic shards and collected objects. A documentary of the 1920s and 1930s Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and a filmed interview with artist Onofrio will be available in the Ringmaster exhibition.

"Harry A. Atwell: Circus Photographer" features 42 black-and-white photographs by Harry A. Atwell (1879-1957). It is a survey of his career photographing the golden age of America's tented shows. Atwell, a prominent Chicago publicity photographer, was hired for his first circus assignment around 1910 to travel with the Ringling Bros. Circus. Over the next 40 years he amassed more than 5,000 negatives, now in the collection of Circus World Museum in Baraboo.

Atwell's images of roustabouts, Big Top crowds, sideshow performers, and center ring stars capture "Circus Day," when shops, schools and factories shut their doors so that everyone could enjoy the fleeting pageantry of the traveling shows.

Related events include Circus Celebrations on May 9 and 10 and Onofrio's artist's talk on Friday, May 9, at 6 p.m., Room L-140. Admission is free.

There will be a "Big Top Gala" -- with circus band music, aerial acrobats and contortionists -- the same night, May 9, from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is $8 for museum members, $12 for non-members. Refreshments, circus treats and a cash bar will be available.

On Saturday, May 10, the Chazen will host "Circus Day: A Family Event" from noon to 4 p.m. in Paige Court. Admission is free. Entertainment includes the Mazo Movement Arts Center, Cycropia Aerial Dance, Truly Remarkable Loon and other performances, activities and a chance to try out circus acts. There will be circus snacks and exhibition tours. (Children ages 4-12 should be accompanied by an adult.)

On Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Room L-140, UW-Madison Professor Jill H. Casid will lecture on "Circus, Circus: Repeat Performance in the History of Photography." (Gallery hours will be extended to 7 p.m.)

On Saturday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the UW Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., there will be a screening of Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus" (1928) and short films. Seating is limited. Doors will open at 7 p.m.

On Monday, April 28, at 5:30 p.m. in Room L-140, guest lecturer Murray Zimiles of the State University New York-Purchase will speak about "Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: From the Synagogue to the Carousel, from the Sacred to the Secular."

On Thursday, May 1, at 4:30 p.m. in Room L-140, UW-Madison Professor Henry Drewal will lecture about "The Odyssey of an Image: Circus Snake Charmer Becomes African Water Goddess!"

On Friday, May 2, at 6:30 p.m. in Room L-140, show curator Cassie Wilkins will give a gallery tour of and talk about the Onofrio show.

Free drop-in tours of both shows will be given on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m. from April 29 through June 24. Meet in Paige Court. Exhibitions curator Cassie Wilkins will lead the May 6 tour. Other tours will be led by docents