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Circuses

GNC

GNC

King-Sized Canary
Joined
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This might be a short thread, because if you visit the official Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey site:
https://www.ringling.com/

...you'll see a message that says their travelling circus, that has lasted almost a century and a half, is to stop touring and close. So is this the sad passing of a grand tradition or good riddance to a severely outdated entertainment? If the big one is going, the smaller ones can't be far behind.

Oh, and while we're here: any weird circus stories (not the one with the hippo swallowing the dwarf, that's made up)?
 
It's the end of a tired old format.
People just don't go to circuses anymore.
 
They recently came through the city where I'm living. They ads were promoting no elephants being in the show and a circ du soleil style performance.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's the end of a tired old format.
People just don't go to circuses anymore.
Click to expand...

If Ringling's demise marks the final passing of circuses as we knew them ... How long will it be before all the pop culture references to circuses, circus performers, etc., begin to be cryptic to those who never attended one?
 
There's a circus that comes to Norwich showground three or four times a year. The Chinese State Circus also shows up now and then.

They're quite pricey, but I would like to go and see what they're like. The trouble is I really don't like being in crowds. Also clowns irritate me.
 
EnolaGaia said:
If Ringling's demise marks the final passing of circuses as we knew them ... How long will it be before all the pop culture references to circuses, circus performers, etc., begin to be cryptic to those who never attended one?
Click to expand...
There are plenty of people doing circus acts in an amateur way and a few clowns performing at parties.
I used to work with a guy whose day job was software engineer and his weekend hobby job was running a little street circus. His thing is juggling and clowning. Others who joined him are tightrope walkers, contortionists and fire-breathers.
 
Yeah, the animal rights advocates have been hounding them for ages, which has changed public perception of their big draws as far as the elephants and other performing animals went.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's the end of a tired old format.
People just don't go to circuses anymore.
Click to expand...

People doesn't need to go to circuses to watch daring acrobatics anymore. B-boys and snowboarders can out perform circus acrobats any day.
 
Saw the Moscow State Circus years ago, fantastic. There were horses, which were nice, but the human performers were just astonishing. The clowns were both acrobats and mime artists who carried on a hilarious acted-out conversation which everyone could understand while doing attempting high-wire tricks and pretending to fall off. No nets. Bloody terrifying and funny, fantastic entertainment. No tigers required.
 
kamalktk said:
They recently came through the city where I'm living. The ads were promoting no elephants being in the show and a circ du soleil style performance.
Click to expand...
Vardoger said:
People doesn't need to go to circuses to watch daring acrobatics anymore. ...
Click to expand...

Maybe part of the demise involved recognizing that risky acrobatic acts using a variety of venues on tour was a recipe for potential accidents and financial disaster - like this one already in litigation at the time of the 2017 announcement ...
Acrobats hurt in circus accident reach $52.5M settlement

Eight acrobats severely injured when the rigging suspending them by their hair plummeted to the floor during a circus performance in Rhode Island in 2014 have reached a $52.5 million settlement with the ownership and management of the arena where the circus was held, their lawyer confirmed Monday. ...

A metal clip that held the acrobats 20 feet (6 meters) above the floor of the Dunkin’ Donuts Center snapped during the May 2014 performance, causing the women to suffer broken bones and spinal injuries. A ninth worker on the ground was also hurt. ...


Some of the women still suffer from “life-altering” injuries ...

“These clients will now be able to have meaningful recoveries with the assistance of this settlement” ...

The women in 2016 sued the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority, which owns the arena, and SMG, which manages it. ...

According to the lawsuit, SMG agreed to manage all events and maintain safety inside the center, and arranged with Florida-based Feld Entertainment Inc., the parent company of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, to bring the circus to Providence.

After the accident, which occurred in front of thousands of spectators, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded circus staff had overloaded a carabiner clip. The clip held up a chandelier-like apparatus from which the women were suspended by their hair.

OSHA cited Feld for a “serious” infraction of industry practice and imposed the maximum possible fine, $7,000.

Feld Entertainment disputed the finding.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which closed in 2017, also agreed to take several steps to improve safety. ...
Click to expand...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/rhode-island-providence-0444111b418f25eaddb7507559f73e6d
 
I love Cirque du Soleil. I know of no weird stories though.
 
Friend of mine used to be the Wall of Death rider.

Circuses seem to have had their day...maybe they should get in some robot animals?

Or bring back something extravagant and cultural like the Buffalo Bills Wild West show?
 
In a way the circuses fell victim to the same historical trend that's now dooming large movie theaters. Entertainment - particularly involving big productions or spectacles - no longer requires audiences to congregate in a single physical location. The content or action can be piped to an arbitrary number of virtual attendees wherever they are and (increasingly) whenever they wish to be entertained.

If this trend toward virtualization continues, the future equivalent of a Wild West Show - a play intended to illustrate odd or stressful past ways of life - could end up presenting a biological family enclosed in a single house trying to survive a holiday get-together or dinner with no one being able to escape face-to-face interactions and immediate in-your-face issues.
 
A good news circus.

Senegal's only circus troupe, Sencirk, was founded by former child beggar Modou Touré, who now wants to help others in a similar position, as Annika Hammerschlag reports from Dakar.

Mr Touré was sent to a Quranic school at the age of seven, where he was abused for learning the Islamic holy book too slowly. He ran away to Senegal's capital, Dakar, where he lived on the streets for years before finding refuge at a shelter. One day, two Swedish circus performers came to teach the children acrobatics, and Mr Touré (below) fell in love.

He trained in Sweden for three months and toured with professional circus troupes around the world, before setting up the Sencirk tent in Dakar.

"Circus is my therapy," says Mr Touré, now 31.

Every year, thousands of young Senegalese children are sent to the cities to study the Quran, only to find themselves forced into begging for money and food on the streets. If they fail to meet the daily quota set by their teachers, or commit other minor offenses, they are often beaten and chained.

Some of them escape and like Mr Touré find help in a network of shelters.

One of the young circus practitioners - not pictured here to protect his privacy - has a similar story to Mr Touré, having run away from Quranic school after he recalls being restrained and whipped each time he recited the Quran incorrectly.

The 14-year-old says he loves everything about the circus: "It helps me learn and it makes me aware."

If he ever makes it home, he plans to teach circus to the kids in his neighbourhood. He hopes to join Sencirk as a full-time performer one day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59175763
 
Guinness has recently (and finally, after more than 1.5 years) certified a Camboian circus performance as the world's longest, lasting a bit more than 24 hours.
24-hour circus show in Cambodia breaks Guinness World Record

An arts school in Cambodia broke a Guinness World Record by staging a circus show that lasted for 24 hours, 10 minutes, 30 seconds.

Officials at Phare Ponleu Selpak, a nonprofit arts school in Cambodia, said they came up with the idea for the Guinness World Record attempt when the school was forced to shut amid the COVID-19 pandemic. ...

The 90 performers, which included the school's professionals, as well as performers from sister organization, Phare, The Cambodian Circus, put on a show that featured magic, acrobatics, dance, clowning, music, contortion and more over the course of moe than a day.

The circus was staged in March 2021, but it took Guinness World Records more than a year to review the evidence and certify the record, which was announced officially this month.
Click to expand...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/1...s-World-Records-longest-circus/4231669068065/
 
I bet people will run away from the circus school to become accountants.

A performance arts group is aiming to breathe life into a heritage building in Londonderry by turning it into a circus school.

In Your Space Circus (IYSC) works with more than 120 people a week. It has been awarded £140,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform the Old Cathedral School. The Victorian-era building is to be leased by the neighbouring St Columb's Cathedral and the group intends to develop it into a circus arts venue.

IYSC's programmes involve circus skills, street theatre, visual arts, music, costume-making and theatre.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65843982
 
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