{"id":6003,"date":"2012-05-02T17:36:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T17:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2023-08-15T16:05:11","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T23:05:11","slug":"eight-small-circuses-that-rival-the-biggest-big-tops","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/eight-small-circuses-that-rival-the-biggest-big-tops\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Small Circuses that Rival the Biggest Big Tops"},"content":{"rendered":"

The circus has existed in some form since before the birth of Caesar. This week, Independent Lens<\/em> will focus on a modern day Big Top \u2014 Circo<\/a><\/em> follows\u00a0a small family circus in Mexico\u2019s struggling economy.\u00a0The Ponces train their children as contortionists, death-defying motorcyclists, and lion handlers, but the vagabonding kids don\u2019t have time to learn spelling in school. \u201cThe circus is tough and beautiful,\u201d says Tino Ponce, the family patriarch. \u201cIt\u2019s both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small circuses around the world struggle through economic hardships, controversies over animal abuse, and the difficulty of passing on their legacy to their children. Here\u2019s a sampling of eight:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make that three C\u2019s that Switzerland does well \u2014\u00a0cheeses, chocolates, and circuses. The smallest Swiss troops struggle in the face of formidable competition \u2014 more than a dozen circuses have summer tours. They also travel abroad. A New York audience in 2009 was pleased by the intimacy of a small Swiss family circus, La Famiglia Dimitri, that features a performer in a fat suit, but no elephants.<\/li>\n
  2. Some circuses have worked to improve the Big Top\u2019s reputation. Since 1974, San Francisco\u2019s Pickle Family Circus has operated with three major rules: all workers make decisions collectively, take home equal pay, and juggle offstage jobs. Recently, a Pickle son shared his story of growing up as a circus brat through his one-man play, Humor Abuse.<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Erotic and exotic, the Jim Rose Circus has been shocking audiences since it opened in Seattle in the early 1990s. Acts include The Amazing Mister Lifto, who raises heavy objects through body piercings, including those on his nipples and genitals, and Bebe the Circus Queen, who jumps into a large plastic bag and as the air is vacuumed out. Here\u2019s an awesomely 90s newscast about Jim Rose during its heyday.<\/li>\n
  4. Two Philadelphia brothers spawned the Squidling Brothers Circus Show, a sideshow-style act so strange (and borderline exploitive) it defies description. One of their performers, the Illustrated Penguin, is so named because of his vivid tattoos and short stature. Watch him hammer a knife into his nose in the classic freakshow stunt, \u201cthe human blockhead\u201d.<\/li>\n
  5. Small circuses even sprout in war-torn Afghanistan. The Afghan Mobile Mini Children’s Circus is staffed by a dozen local artists who teach children ages 5-17 juggling, stand-up comedy, acrobatics, and singing in addition to traditional academic subjects. Their troop has traveled throughout the world.<\/li>\n
  6. Barcelona family troop Circo Raluy bill themselves as the last expeditionary circus. They dazzle each continent with nostalgic acts that remind visitors of surreal Fellini classics. Unicycle stunts, clowns, juggling, and acrobatics preserve the bygone allure of turn-of-the-century performances. In fact, Luis Raluy is so enamored with the charm of circus artifacts, he has created a museum in Barcelona complete with abandoned carriages from shuttered circuses.<\/li>\n
  7. A close relative to Cirque du Soliel, Big Apple Cirus\u00a0features performers from Bulgaria, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mongolia, and Russia. Their animal troop even includes a capybara and a porcupine. Offstage, Big Apple travels with their stunts to children’s hospitals and nursing homes. Last year, PBS aired a six-part series about the Big Apple \u00a0Circus, called \u2014 what else? \u2014 Circus:<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. For the past eight years, Circus Amok\u00a0has turned the circus on its head. The New York-based company fuses\u00a0drag traditions from Charles Ludlam\u2019s Theater of the Ridiculous, full-body masks, sideshow verbal stylings, and postmodern dance to spread to word of social justice through performance art. Oh yeah, they also juggle and tight-rope walk.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The circus has existed in some form since before the birth of Caesar. This week, Independent Lens will focus on a modern day Big Top \u2014 Circo follows\u00a0a small family circus in Mexico\u2019s struggling economy.\u00a0The Ponces train their children as contortionists, death-defying motorcyclists, and lion handlers, but the vagabonding kids don\u2019t have time to learn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-6003","blog","type-blog","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n8 Small Circuses that Rival the Biggest Big Tops - Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/eight-small-circuses-that-rival-the-biggest-big-tops\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"8 Small Circuses that Rival the Biggest Big Tops - Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The circus has existed in some form since before the birth of Caesar. 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