The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has long been touted as a three-ring show to be enjoyed by "children of all ages."
The 1993 edition, arriving next week at the Delta Center for a 10-performance run Sept. 29-Oct. 4, takes this motif one big step further: The show itself contains an unprecedented number of acts and routines by children of all ages.The theme this year is "bring your kids to see our kids" - and the show I saw (not once, but twice) one month ago at the Oakland, Calif., Coliseum has a cast in which school-age youngsters nearly outnumber the adults.
It also ranks as one of the best productions in recent years. It is fast, it clips right along and it contains some innovative and fascinating acts, not to mention the best clowns in the business.
There's another theme for 1993, too: "Celebrating 200 Years of Circus in America," a landmark encompassing not only the famed Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey entourage but dozens of smaller circuses across the country.
(Ringling wasn't the first; it just grew and grew into the biggest. The very first recorded circus in the United States was when a Scot named John Bill Ricketts presented a display of horses, ropewalkers, clowns and acrobats in a single ring in Philadelphia on April 3, 1793. Two hundred years later, to commemorate the auspicious event, the U.S. Postal Service issued a block of four stamps in a ceremony that featured RB/B&B's famous king-size elephant King Tusk giving his unique stamp (stomp?) of approval by canceling a jumbo-size replica of the stamps.)
Ringling is also marking the banner year with a number of events, not the least of which is the biggest ticket giveaway in history. Every child born in the United States during 1993 can receive his or her first ticket to the RB/B&B circus free of charge (see box inside for details).
The famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey "Clown College" is making its own kind of history - moving its campus from Florida to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wis., hometown of the five Ringling brothers and the original site of their circus' winter quarters.
During the circus' weeklong stay in Oakland last month, photographers from Life magazine came to shoot a giant centerspread - a cinerama-proportioned shot of the arena floor containing virtually every performer and animal in the 1993 production. A huge, almost mural-size, spliced-together photograph on the wall of the Oakland Coliseum's press room was pasted over with cutouts of various performers - a sort of roadmap to help the photographers with the logistics of arranging the once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot.
But while the circus is celebrating its colorful past, the new Red Unit troupe arriving next week in Salt Lake City is also looking into the future. It has been built entirely around a younger generation of performers - youthful acts and talent that should carry the Greatest Show on Earth well into the next century.
The Red Unit is one of two companies that cover alternate routes every other year. Salt Lake City gets the Blue Unit in even-numbered years.
The circus has a long tradition of featuring several acts that have been "in the family" for generations. Some of the most highly regarded routines in the circus have familial roots that go back hundreds of years. This season, in some of the acts, the parents are taking a back seat and letting the kids shine in the spotlight.
- ONE NEWCOMER to the United States this season is animal trainer Graham Thomas Chip-per-field, a young chap who traces his circus roots more than 300 years to a family of bear-trainers during the reign of King Charles II. Chip-per-field's family owns not only one of England's oldest circuses but also a large and popular wild animal safari park and an animal breeding farm.
At the other end of the scale - generationally speaking - are the Chicago Kidz and the Children of Cherepovets, two energetic troupes of young gymnasts from two entirely different backgrounds.
The latter represent their namesake town in Russia, where the training is intense and the competition is fierce.
Many of the Chicago Kidz, however, first cut their gymnastic teeth on mattresses in the hallways of South Side tenement buildings, then performing on street corners and tumbling in city parks. They were discovered by Utahn Tim Holst, globe-trotting talent scout for the circus, who had heard about the Windy City's famed Jesse White Tumbling Troupe and put together this elite 10-member team from that company.
Youngsters spotlighted in other acts in the circus this year include 13-year-old Olga Pikhienko of Moscow and 11-year-old Youlia of Siberia, both skilled and graceful acrobats; Chris and Casey Boger, 16 and 13 respectively, who ride two trained (and very big) American buffalo, and Miles and Lianna Ashton of Australia, who perform dizzying somersaults in their parents' incredible foot juggling act.
From Mongolia come the Tumens - Boldbaatar Tumendelger, 15, and his 12-year-old brother, Boldbaatar Tumenulzi, whoperform intricate hand-balancing routines.
One of the more renowned circus families represented in this
year's production are the Gebels: Mark Oliver and his sister Tina, offspring of the legendary Gunther Gebel-Williams. Both Mark and Tina are featured in two rings - Lippizaners in one, Arabian stallions in the other.
Mark also has another segment in the show, packing the arena with pachyderms - definitely more cumbersome and less agile than the delicately prancing horses.
- CHIPPERFIELD'S EXPERTISE is cats. Not the petit, cuddly household variety, but BIG cats - a cageful of very aggressive lions. The 11 animals on the current tour were selected as cubs for their assertive traits.
For Chipperfield, "pick of the litter" means looking for somewhat combative cats.
In the cage and in the center-ring spotlight, these feisty felines are anything but docile. They snarl, they growl, they lunge and one or two even back Chipperfield right against the wire.
His routine is known in the business as "an attack act" because he's trained his lions to look like they're attacking him.
He makes it look both easy and dangerous at the same time, but he said during an interview following a performance that his cats rarely cross over the line. (One did, though, several weeks ago when the circus was in North Carolina, and his brother had to fly over from Great Britain to pinch-hit while Graham recuperated after receiving 80 stitches.)
"In the cage, I give them a special cue at the beginning when they're perched on their seats," he said.
Oxford-born Chipperfield grew up around wild animals. To him, lions and tigers were more like pets and, gradually, he learned to work with them. Now 24, the current Red Unit tour marks his first working trip to North America. (Next year he'll switch to the Blue Unit and he will be joined by more animals and his brother.)
Producer Kenneth Feld first saw Chipperfield when he was performing in France and Feld invited him to join the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
"How could I refuse?" Chipperfield said. "It has the reputation of being the biggest circus in the world - it's the peak for a circus artist."
The young trainer has found that he has to work harder to reach the audience in the United States because the big arenas here put more distance between the patrons and the performers than the more intimate tents and one-ring venues in England and Europe.
- ANOTHER ANIMAL not as agile as the lion but rather difficult to train is the American buffalo.
Steve and Kathy Boger and their three children add an old Wild West Show touch to the circus with their all-American animal act - a mix of bison, horses and a mountain lion.
The parents, both from Arkansas, first met at a high school rodeo, where Steve was a bull rider and also worked with an animal act.
After they got married, the two continued to work in fairs and rodeos all over North America, and they've spent the past six or seven years working mostly in circuses.
Producer Feld and talent scout Holst discovered the Bogers in Mexico City. By then the family had grown to include their three children and their unique menagerie.
Boger said the mountain lions have been raised in a domestic setting since they were cubs. They still have some inborn wild instincts, but because they were raised around the buffalo, the two natural enemies have learned to get along.
"It's just like raising a baby, but when they started tearing the curtains down, Kathy said they had to move outside," Steve said.
During their performance, one mountain lion rides atop the horse and another hitches a ride aboard the buffalo.
The Boger family travels in a motorhome, which they park next to the animal tent so they can tend their critters. The bison eat large quantities of hay and grain, all provided by the circus and delivered daily to the arena.
- THE CHICAGO KIDZ, an energetic troupe of tumblers, are bringing a unique touch of street-smart savvy to the three-ring circus.
The 12 exuberant youths from the streets of Chicago's inner city look like they've been genetically altered to have springs in their feet.
Many teenagers are known to "flip out" now and then, but these kids flip . . . fly . . . catapult . . . and literally soar through the air in one of the most dynamic acts ever presented in the circus.
Originally they were part of the famous Jesse White Tumbling Troupe, which visited Salt Lake not too long ago. This troupe is known mainly for its halftime shows at the Chicago Bulls and Bears games, but they've also toured extensively - across the country and as far as Japan.
Terrell Grant, 13, a Chicago native, said during a phone interview that he and his Illinois friends have really enjoyed getting to know other kids their age from China and Russia.
Members of the "Kidz" range from 12 to 16 years of age and they share the same class time in school with the Russian and Chinese youths.
Grant and his buddies are also having a great time visiting all of the cities on the circus tour.
Donald Sampson, 14, added that part of the fun is living and traveling on the circus train. One of the circus' clowns, Huel Speight, acts as their chaperone during the tour.
Once the two-year circus tour ends, the Chicago Kidz are looking at the possibility of an extended swing through Russia.