The Best Circus Article You’ll Ever Read

Hello everyone and happy Sunday!

Last week I got a call from Coach Michael letting me know that he had found an article about circus that would be a great topic for a blog post. I love hearing about topics that interest others and incorporating that into my posts, so I was all about it. When I see Michael, he hands me a Smithsonian magazine and points me to this article titled “Step Right Up! See the Reinvention of the Great American Circus!” written by Holly Millea.

Once I get home, I look through and find that the article was way longer than what I wanted to read. Then, I look at the title once more, and I think about how many other articles I’ve read that talk about the reinvention of circus. I immediately thought “BORING! I’ve read this before.” If not that specific article, something like it, and they’re all practically the same. I figured I would still read it—eventually—but not that day, so I put it down. The magazine stared at me for a week, until I decided “fine, fine, fine, I’ll read it.” And boy, am I glad I did! I’m not kidding! This article was so great and so well written that it blew everything else I had ever read about circus out of the water. 

I found the full article online, and I will be posting the link at the bottom, so you can all read it, and I implore that you do, but I figured, if you didn’t have to the time or simply didn’t want to, I would provide you with my favorite part. It’s about the last Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus show. I hope it will tug at your heart strings, like it did mine, and then you’ll read the whole thing.

“For the citizens and 54 railway cars of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Xtreme, Providence, Rhode Island, is the last stop on the line. Kenneth Feld, whose family owns the circus, appears and thanks the sold-out crowd of 14,000 for 146 years of “making the impossible possible. And now, for the Greatest Show on Earth—one last time!”

The long-ballyhooed goodbye begins! There are fire jugglers, camel-riding contortionists, glow-in-the-dark bungee-jumping acrobats, snake charmers wrapped in bright yellow pythons, a Mongolian strongman who lifts a 551-pound mass of Mongol gals and kettlebells with his “jaws of steel.” Clowns pop up and out all over the place, and I’m gleefully overstimulated. Then a 20-foot cannon, wheeled into the ring, grabs my attention. A fuse is lit. The audience counts down from five and bang! “Nitro” Nicole Sanders flies more than a hundred feet at 66 miles per hour into the pillowy embrace of a giant airbag, just as pioneer cannonballer Rosa “Zazel” Richter did 140 years earlier. And who rigged the first human cannon, you ask? That was funambulist (tightrope walker) William Leonard Hunt, a.k.a. the Great Farini, which raises the question, why wasn’t he the first human cannonball? (“Zazel, you go first.”)

After the blast, “Nitro” Nicole takes a bow, and intermission is announced with a reminder of how much the world has changed: “In the event of firearms, stay calm and look for the nearest exit.”

The highlight of the second half includes 12 tigers strutting inside a massive cage, encircling their buff, bald-headed trainer, Tabayara “Taba” Maluenda, a sixth-generation Chilean circus performer dressed in a bedazzled green sleeveless velvet jumpsuit, matching armbands and knee-high leather boots. With a flick of Taba’s whip, the regal beasts sit, jump from stool to stool, lie down side by side, roll over one after the other. Taba sweats bullets throughout, mopping his mug. But when he faces us and takes a bow, it’s clear those are tears streaming down his face.

The trainer turns and kisses one of the man-eaters on the nose. Sobbing, he addresses them. “For 30 years you put food on my table,” he says. “Catana, I have had you for 13 years, since you were 6 months old.” He calls Catana to him and buries his head in her fur. Then he dismisses the cats one by one, thanking each by name. With the last one gone, Taba kisses the empty floor.

To close the evening, and an era, Kristen Michelle Wilson, Ringling’s first (and last) female ringmaster, calls some 300 cast and crew into the ring, to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” From backstage, husbands, wives and children come join them. None of the babies are crying, but all of the grown-ups are.

“We circus people always say, ‘We’ll see you down the road,’” Wilson says, her voice rising with emotion. “So, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages: We’ll see you down the road!”

AH! Did that not just give you all the feels?! I almost feel like I was there experiencing that final show! As promised, here is the link to the full Smithsonian article: Step Right Up! See the Reinvention of the Great American Circus!

Isn’t circus amazing?

Catch you next time!

Mar