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Circus Performers Profile
Posted January 18, 2010
Note: We have some internal debate about whether to post items such as this one. On the one hand, circus fans may enjoy reading it. On the other hand, it's a puff piece for a particular show, and there are tons of them out there. What do you think? Please email us your opinion. Posted as received.
Reprinted from The New York Times, January 15, 2010
How Do You Get to the Big Apple Circus? Practice, Practice
By Roslyn Sulcas
When the Big Apple Circus sets up shop every winter on the Lincoln
Center Plaza, it's as if a small village has suddenly appeared next to
the Metropolitan Opera House. There is not just the five-story-tall
big top, but dozens of trailers in which 150 performers, technicians,
administrative staff and their families, and animals live, eat,
socialize, and send their children to school.
Yes, there is a school at the circus, which ends its Lincoln Center
engagement on Monday. And there is a canteen that serves three meals a
day and provides a communal environment for the performers, who stay
with the Big Apple for a nine-month season before, in most cases,
moving off to another gig.
So, how do you join the circus? Talking to several of this year's
performers, it turns out that, with a few exceptions, you were born
there in the first place.
Bello Nock
Mr. Nock, a clown for whom this year's Big Apple show is named
(Bello Is Back!), is not just a seventh-generation circus
performer, but also a new genre of entertainer unto himself. Since the
age of 15, he has maintained a signature appearance: his
sheaf-of-wheat, foot-tall red hair, baggy tuxedo and two-tone shoes.
He juggles, does trampoline and trapeze work, performs handstands on
60-foot sway poles, walks and rides motorcycles across high wires, and
has even hung off a trapeze under a helicopter—all the while
making audiences laugh with his brilliantly comic timing and
gusto.
"My father invented some apparatuses and acts that I use now," Mr.
Nock, 41, said. "The sway pole, the space wheel and riding a
motorcycle on a high wire. When I was growing up, we weren't allowed
to have a motorcycle to ride on the street. It was too dangerous. But
on a high wire was O.K."
Mr. Nock, the youngest of four boys, grew up knowing that he wanted to
be a clown and said he was determined from the start to continually
reinvent his act. "I always had that drive," he said. "You can't count
the hours in the day that you put into it, but that work is washed
away by the response of the audience. In the circus and in life there
is this thing called perfect balance—you're always in search of
that."
Long Bing and Long Jun
The contortionists Long Bing and Long Jun Long, twin brothers, look
like teenagers in the ring, as they squeeze their ridiculously
flexible bodies through narrow tubes and balance on each other's
hands. But they are 41, and have been professional acrobats ever since
graduating from a performing-arts school in Guizhou province in
southwest China. "No one in our family did anything like that," said
Long Bing, "and my parents weren't very happy about it, specially
since we were good students. But we really liked it."
In 1994 the twins were invited to join a circus in San Francisco, and
managed to get permission to go from the Chinese government. Since
then they have mostly lived and worked in Las Vegas, joining Big Apple
for the first time this season. "We had missed circus life, playing to
kids and families and being part of a bigger family of other
performers," Long Bing said.
Long Jun said that they "live a very simple life."
"We train, we do shows," he added. "And in New York we've seen lots of
Broadway shows and museums. We love the culture."
Have they been to Chinatown to eat? "Yes," Long Jun said cautiously.
"The food is a little… American."
Christine Zerbini
Long blond hair flowing, long blue dress swirling, Ms. Zerbini guides
her three horses through complicated figures around the circus ring
with simple, graceful arm gestures. She is following in the footsteps
of nine generations of circus family. "My dad's side, from Italy,
performed with tigers and elephants," she explained. "My mother's
side, from France, did trapeze."
Ms. Zerbini, 32, learned both, performing as an aerialist before
meeting Sultan Kumisbayev, a member of a Cossack troupe from
Kazakhstan, and deciding to develop an equestrian act. "I learned
everything about training animals from my parents," she said. "It
takes about six months to teach the horses a new routine and get them
used to new skills. They are very intelligent animals."
Ms. Zerbini grew up on the road with her family; she has three
sisters, one of whom performs with elephants and two with horses. Now
her children, who are 3 and 8, are growing up as she did, she said,
"watching shows and playing with the other circus kids."
Will they follow in their parents' footsteps? "I'm not sure," Ms.
Zerbini said. "They see how much work it is."
Barry Lubin
In a nondescript red dress, yellow stockings, a strand of pearls, and
gray curly wig, Mr. Lubin has been Grandma, the Big Apple's signature
clown, for much of the last 19 years. His mute, hilarious antics are
delivered with a mixture of ladylike propriety and subversive
mischief; popcorn spitting is not unknown.
"The character of Grandma developed over time, and for some reason I
love it more than ever," said Mr. Lubin, 57, who did not come from a
circus family. He grew up in New Jersey and aspired to be a television
director, but auditioned for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
Clown College, was accepted and eventually performed with that circus.
Although he has made some attempts to leave the circus—he did
stand-up comedy in New York for a few years, and has tried his hand at
teaching and directing—Mr. Lubin said that he loves the life. "I
have a home in New Jersey, but whenever I'm there I feel very itchy to
get back on the road. I think the New York gig is the premier circus
gig in the world; there you are, living right next to the
Met."
He is frank about the downsides. "I would say the circus essentially
ended my marriage because I was traveling so much," he said.
Luciano Anastasini
Mr. Anastasini, whose winsome dogs are an unfailing hit with all ages
in the audience, was literally born in the circus, "on the lot, in
Barcelona." His parents, from Italy, had an acrobatic act, an aunt was
an opera singer, an uncle a ballet dancer. "My whole family has been
in entertainment for eight generations, and at 3 I was riding a horse
in the circus," he said.
Mr. Anastasini, 52, trained as an acrobat and juggler, and developed
an act with his brother that they brought to the United States in
1979. They married two sisters, trapeze artists from Mexico, and added
aerial work to their routines. But 13 years ago Mr. Anastasini fell 50
feet from a spinning wheel and broke many bones.
"When I was about 12," he said, "my parents were performing in a
circus in Madrid, and there were lots of stray dogs. I would take them
in and play circus with them, train them to jump through hoops and
push a water barrel."
He revived his old interest, started looking for dogs in pounds, and
eventually rescued and trained 32 of them. Now he has eight dogs that
travel with him, his wife and their two boys in their specially
designed 30-foot trailer that holds a grooming area with bath, radio
and television. "Naturally my children want to be in the circus," he
said. "They are always inventing new acts."
Picaso Jr.
When Francisco Tebar Honrubia, who performs as Picaso Jr., projects
Ping-Pong balls into the air from his mouth, or propels plates across
the big top and back as if they were boomerangs, he makes you want to
rub your eyes in disbelief. Perhaps it's genetic. His father, El Gran
Picaso, was a famed juggler— "the first," Mr. Tebar said, "to do
mouth juggling."
But Mr. Tebar considered himself too shy for a performing career and
studied economics in his family's hometown, Valencia, Spain. The
turning point came, he said, while he was doing his compulsory
military service in Melilla on the North African coast.
"A little family circus, which I knew, came there, and I was
captivated by the community, the show, everyone together," he said. "I
said to myself, I'm going to try this."
He developed a double act with his father, and has worked as a solo
performer since 1998. His wife, a lawyer, and their two children, 5
and 8, travel with him. "Circus life is great, but it's hard for
circus performers to have roots," Mr. Tebar said. "Perhaps we'll try
to have a more stable life when our children get a bit older."
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