ΩΩThe Kelly Miller Circus came to our very small town this week. I have some experience with training circus as well as farm and wild animals. The Arizona Sonora Museum used my pet bob cat as their ambassador, for example. Our mother cat brought him home when his mother was shot dead. Anyway, I have extensive background with animal training and went to this circus to see how things were going. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased.
ΩΩIn general, circuses first began as animal killing/human murder events. These were, of course, the infamous and extremely cruel Roman Circuses. These deadly entertainments chewed through much of the wildlife of Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The death toll with the humans was extremely high.
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ΩΩNot that we have changed all that much. Football and boxing, for example, are deadly sports. I can’t stand watching football at all, I figure, it should be held in a giant emergency room, not a playing field. The brain damage boxers and football players succumb to means insanity and often, an early death. But most of our Roman-style of entertainment comes from the movies which are just as gory and cruel but in super slow motion close up shots which is even more decadent and disgusting than the ancient Romans but with a big difference: it isn’t real.
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ΩΩI grew up butchering animals as well as training them. I am very familiar with blood and warm guts. Most people who go to the movies to watch blood and guts are usually pretty unfamiliar with the real thing: real death. I am very familiar with death. Being a predator and all that. The main impulse people have with the older style of circus was for there to be the possibility of death and destruction. The lions and tigers had to be scary and on the verge of killing the tamers. The trapeze artists had to be in severe danger of falling and dying. This theme of dare devil death was a major component of the older circus acts which now are falling away as people look towards the outsized, cartoonish levels of ersatz violence in the movies.
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ΩΩNow, people go to the circus for other reasons, I hope, anyway. I happen to love animals and train these animals and I greatly appreciate good animal training. That is, the easiest and best way to train an animal is to use the reward system coupled with using the natural moves and desires and interests of animals to get them to do things somewhat differently. A good animal trainer has good social relations with the animals in his or her act. I will discuss this further in today’s story.
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Begun in 1938 by Obert Miller and his sons, Kelly and Dory, the Al G. Kelly Miller Brothers Circus, now known simply as Kelly Miller, has entertained millions of American and Canadian citizens while establishing itself in the fabric and history of the American Tented Circus.
From 1984 through 2006, David Rawls, president and third generation circus performer directed Kelly-Miller Circus. In 2007, another exciting chapter in its history began when he passed the reins to John Ringling North II. Mr. North’s great uncles were the famous Ringling Brothers, his grandmother, their only sister. Born into this most famous of circus families, John grew up on the “Greatest Show on Earth”, learning circus operation from his father Henry Ringling North, and Uncle John Ringling North. “I intend to maintain the excellent standards established by David Rawls and his family, and add some new features to the show”, John said following the hand-over.
The show travels on a fleet of 25 vehicles and requires an area of some 90,000 square feet to set up on. The circus big top, imported from Italy, has a seating capacity of 1500 and is made of waterproof vinyl. The tent is 120′ by 130′ and 40’ high and is supported by more than a quarter of a mile of heavy gauge aluminum tubing as well as several miles of rope, steel cable and chain.
Click here for the official Circus_video
ΩΩFirst, the beginning: the Kelly Miller Circus which is now run by the Ringling family, came into our tiny village at about 10:00 am on a very hot summer morning. We were in the middle of a heatwave, the first real heatwave in three years (last summer was very cold and wet, for example) and it was pushing 100 degrees. It was very hard, being energetic in this heat. Even the insects seemed to be seeking the shade.
ΩΩWorking for a circus is hard work, not a picnic. The staff has to rise before the sun to prepare the journey to the next town, most of which are about 50 miles apart so the animals are not confined very long in their trailers, an important thing for say, elephants, and the people who work for the circus have to drive so it gives them a shorter hop so they don’t arrive exhausted at the next town.
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ΩΩThe elephants raised the tent but I wasn’t there to see it, next year I intend to do a fuller story about the circus. Last year, they didn’t come due to our town’s severe economic distress. Even with the circus coming here to raise money for our volunteer fire department, we didn’t get the normal, bigger crowds from all the Hill Towns around Berlin, NY.
ΩΩEven with the many difficulties due to lack of money and jobs, a number of families with young children still made it to the circus and all the children were quite excited and in general, seemed very happy. I like small circuses. This is because it doesn’t overstimulate children and make them go crazy. I once made the mistake of taking children to the famous Three Ring Big Top Barnum & Bailey Madison Square Garden show in the mid-1980′s. The children with me were hard to control, hyperactive and basically, unhappy. I got a migraine headache from hell, the flashing lights and racket was way too much and I swore never to attend another circus.
ΩΩIn the San Francisco Hippie years, I knew several people who began a hippie one ring circus which was very intimate and quiet and had, of course, mimes, jugglers and pet dogs. I love this sort of thing. I was pleased to see that the Kelly Circus was closer to this sort of thing than the overwhelming noise machine, distracting big circuses. I would call this a medium sized circus.
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ΩΩI remember the Big Apple Circus which began exactly like the one in SF. It was very small and had its shows in vest pocket parks all over NYC. I participated in these shows on occasion. It grew until it became a fairly big circus and thanks to many European acts, it became professional but lost its soul along the way. For our big thing in these tiny circuses was audience participation. We could do things with the people around us and this interaction was lots of fun.
ΩΩThere was some Hippie elements which still live on in the circus. We began the thing of painting the faces of children in lovely ways and here is the latest example of this grand Hippie tradition. One of the children of our town got her face painted at a booth at this circus. Her obvious delight with the beautiful butterfly comes from the feeling of being part of the show. She was very pleased to pose for me and I was pleased by her colorful shirt as well as beautiful smile.
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ΩΩThis is what a good circus does: it pulls the children into the creative process and gets them to smile. The circus went out of its way to make the children feel special while still being quite entertaining for adults.
ΩΩI stationed myself next to the place where the acts come in and out of the one ring circus. I was curious about the staff and their children. Indeed, a number of acts were done by parents and I saw children all over the place. These kids were very well behaved. One in particular drew my attention and I took several pictures of him: the son of the Ringmaster.
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ΩΩThe above photograph was the best shot. At all times, this interesting child had a grave or attentive face and periodically, his father would come to him and quietly say something and the boy would nod. I believe dad was teaching him. The boy mirrored many of his father’s stances and gestures. Both father and son, for example, went to the tiger cages and quietly put their hands on the cages to let the tigers greet them. The tigers did this with their ears forwards, a sign of friendliness.
ΩΩI love both wild and domestic cat species. My bobcat, for example, thought I was his mother and followed me around like a pet dog. He also tore up the house a bit which is why he had to go to the Desert Museum. The tigers were very hot and so they lounged around in their cages. My cats were doing the same thing at home. As soon as the Ringmaster and tiger trainer walked up to the cages, the tigers rolled onto their stomachs and yawned. When the music for their act began, the tigers became very alert and stood up, ready to enter the ring.
ΩΩTheir mouths were open due to the heat. These are not growling tigers. They were actually rather happy which is why their ears are forwards. The trainer used the exact same sort of ‘feather on the end of a springy stick’ I used in the early 1960′s to train my bobcat. There was no harsh whips or angry words, quite the contrary.
ΩΩThis tiger was very unhappy, I suspect, due to the heat. His ears are back and the trainer began to talk to him. He then walked over to the tiger and said soothing words and petted him. The tiger then rubbed agains the thigh of the trainer and then relaxed and continued with the show, his ears now forwards again. There was obvious affection shown. Indeed, I was very impressed by the good condition of the tigers. They were very well groomed, sleek and yet fit. The only growls I heard were when they went back into their cages and two of them had a very brief spat similar to my own cats when they get annoyed about airspace issues. The spat was extremely short and the trainer went over and chatted with them and both tigers relaxed and laid down again.
ΩΩI noticed the staff moving the tigers treated them with care and like the trainer, the Ringmaster and his son, they all patted the cage before moving it, letting each tiger check out the people doing the work. The tigers liked to stand as close as possible to the humans, another sign of them not being abused or unhappy.
ΩΩHere is another shot of the young boy standing next to the Ringmaster. He briefly interacted with the tigers as they left the ring. By the way, one of the first things this circus does is set up the tents for the animals so they are immediately in the shade. I saw separate tents for all the animal acts and they all had great access to water as well as some food and bedding.
ΩΩNext came the trapeze artist, a young lady from Central America. She supervised the set up of her equipment and I loved her serious face as she double checked everything. She performed without a net. Circus performers are realists. If they screw up, bad things can happen. So they tend to be careful about real things including how animals really behave and the vagaries of ropes and winches. There is a high price for failure! I admire this sort of seriousness and am very angry that people running our National Three Ring Circus in DC aren’t nearly as serious or careful as these Kelly employees.
ΩΩA few minutes later, the artist doffed her shirt and pants and reappeared as an air dancer. Now, the bar for high air acts has risen greatly over the last 30 years and this was the older, pre-Cirque du Soleil act. The Cirque du Soleil is very artful and magical. And hideously expensive. This is more down to earth, old-fashioned act but in the main tradition of all good circus acts, it keeps the flame alive even as it is not a massively amazing thing. It has its own satisfactions.
ΩΩOther staff assisted. Here is one very serious young lady who kept a sharp eye on the aerialist. The levels of cooperation and close attention is of great importance here. Again, in stark contrast with the clowns in DC, even the clowns in this circus took their jobs seriously and practiced safety regimes designed to prevent death or disfigurement.
ΩΩThree men were needed to move the trapeze apparatus up and down. Here, they are raising her up to the top of the tent. She had to trust them to look after her! One slip of the hand and down she goes! Here is another shot showing how cooperation is vital:
ΩΩOne thing I have been harping on lately is the idea of citizenship’s responsibilities and how cooperation is of highest importance, not ‘me, myself and I’ sort of individuality. The individual at the top of the trapeze cannot exist without the teams working in tandem below. I believe that several of these people are her own family members and they certainly were affectionate and listened carefully to each other, eager to have this act succeed. Grace and beauty comes from discipline and attention to details.
ΩΩI was fascinated by the shadows cast by the aerialist on the ten walls. The design was celestial and the flying lady became part of the cosmos though her shadow. This is very Peter-Pan in nature (Peter losing his shadow in the nursery and thus was unable to fly, for example). Shadows were a distorted image of the trapeze artist. The closer she swung towards the tent’s roof, the clearer the outline. But it was till a shadow, not the real thing.
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ΩΩThis is good to remember when looking at anything: we read stuff but often, it is merely a shadow, not the real thing. Philosophers talked about this thousands of years ago and it is still true. We can’t see total reality because we are humans. Animals see reality all the time. We get significant interference with our busy brains that rearrange basic facts to suit our fancies.
ΩΩThe clown followed the trapeze artist. His battle with the chair is more amusing than the evening news. And more real, too. Indeed, his comical expression of dismay as the chair ended up ‘eating’ him and he was engulfed by the chair, is a good political metaphor. That is, power takes over people when they try to manipulate it. That is, if we are stupid and want power, we end up entangled in it and it takes over.
ΩΩHere is another favorite for metaphors: the balancing act! This Libra exercise pleases me. Again with DC: NO BALANCE. Nada. We have a pile of debts and the tool used to balance things is to keep piling on principal due while paying less and less interest. This can’t go to infinity as the above photo shows: this is how high the artist got, he then had to jump down and the structure crashed. Not the black bar next to his left hand: this is how he prevented breaking his neck when he jumped off.
ΩΩThe camels and the dancing beauties: back in 1969, I saw a sculpture of Loië Fuller in the Museum of Modern Art. I said, ‘This is impossible’. Culture of Lifestyles: A Material Girl In A Material World: Dancing Like Loie Fuller. I found a movie of her Fire Dance at the Dance Museum in Manhattan and I was the very first person to revive her dances back in 1975.
ΩΩHere is an old photo of one of these dances using 50 yards of cloth taken for publicity purposes. It pleases me to see people do this sort of thing and the lovely girls in this circus did a nice gold cloth dance with the camels. I happen to be rather fond of camels and trained some long ago for the movies, back in Tucson when I was young.
ΩΩThe bamboo extensions make the cloth move very fast through the air and one can do various interesting shapes with the cloth. These were much lighter and smaller costumes than the ones I used. For example, my bamboo rods were often six feet long and moving silk through the air at that distance requires lots of attention and a fair amount of arm strength. The roar of the cloth is considerable when moving very fast with the cloth rising overhead like a volcano.
ΩΩThe dog act was fun. I didn’t get a good shot of the miniature terrier. He was very cute. He jumped through a hoop the size of a dinner plate. He always wagged his tail and was very eager and would have done tricks for an hour if the trainer let him. Again, the dogs were immaculately groomed and seemed quite happy. The lady obviously used dog-friendly training tactics and she rewarded them during the performance.
ΩΩLast of all the Asian Elephants: the white line here is a mere string. Not an electric fence. I have interacted with circus elephants in the past and yes, just like with my (America’s biggest ox team, Chip and Dale) oxen, they live with an electric fence when not working. But like with my oxen, they can be confined with a mere string when traveling.
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ΩΩThe elephants may have been abused in the past. I see wounds on their shoulders. The ability for training and handling elephants has gone a long ways over the years. That is, thanks to public anger over obvious abuses, reforms have been made. Elephants are expensive. Training ANY circus animal is time consuming and expensive. Keeping these assets alive, well and above all, trained and happy, is profitable today.
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ΩΩConfining killer whales to aquariums shortens their lives very significantly, often killing them in less than 10 years. Killer whales should not be taken out of the oceans. It is criminal. But Asian elephants are practically domesticated now and have been used to work or even like war horses for thousands of years so they are more like my old oxen who are now dead, alas. They are human-oriented.
ΩΩThese three elephants looked at peace when I photographed them. They were friendly and contented as well as well-fed. Feeding oxen who are one quarter this size, is expensive! A bale of hay a day. Elephants eat much more than that! I am glad circuses have improved their handling of animals and hope this continues to improve. These elephants were treated much, much better than the average dairy cow who is no longer allowed to lounge about the pastures in the shade of large oak trees, chewing their cuds! I am totally and utterly against modern dairy farming techniques! They should be outlawed!
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ΩΩThis circus, on the other hand, was much more humane.
I was thinking, yes, you are right; you’re an American, you should not watch football, you should stay well away from it. Then I realised you were talking about that egg-chasing thing you do over there. You really should find a better name for the game. “Football” has already been taken by the rest of the world.
John
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ELAINE: We will call it Foosball and have an octopus for referee.
Beautiful pictures of the circus.
In the UK, most, if not all local authorities have banned animal circuses on grounds of cruelty, and now I don’t believe they exist here. I don’t have an opinion on it, but it seems a shame. When I was a kid, they would take the elephants down to the beach to bathe.
The last circus I saw was small and entirely human. I was impressed with the level of fitness of the performers. I am sure they could have shown professional sportsmen a thing or two. Hard work indeed.
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ELAINE: That is very sad news. England does allow animal experiments of great cruelty, of course. The circus is often the first way a child gets to see exotic animals up close. I think reforms are better than throwing out the baby with the bathwater. What is killing tigers, for example, is human overpopulation.
I love the pictures!
Cats are extremely particular beings, aloof and yet desire to be extremely close to the ones they adopt as family. I’m sure they look upon this deal as if they owned the trainer, the circus and everything else.
In the city we don’t get the smaller Big Top shows. I haven’t been to the Ringling Bros Circus in years. Cirque du Soleil is beyond my reach financially nowadays.
What strikes me about the circus you visited is that it still has it’s soul. I look at entertainment now and it’s dead. The shows in NY are repeats of past glory. None of the backers want to risk their money on anything new so nothing new gets performed. The shows are filled with many performers who can’t act or sing but they look very pretty.
As a kid I the sense that was especially memorable was the sense of the circus smell – the elephant poop, and the smell of the big cats.
I was also intrigued by the carnys that worked doing the hard work of moving and erecting the tents. They looked lean, sinewy and tattooed, pounding stakes while smoking a ciggy.
I took my daughter to the next generation of circus like the Pickle Family Circus in the SF Bay area. No smells, but great live circus music.
Thanks for sharing, Elaine!
I’m glad to see that you get off the mountain and have some fun from time to time.
You have certainly earned it!
Clowns are scary but exciting.
My kids loved this comedy tv-character Uncle Nasse. (I remember when I asked my daugter why do you like him? She said: “He is a little bit scary. But that is exciting. And you all laugh at him, so it must be funny too.”
Btw that video is from 1989.
Something else I found.
Children are frightened by clown-themed decor in hospitals, a survey suggests. How did the smiley circus entertainers become a horror staple?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7191721.stm
Clowns are always scary because…in history, they represent Loki or Coyote Man or the Trickster. The one who could fool gods. The Loki characters also happen to be…fire gods.
Fire is the first thing that truly set the first proto-human to use this as a tool, this set us apart from all other apes, none of which mastered fire. But fire turns on us and can attack us.
So our unease with ‘clowns’ is very deep and enduring and important, like all great religious forces, it diminishes culturally over time but never loses its true nature.