THE LAST CIRCUS?
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is on its farewell tour, but performers hope it isn’t curtains for the circus just yet
Kristen Michelle Wilson had no way of knowing as a toddler that the ringmaster who caught her eye at the first circus she attended would someday help her become a ringmaster. And not just any ringmaster, but the first female ringmaster in the history of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
“My very first circus I ever saw, I was a toddler. It was in my hometown of Tallahassee, Florida,” Wilson said. “I remember the bright lights; I remember the energy.”
But above all, she remembered the command that the ringmaster held. By age 11 or 12, Wilson was becoming more and more adamant about her desire to perform, but her mother wanted her to have a normal childhood.
At 29, she moved to Orlando and began working at Treasure Tavern. Through her initial theater audition, she met Jim Ragona. She later found at that Ragona is none other than the first ringmaster she ever saw.
Wilson saw a Facebook post from Ragona that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey was looking for a ringmaster, and she applied.
Reflecting on the extent to which her early childhood experience came full-circle with adulthood, Wilson said that Ragona was her “fairy godfather, and he never knew it.”
Wilson, 35, had her first show with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey in January – and she’s about to have her last. The circus announced in January that after 146 years, “The Greatest Show on Earth” is having its final show in May.
The circus is split into two touring units, red and blue, and the red unit is having its last show ever on Sunday in Providence. The final show for the blue tour will be on May 21 in Uniondale, N.Y., and the performance, which begins at 7 p.m., will be streamed on Facebook Live.
The storied circus company is presenting Circus Xtreme seven times at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center this weekend, with one show on Friday, three on Saturday and three on Sunday.
While many view the final shows as the end of an era, Ivan Skinfill is hopeful.
“Ringling Bros. is closing, but the circus is not dead,” Skinfill said. “There’s a lot of great, great circuses around the world with the tradition, and I think the circus needs an evolution.”
A native of Mexico working as a clown, Skinfill plans to take a three-week vacation in Cancun and then “see what happens.” He hopes to work in Europe to understand another variety of comedic sensibilities.
Subtle humor is more appreciated in Mexico, he said, whereas “the humor here with the American base in very visual, like pow!”
Performing alongside Ivan Skinfill as a clown is Ivan Vargas. (If anyone else tries to tell you his name is Ivan, he is clowning around.)
Vargas has been performing with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey for 12 years, something the casual onlooker might not guess looking at his 26-year-old face. His early start came because he was born into the circus – on the red circuit, to be exact.
His parents worked as flying trapeze artists on the red unit from 1988 to 1997. Vargas does not consider himself to be “from” anywhere in particular, considering he was born in Madison, Wis. on a show day, left two days later and never returned.
Vargas’ parents now work on the blue circuit; his father works with animals while his “mother works with the other animals, the kids of the show, in the nursery,” Vargas said.
When thinking about the closing of the circus, sometimes Davaanyam Luvsandorj wants to cry, and sometimes she wants to laugh. The Mongolian contortionist does not yet have another contract lined up, while her husband – also a contortionist – is returning to Mongolia for training before going to Saudi Arabia on a two-month contract.
High-wire walkers Mustafa Danguir and Mohamed Azzouz, who are from Morocco, will be heading to Beirut, Lebanon to participate in Arabs Got Talent.
“When you do something dangerous, people love it and appreciate it,” Danguir said. “When you see them clapping for you, this is our best pay.”
But one thing that has made him sad over the years is the effect of the Internet on entertainment and the mentality of wanting to see the circus.
“It’s a shame, because people don’t have enough time for themselves anymore,” he added.
While the human performers are off to various places, so are the animals. Stephen Payne, vice president of corporate communications at Feld Entertainment – which operates Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey – said the circus has almost completed finding homes for all of the animals.
That includes tigers, camels, dogs and horses, though in cases where performers brought animals, the animals are staying with the performers.
A protest group says it plans to picket at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center today, on the basis that the company is not turning over all the animals to sanctuaries.
Payne declined to say where specifically the animals are going.
“Most of the organizations making claims wouldn’t know how to care for tigers if they had to,” he added. “It’s an insult.”
The circus in 2015 announced the elimination of elephants from its acts. The last performance that included elephants was on May 1, 2016 at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.
Circus Xtreme features a tiger, along with a comedic poodle performance. Other acts include the human cannon, wheel of steel, BMX riding, juggling and Brazilian dancing.