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The circus comes to town
By Tim Bousquet
The Daily Citizen
Saturday, October 16, 2004 12:43 AM CST
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Wendy Harvell watches a high wire act with Abigail, Andrew and Katelynn Friday at the Carson and Barnes Circus held at the White County Fairgrounds. More circus photos on Page 8A. Photo/Philip Holsinger
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The circus came to Searcy Friday, with all the fixings.
We had our animals, our tigers, our camels, our elephants. We had our acrobats, our trapeze artists, our tightrope walkers. We had our clowns, our jugglers, our hula-hoop girls. And yes, we had our peanuts, our popcorn and our cotton candy. Did we mention the clowns?
Mostly, though, we had our fun.
"I liked the clowns the best," said Hope Swan, 6, of Searcy. "I liked it when they turned on the music and kept turning it on and off."
"I liked the elephants," said Katelynn Harvell, 7, of Beebe.
Asked if she wanted to run away with the circus, Katelynn nodded yes until she pondered the full ramifications of the proposal, then whispered a frightened "no."
Luke Coleman, 6, of Searcy, also favored the clowns, but he really didn't want to talk about it with the obnoxious reporter - because, after all, isn't it obvious that the clowns are the best?
About 350 kids of all ages went to the late afternoon performance of the Carson-Barnes Circus at the fairgrounds, filling about a quarter of the seats in the gigantic big tent. Judging by the monumental traffic jam that ensued between shows, the evening performance was a sell-out.
Carson-Barnes bills itself as the last big-tented circus on the traditional traveling circus circuit, with a grueling schedule of 230 different towns and cities each year, usually with two or three performances per stop.
The entire elaborate collection of tents, sideshows, meticulously engineered trapeze and tightrope sets, trailers for over 100 employees, and animals, animals, animals, is set up each morning, torn down each evening, and convoyed via 80 vehicles 50 or 100 miles to the next town, where the whole operation repeats itself.
The circus life is a culture unto itself, an entire village of performers and their children moving about the countryside, focused solely on the act. There's something vaguely subversive about the whole thing: Shouldn't these kids be in school? Why aren't these astounding athletes applying their talents on something more personally rewarding, like the Olympic gymnastics team, or professional sports, something that would lead to the Wheaties box? And the animal trainers, couldn't they be working at a zoo, or on some project without the (they say unfair) accusations of animal mistreatment?
The only answer that makes any sense is the one they offer at face value: These people are here to entertain us.
And that they do.
The audience at Friday afternoon's performance was fully enraptured - dropped jaw, bug-eyed enraptured - as the Argentine trapeze team performed their truly amazing stunts to the odd, but somehow appropriate, accompaniment of what sounded like a spaghetti western soundtrack.
The crowd was similarly enthralled by the Spanish tightrope team, the thrill underscored by a Lorca-inspired ballad of dread.
Later, the aerial ballet artists performed what were probably the most dangerous stunts of the evening - no safety lines, no nets - stretched across the full football-field length of the tent. If the crowd seemed less on edge, it was likely because they were actually reassured by the return to traditional circus music, which in a sane world is the most frightening music imaginable.
The athletic events were framed and divided by somewhat more predictable, yet still entertaining, clown acts, animal parades, jugglers, and the grand finale, the "performing pachyderms."
Carson-Barnes is a slick, sophisticated operation. No detail is too small to be stretched to its full marketing potential - "55 seconds left to buy popcorn," announced Ringmaster Brian La Palme, "cincuenta y cinco segundos" - and the owners are savvy enough to win local buy-in of their product by allowing non-profit agencies to be co- sponsors. The Searcy Lion's Club received a portion of the proceeds from Friday's shows.
The circus forwards a press kit that would be the envy of any local politician, full of figures and the history of the circus, possibilities for interviews and the like. The kit includes a half-inch-thick packet fully exploring the circus' treatment of animals, and its contributions to charities that care for animals.
We can never truly know what's going on in an animal's mind, but the Carson-Barnes people make a good case for themselves, and the animals in Searcy Friday seemed healthy and well-cared for.
Independent writer Mike Echols traveled with Carson-Barnes some years back, and wrote favorably of the circus' treatment of animals, as have government agencies assigned the task of looking after animal welfare.
Regardless, the crowd Friday enjoyed the entire production, including the animals. At the end of the performance, Searcy's children streamed out of the tent bedazzled by the spectacles that had proceeded, happy to be sure, but perhaps having had the day-today predictability of life in Searcy disrupted for an afternoon.
Judging by their tired smiles, that is a very good thing indeed.
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