Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Circus acts: One vintage and one modern

by Jamie Rhein (RSS feed) on Mar 30th 2008 at 6:30PM

After my night at the circus, I've thought some more about circus acts, the discipline it takes to get good enough to end up in a circus somewhere, and the countries from which performers hail. How people end up in a circus interests me. I can stand on my head. That's about it. I've never been able to touch my toes and still think a split is just something you make with a banana. The other kind is out of the question.

Here's a YouTube video of vintage circus acts. The aerial acts are similar to what we see today, but the acts with the strong man may not translate to today's audiences. David Letterman's stupid human tricks, maybe. Poor guy. What a heck of a way to make a living.

The second YouTube video is of a Olga and Pavel Polistovskie, two circus performers whose jobs seem a bit more fun than a cannon ball in the stomach.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Festivals and Events, Video

Search Travel Deals

Add your comments

Your comments:

Remember me

E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.