Saturday Slide-Bys: Big Apple in Gotham ... Covington in San Diego ... Stencell in Paris ... Zapashny in Moscow ... And Where Are You?

Down -- or up -- the Hippodrome Track, Away we Go! ...

Big Apple Circus due to hit Gotham October 25, with its latest, Luminocity, its acts costuming up, twirling and whirling about to create New York imagery. This is a tribute to the Great City.  Some sample ring pictures promised from the show's first PR blast (thank you, Don): ..."The food cart vendor, juggling his produce! Construction workers assembling athletic poses of incredible strength!"

And there's juggling sensation Ty  Tojo, generating big buzz aound the big tops. Love that name ...

BTW: A video tease on Big Apple's website, which denied me its charm while rating circus websites, is now up and running on  my PC-lame computer, a slate of winning images from years past, and it WOWS ... Queens, I'm coming!   AMTRAK, hold that sleeper for me! ...

Oscars for Hula Hoops?  Zapasny to produce.  Dateline, Moscow, remember Moscow, center of circus art?   Without the lush funding they once received, yet those fiercely determined Russians are rebounding, now with their own festivals.  Latest to lure the greats to Bolshevik Boards:  World Festival of Circus Art "IDOL," to be powered by the brothers Zapasny,  purpose being to land major media coverage of the sort that rarely if ever visits your typical circus festival ...

Say they to  Planet Circus magazine, "Unfortunately, all the festivals are mainly oriented towards professional circus producers and performers."  But they are pulling in judges from outside same old-same old, to cast fresh faces on the beef.  Thirty acts from some 20 countries will be per-auditioned and invited to appear.  Festival now in progress, until Oct. 20.  I'll be looking for it on C-Span ... Monte Carlo, rigorous regrets here, has never done much to land major TV coverage outside the little realm.  In the beginning, American TV took a few looks, gave a little time, then vanished.

 The Brothers Zapashny:  Seeking Populist Attention to Circus Arts.
Photo from Planet Circus

Guesses  Brit author and give-em-more-than-puff critic Douglas McPherson, whose country is among the ignored or indifferent:

"Tragic, too, that Monaco has never been broadcast by the BBC, either.  I treasure my certificate, signed by Princess Stephanie, confirming that I participated in the first World Circus Day .  So, to the Brothers Zapasnny, I send provisional Kudos. 

Tumbling to Tchaikovsky. San Diego based cyber courier supreme Don Covington, reviewing the new symphony and circus combo called Circus Musica for Fanfare, liking some of it, sharing his knowing insights.  Sample share:  

"Even more impressive was the interpretation given to Aaron Copland’s  Hoedown from Rodeo by
Western artist LoopRawlins. This routine, choreographed by the legendary Angelo Iodice, fit the music to a  T. The familiar frontier melodies of Rodeo were ideal for rope spinning and whip cracking and Rawlins had the crowd on its feet with his charisma and showmanship" ...  Don took tactful issue with aud-partipate-or-die clown Ambrose Martos  (filling in for David Larible, originally named here in error), wondering if Martos' act might have been effective in less time.  Speaking for myself here, to pep up these languorous audience-in-the-act interludes,  I'd suggest, musically speaking, something from the Spike Jones cannon

Stencelling in from Paris, and that would be Paris over There, not down Longhorn way, is Al, as in Al Stencell, man of the midway from rides to rings ... He's keyboarding across his wife Shirley's new iPad, and what a tickled iPadder is he.  Listen here to our visiting Hemingway ...

"It is a real joy,especially at an early morning hour sitting in Paris ... Several circuses in town but the onslaught is a month or so away when the place is crawling with shows of all kinds, that is the traditional, the  new age, and everything in between or further along."  Makes me want to go Over.  Read on, World:

"These little theatre-circus-burlesque shows are a delight. Last Thursday we saw the Le Maxi Monster Music Show at the Alhambra theatre. it closed this week but has been there all summer nod what. Delight. Freak show meets hip orchestra!!"   I'm wondering, Al, was that "monster" thing produced by one of the Feldlings?  

Out for my Monster Morning Walk, thank you.  More maybe later ...  Later:  All day, a packed crowd in here, one of my biggest ever.. Yeah, I do have fun three dotting away ... and you're a great three-dot crowd!

10.12.13