Circus Sarasota marks 25 years of fun and thrills under the big top

When they launched Circus Sarasota 25 years ago, former Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performers Pedro Reis and Dolly Jacobs wanted to preserve the spirit of live circus in a town that had become synonymous with the art form.

Over a quarter of a century, it has become so much more than an annual winter show under a one-ring big top.

They now serve as the leaders of the Circus Arts Conservatory, which operates the annual Circus Sarasota tent show and a summer program at The Ringling; the Sailor Circus Academy, the oldest youth circus program in the country; educational programs that connect science to the circus; and health care programs that use laughter as medicine.

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Jacobs, the daughter of legendary Ringling Bros. clown Lou Jacobs, trained at the Sailor Circus as a child, leading to her international career as an aerialist billed as the “Queen of the Air.”

While connecting with thousands each year, they have worked to elevate perceptions about the circus.

“It was always about giving back to the community through circus arts and presenting circus at the highest level so people could realize it is an art form,” Reis said in a recent interview.

They reached a peak of sorts in 2017 when the Circus Sarasota Big Top was set up on the national mall in Washington, D.C., for the annual Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, the first focused on circus arts. Circus Sarasota and Key Chorale, who combine each winter for the annual Cirque des Voix concerts under the big top, shared the tent with numerous other circus troupes and youth programs from around the country and did demonstrations on the mall to visitors.

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“It shows the power of the circus, and it was being embraced by multitudes,” Reis said of the event, which came just two years after Jacobs was named the first circus artist to be awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

When Reis joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a trapeze artist in 1984, there were just three circus schools in the United States. Today there are more than 300 youth circus programs, he said.

The Sailor Circus Academy, which started in 1949 as part of the Sarasota High School gymnastics program, was taken over in 2011 by the Circus Arts Conservatory, which has expanded its offerings over the last decade. It now operates a circus arts magnet program with both Sarasota High School and Booker Middle School, while launching a beginner’s program that feeds into the main academy and now offers pre-professional training for students who want careers in the circus. The  Sailor Circus summer camp had more than 900 participants last year, making it the largest circus camp in the country and one of the largest summer camps in Sarasota County, said Jennifer Mitchell, the executive vice president and COO.

Mitchell sees the impact of the circus on a personal level close to home. Her daughter Emma Clarke, now a high school senior, plans to pursue a circus career.

“I always throw myself into everything I do, but it became more personal when I saw Emma going through the training here,” Mitchell said. “She had this incredible privilege to be a sideline sponge being involved at various behind-the-scenes levels, how we put up the tent, how we set up some big stunts. She’s now currently entertaining a whole slew of opportunities.”

Reis and Mitchell said they hope “Circus Sarasota Legacy: 25th Anniversary Show,” which opens Feb. 10, will continue to excite and entertain audiences while elevating appreciation for the art form and perhaps inspiring a few more young future artists.

Reis calls it a traditional show with “a potpourri of different styles. We have contemporary, traditional acts, animals and we embrace new acts to a point.”

Some may be more familiar than others. Joseph Bauer Jr., a longtime circus artist who has performed acts for the company several times, returns as the ringmaster, supported by clown Al “Renaldo” Calienes, who has “become such an audience favorite. They just love him,” Reis said.”

Audience members may have seen aerial silk artist Alan Silva perform on “America’s Got Talent” and the current spin-off “America’s Got Talent All-Stars.” He’s a sixth-generation circus performer from Brazil, who has been seen in Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity.” Another AGT alum is is unicyclist Wesley Williams, who got his start as a 6-year-old and is now billed as “The One Wheel Wonder.” He has performed on “Britain’s Got Talent,” and holds a Guinness world record for the tallest rideable unicycle at 31 feet 10 inches.

Two performers from Ukraine will present the world premiere of their duo strap act at Circus Sarasota. Because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Reis said Maryna Tkachenko and Anastasiia Kornieieva had to make unexpected and unusual arrangements to appear. They have a special energy, he said. “It is almost quite dark and connected to the warm and you feel the spirit of the show must go on.”

Chu Chuan-Ho, from Taiwan, performs a diabolo act, a juggling routine involving a string and a spinning object that resembles two bowls fused together at the base. “What he does with the diabolo is just breathtaking,” Reis said. He is making his U.S. debut with Circus Sarasota.

Oleg Izossimov, a graduate of Moscow’s State College for Circus and Variety arts, made his debut with the Moscow Circus in 1991 with a hand-balancing act.

The JuJus is a tight-wire act featuring Julien Posada and Julia Figuiere, who made their Circus Sarasota debut in 2018. Reis describes them as “a parody of a couple dancing on a tight wire.”

Sylvia Zerbini, who comes from a nine-generation circus family, returns with her Liberty Horses, an act that has won her numerous international awards.

Johnny Peers and the Muttville Comix is a slapstick dog act featuring animals rescued from shelters. Peers is a graduate of the Ringling Brothers Clown College and has presented his act on David Letterman’s late night show, “Circus of the Stars,” Disneyland, the Big Apple Circus and the Ringling Bros. Circus.

Trio Addis is a Russian Barre act also making its U.S. debut this year. The act features three performers who trained at the Addis Africa Circus School for 13 years.

‘Circus Sarasota Legacy: 25th Anniversary Show

Runs Feb. 10-March 5  at the Ulla Searing Big Top on Nathan Benderson Park’s Regatta Island, 5851 Nathan Benderson Circle, Sarasota. Tickets are $20-$75. 941-355-9805; circusarts.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Circus Sarasota marks 25 years of thrills in anniversary big top show