This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2015) |
Circus Flora [1] is a one-ring circus based in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It is a non-profit organization. Circus Flora has become a touring show yet it performs annually in St. Louis, usually at the beginning of the month of June. It combines the venue of a one-ring circus with the performance trappings of theatre. Performances include aerialists, equestrian artists, acrobats, and trained animals. Each performance is accompanied by a live band. Live musicians allow the mood to be tailored to the live events happening in the ring — down to every crash of the cymbal or beat of the snare drum.
Circus Flora is styled after old Eastern-European circuses. For many years, Circus Flora has featured many and various members of the renowned Flying Wallendas family. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described the 2007 performance as, "an entertaining mixture of thoroughly professional performances and 'Let's put on a show in the old barn.'" [2]
Circus Flora was first performed as a commissioned work for the 1986 Spoleto Festival USA, an annual celebration of the performing and visual arts in Charleston, South Carolina. Based upon its favorable reception, it was then founded as a permanent organization by Ivor David Balding, Sheila and Sam Jewell and Alexandre Sacha Pavlata. [3] Its intended mission is to both entertain and to educate.
Circus Flora made St. Louis, Missouri its home in 1987 with assistance from Vince Schoemehl, the mayor of St. Louis at that time, and Richard Gaddes, then president of Grand Center, [4] St. Louis's creative and cultural district. Since then, the Circus Arts Foundation of Missouri (CAFM) has been the parent non-profit organization under which Circus Flora operates.
Flora, the Elephant, is the namesake of Circus Flora. The circus was named after Flora, the orphaned baby African elephant Balding had rescued two years earlier when ivory poachers in Africa killed her mother. For 15 years, Flora the elephant was a star of the circus. In 2000, she retired from stage life, and is now a resident of the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. [5]
Circus Flora has performed in the following cities: St. Louis, Missouri; The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; The Spoleto Festival USA; Scottsdale, Arizona; Nantucket Island, Massachusetts; Cooperstown, New York; New York, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Norfolk, Virginia, and several other locations.
Circus Flora has cultivated education in the Circus Arts since its inception. One significant collaboration of Circus Flora's is its working relationship with The St. Louis Arches, [6] an acrobatic troupe sponsored by Circus Day Foundation. [7]
Shriners International, formally known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (AAONMS), is an American Masonic society established in 1870 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida.
The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 American drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, shot in Technicolor and released by Paramount Pictures. Set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring and Charlton Heston as the circus manager. James Stewart also stars as a mysterious clown who never removes his makeup, and Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame also play supporting roles.
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington, and consistently ranks among the top universities in the United States.
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term circus also describes the performance which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Newcastle under Lyme born Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor shows ran from 1871 to 2017. Known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers had purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten as the St. Louis Choral Society, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is the second-oldest professional symphony orchestra in the United States, preceded only by the New York Philharmonic. Its principal concert venue is Powell Hall, located in midtown St. Louis.
The Fox Theatre is a performing arts center located at 2211 Woodward Avenue in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, near the Grand Circus Park Historic District. Opened in 1928 as a flagship movie palace in the Fox Theatres chain, it was at over 5,000 seats the largest theater in the city. Designed by theater architect C. Howard Crane, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Circus Kaput is an intimate theatrical circus and entertainment company based in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, it began as show that benefitted non-profit social causes. It was started by Josh Routh in 2003. Circus Kaput performances have different type of acts: street performance, classic circus, dance, and comedy. Acts include: contortionists, jugglers, clowns, and aerialists. Circus Kaput has been featured on NBC, American Broadcasting Company and Fox affiliate television stations. In 2004 they were the featured performers for Major League Baseball's official World Series Gala for the players of the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. But Circus Kaput, also does small show for fairs, festivals, college shows, corporate events, company events, church picnics, birthdays, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and alike. Circus Kaput has traveled and tours in the US and abroad. Circus Kaput has a rehearsal space in Chesterfield Mall.
The Family Arena is a multi-purpose arena in St. Charles, Missouri, built in 1999. The arena seats 9,643 for hockey, 9,755 for football, 10,467 for basketball, 6,339 for half-house concerts and up to 11,522 for end-stage concerts. In addition to sporting events, concerts, circuses and ice shows the arena is also used for trade shows with a total of 39,900 square feet (3,710 m2) of exhibit space.
Metro Transit is an enterprise of Bi-State Development, an interstate compact formed by Missouri and Illinois in 1949. Its operating budget in 2016 was $280 million, which is funded by sales taxes from the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County, the St. Clair County Illinois Transit District, federal and state grants and funding, and through fare paying passengers. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 19,049,100.
The Flying Wallendas is a circus act and group of daredevil stunt performers who perform highwire acts without a safety net. They were first known as The Great Wallendas, but the current name was coined by the press in the 1940s and has stayed since.
The culture of St. Louis, Missouri includes a variety of attractions located within the city of St. Louis, Missouri, and in surrounding communities in Greater St. Louis, such as local museums, attractions, music, performing arts venues, and places of worship.
The Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center (LNAC), also known as "The Lemp," is a non-profit performance space, art gallery, and community center located in the historic Benton Park neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. Since its founding in March 1994, the organization has been among the forefront of art spaces committed to the DIY ethic in St. Louis and the Midwest, holding the position as one of the oldest all-ages "Do-It-Yourself" music venues in the region and in the United States, alongside ABC No Rio in New York City, 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California, and the Ché Café in La Jolla, California.
Ballet Fantastique is an Emmy®-nominated American ballet theater company based in Eugene, Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Ballet Fantastique creates and performs all-original dance theater repertoire and immersive audience experiences. Ballet Fantastique became a resident company at Eugene's Hult Center for the Performing Arts in 2014 and tours across the US and internationally.
David Dimitri is an internationally acclaimed tightrope acrobat who has been praised for his unique style.
The St. Louis Repertory Theater is a repertory theater, based in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. It is often referred to locally simply as "The Rep". Hana S. Sharif is the Artistic Director and Danny Williams is the Managing Director.
The Standard Theatre, now known as the Folly Theater and also known as the Century Theater and Shubert's Missouri, is a former vaudeville hall in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Built in 1900, it was designed by Kansas City architect Louis S. Curtiss. The theater was associated with the adjoining Edward Hotel, which was also designed by Curtiss; the hotel was demolished in 1965.
Wanderlust Circus is a theatrical circus troupe based in Portland, Oregon, founded in 2006 by creative partners Noah Mickens and Nick "The Creature" Harbar. Since 2006, Wanderlust Circus has grown from a small band of creatives to a full-fledged circus troupe, and non-profit organization. The organization presently comprises a team of acrobats, a 10-piece swing band, a trick-roping cowboy clown; and several aerialists, contortionists, hand balancers, jugglers, and dancers. Their most popular recurring shows have been The White Album Christmas, A Circus Carol, and the dance party series MegaBounce.
One Lucky Elephant is an American documentary film directed by Lisa Leeman that premiered December 1, 2011 on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network as part of the OWN Documentary Club. The film focuses on the extraordinary human-animal bond between Circus Flora founder, Ivor David Balding, and Flora an endangered African elephant, and their journey to find her a permanent home that leads them to The Elephant Sanctuary (Hohenwald). The film provides insightful research footage to further discussion of the human-animal bond as part of anthrozoology, a new academic field that examines the relationships between non-human and human animals.
Mighty Haag Circus was started by American entrepreneur Ernest Haag in Shreveport, Louisiana. His circus toured continuously for over 40 years, from 1891 to 1938. During these years, the circus used a variety of types of transport: boat, carts, trains, horse-pulled wagons, and trucks. It was one of the largest traveling circuses in the United States.