Dartmouth College is a circus. We have our share of acrobats, Olympic athletes, blossoming actors, freaks and trained dogs. Apparently though, Paul Binder '63 thinks all that is not enough.
Guest hosted by British ringmaster Norman Barrett, the Big Apple Circus has returned to Hanover for its 17th summer, and the theme of this year's tour is "Happy On!"
It's a phrase borrowed from an old English Music Hall maxim, "If you are happy off stage, then you will be happy on."
In addition to Barrett's unique troupe of trained parakeets, the circus will also feature Bello Nock, an award-winning clown and seventh generation Swiss circus artist, Ella Levitskaya with a troupe of basset hounds and dachshunds, and China's Liaoning Acrobatic Troupe. Also included are He Yuan Yuan, an acrobat who juggles cups and spoons while balancing on a unicycle, and French clown Mimi.
The Big Apple Circus kicks off their yearly tour at New York's Lincoln Center, where I have seen them three times now.
While this year's show is high quality as usual, it does not quite live up to performances of previous years, including last year's 20th anniversary show.
Nock's hilarity continues from last year with his uncanny ability to form a tight relationship with the audience eventually drawing laughs with only facial expressions.
Mimi also manages to keep audiences smiling. Levitskaya's trained dogs were also a crowd-pleaser last November, as was He Yuan Yuan's cup juggling.
Conversely, Barrett's performance was as disappointing as the training of his parakeets. The birds seem to rarely cooperate, and when they did, Barrett's strange lack of stage presence detracted from the act.
Hopefully Barrett's feathered-friends will be in a better mood this time around. Still, parakeets cannot compete with acts from the past, including my personal favorite, giant human-puppets called Mummenschanz.
Returning to the circus from previous years are Katja Schumann with a group of dancing horses, William Woodcock and Anna May with a trio of trained elephants, and acrobats Regina Dobrovitskaya, Song He Liadouze, Julian Stachowski, and Max Binder and Katherine Schumann Binder, Paul Binder's children.
Her first debut, Vermont-native Molly Saudek (an award-winning tight-wire dancer) will also appear.
The founder of the Big Apple Circus, Binder is the circus's artistic director.
Born in Brooklyn, he graduated from the College and received his M.B.A. from Columbia University.
After graduating, Binder worked from a local Boston television station as a stage manager from Julia Child's "The French Chef." He later worked as a talent scout for Merv Griffin and as a street-juggler in Europe after working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
After returning to New York, Binder used his finance and show-business background to start the circus in 1977.
The Big Apple Circus will appear in an air-conditioned tent at the Fullington Farm circus grounds on Route 10, Lyme Road. The show begins tonight and continues through Monday, July 19; ticket prices range from $9 to $27 and can be purchased through the Hopkins Center.
The show should be an appropriate addition to the already-existing circus that is Dartmouth College.
Binder could not be reached for comment.
