The circus is on its way to Kaua’i. Under a “big top” tent at Kukui Grove Center Pavilion March 9-11, Majestic Big Top Circus of Canada will stage performances featuring aerialists, acrobats, balancers and jugglers. The show will also include
The circus is on its way to Kaua’i.
Under a “big top” tent at Kukui Grove Center Pavilion March 9-11, Majestic Big Top Circus of Canada will stage performances featuring aerialists, acrobats, balancers and jugglers. The show will also include clowns and three highly trained cockatoos that, according to circus publicist Judy Kay, can ride bicycles and unicycles, play basketball and fire cannons.
“There will be pretty girls, cotton candy, snow cones – all the things you expect to find at a circus and more,” said Kay.
Jugglers and aerial and trapeze specialists will be the focus of the shows because of the absence of Majestic’s traditional circus animals such as lions and elephants, Kay said. They stayed back in Canada because Hawai’i laws prohibit the introduction of exotic animals into the state, Kay said.
It will be the first time in recent years that a circus has come to Kaua’i.
Circuses are a welcome throwback to a time when life was more simple and slower, Kay said.
“Circuses will never fade. It is wholesome entertainment for the whole family,” she said.
Among the high points of the Majestic act are the raising of its blue-and-white vinyl big top. Described as a huge production that takes about two hours, the effort involves the unraveling of the tent from a spool truck and spreading it across the showgrounds. Stakes are driven, and poles and miles of rope and cable are unloaded and readied by teams of laborers before the tent is raised.
Circus personnel will be on hand to explain how it is all done, Kay said. Students are invited.
Once the tent is up, some of the star performers will be Dominique Ste-Catherine, known as the queen of the world-renowned Canadian International Circus, and the brother-and-sister acrobatic act of Paul and Alicia Franklin, part of an Argentine family that has performed with circuses in South America for the past five generations.
During its Hawai’i tour, Majestic is also putting on shows on Maui, Big Island and at Aloha Stadium on O’ahu.
“Everybody loves to perform here,” Kay said. “The audiences are so appreciative.”
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
