Simply Circus / CircusNews.com

During a Saturday night performance at the International Circus Festival in Indonesia, part of a tent collapsed, injuring two. The collapse is believed to have been caused by heavy rains and strong winds.

Various news services reported that a security officer had banned journalists from entering the scene. The security officer was quoted as saying “You can’t go there, that is an instruction from my boss”.

Today, the local organizer of Cirque Le Masque, Joko Pramulyo, apologized for an incident. “We are deeply sorry for the incident. We are responsible for this,” Joko Pramulyo, the director of PT. Nant Adi Pariwara – the organizer of the circus – said as quoted by detik.com here on Sunday.

He promised to cooperate with the police investigation.

Part of the tent covering a parking lot in Senayan, South Jakarta, suddenly collapsed during the show, injuring two people – Poltar, 37, a cleaning worker and Ilona, 20, a spectator. The two were taken to Mintoharjo Hospital in Central Jakarta with head injuries.

The police suspected the tent was not built strongly enough to withstand the additional weight of rain water delivered by a heavy downpour Saturday night, according to Tanah Abang Police sub-precinct chief Comr. Hendra Gunawan.

JAKARTA, July 3 (Xinhua) — Indonesia will make the International Circus Festival an annual event to commemorate the anniversary of the capital city Jakarta.

Muhammad Hananto, director of PT Nant Adi Pariwara, the organizer of the International Circus Festival 2010, said on Friday that next year, the company will invite more circus groups to make Jakarta’s anniversary more joyful.

“This year’s International Circus Festival scheduled on July 2 to 11 is the first time in Indonesia. Next year, more circus groups will be invited with more stages. We will re-arrange concept, improve things so that it will be better for Indonesia, for Jakarta,” said the 19-year-old director.

He added that circus will provide alternative amusement for people except music performances.

“In line with our theme of “See the World Beautifully”, we invite people to join us in this joyful moment,” he said.

Hananto said that the event would be also useful to promote tourism in the country.

Such an event is also a good effort to introduce other countries’ culture in Indonesia.

Xiao Junkong, 30, team manager of China’s New Shanghai Circus, told Xinhua that the team is happy to bring the Chinese traditional art to Indonesia.

“We are very glad to show our culture of acrobatics here, sharing with other performers all over the world. We hope that families in Jakarta could see us performing,” she said.

Hananto said that bringing circus groups in Indonesia is not an easy job.

“In circus, there are equipments that hard to find. We have to provide the equipments as best as we can so that they could make their best performance,” he said.

“European teams are from Russia, Italy, German and Turkey,” said Hananto.

More than 250 performances will be performed, involving thousands of people.

The La Quinta Museum (California) is scheduled to host an Opening Night Celebration for its newest exhibit, “PT Barnum & the Circus.” The event, set for 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, is slated to feature carnival games, prizes, free popcorn and more. Special guest TC the Clown is also expected to make an appearance and make balloon animals. The event is free and open to the public.

“PT Barnum & the Circus” exhibit will be open through Dec. 31. The new exhibit illustrates the vivid history both of the world of the circus and PT Barnum through a variety of antique posters and artifacts. Visitors can enter a giant circus tent specially built for the exhibition and see an exciting film on circus life. Some of the many items on display include an acrobat’s costume from the 1960′s, PT Barnum’s autobiography from 1871, life size carousel horses and a collection of vintage and antique circus toys. A portion of the exhibit will also touch on the evolution of the circus and its influence on Hollywood stars such as Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, Tom Mix and W.C. Fields.
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The Suburban News (Quebec, CAN) is running this story about Merton Elementary School’s circus.

Romolo Finelli is doing some great things with these kids. Great research article for those studying the effects of a circus program in the school

By WikiNews

A circus elephant managed to escape from her handler on Sunday night in the city of Zurich, Switzerland before being recaptured by local police and circus animal keepers. The 26-year-old female elephant, named Sabu, is from Switzerland’s Zirkus Knie. She was able to make her escape just before being put into a trailer, while the keeper was not paying attention.

Around 1830 local time (1730 UTC), Sabu was seen wading in Lake Zurich for a short time before walking back onto city streets. Zurich police said that Sabu wandered along the Bahnhofstrasse avenue of Zurich, which is known as the city’s most exclusive shopping street. She also passed by Zürich Hauptbahnhof (the city’s main rail station) and Paradeplatz, a square of Bahnhofstrasse, where both Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS AG have headquarters.

For nearly an hour, police chased the elephant around the city before she was finally peacefully recaptured in the Talstrasse section of Zurich. Circus officials and police followed Sabu, but a circus spokesperson said that she did not respond to their calls. Sabu was also said to have been moving so fast that police had difficulty keeping up with her. At about 2000 local time (1900 UTC), a keeper was able to control the animal and load her onto a truck to take her to Winterthur, where the other circus animals were. There were no reports of any damage or injuries during the incident, and although police held back onlookers, at least one bystander managed to capture video of the event.

The circus said that Sabu may have escaped after being frightened by storms near Zurich. After returning to the circus, she was said to be tired, but “pleased to be back.”

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

The KY Post (KY) is running this story about Dave Willacker’s new trapeze school in Newport, KY.

Interesting look at the opening of a new rig. His website can be found here