Big top, big fun The return of the Big Apple Circus BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

In the first years of the Big Apple Circus coming to Charlestown, those of us who hadn’t experienced the intimacy of a one-ring European circus — at the Big Apple, no seat is more than 50 feet from the performers — were amazed, captivated, thrilled, utterly transported by our delight. "But isn’t a circus just ‘entertainment?’ " friends would ask. (As if there’s anything wrong with that.) But, no, I would answer, to me it’s certainly art when an evening of performances takes me so completely back to the carefree days of childhood, a time when my sister and I tried out all manner of backyard gymnastic feats with each other, on swings, with rubber balls, on monkey bars, with jump ropes, in wading pools, with hula hoops. You get the picture. We would have run away and joined this particular circus for sure!

Fortunately for all of us, co-founder and ringmaster Paul Binder did just that. After doing some theater at Dartmouth and getting an MBA at Columbia, he stage-managed Julia Child’s The French Chef before heading to the West Coast and learning to juggle with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. He joined forces with Michael Christensen and together they busked their way through Europe and right into the ring of Annie Fratellini’s Nouveau Cirque de Paris. They returned to New York and established the Big Apple Circus in 1977.

This year marks the 26th anniversary of putting on a show under the big top, and it’s their 18th in Charlestown. Each season, the producers and directors of the Big Apple decide on a theme, and this year it’s Carnevale!, a colorful mix of masks, music, and mayhem from places around the world where Mardi Gras is celebrated, including Venice, Rio de Janeiro, Trinidad, Cuba, New Orleans, and Jamaica. Featured performers are the ever-popular Grandma (Barry Lubin), who was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 2002; Los Aregos, an acrobatic trio from Cuba; a dog act with Russian trainer Andrey Markov; a high wire trio, the Carillos; hula-hoop twirler Alesya Goulevich from Belarus; Ukrainian comic Vallery Serebryakov; Katja Schumann with her Arabic horses; and, returning from last year, the Aniskin Troupe, performing on trapeze and mini-trampoline.

In a recent phone conversation with Binder, he related his discovery of the Aniskins: "I was looking for a classic act, with a classic look and a certain rhythm. I was watching this group, and they had all these wonderful tricks, such as triple somersaults and, in addition, they have a cradle in the middle of the air. To top it all off, they have a trampoline. That’s three different genres. And the fourth thing they do is a Russian swing — a bar from which they get launched in different directions. Four different genres — that was news when I saw it."

The Aniskins’ first appearance with the Big Apple Circus last year was an overwhelming success. Audience members may be less versed in the different kinds of aerial performances than Binder, but they were no less astounded. Similarly, they may not have standards of comparison for the dog act this summer, but they will most likely respond to it with the same enthusiasm.

"These are giant Schnauzers, beautiful black dogs, and they’ve been costumed in horse tails and horse harnesses with a feather headdress, so that they look like little horses," Binder explained. "[Markov] trained the act so that the movements look like horses but done by dogs. Even their gait — they trot around the ring. You think, ‘This can’t be.’ The kids absolutely scream. When they first come out, people think they’re little horses. When I saw it, I realized that it was an astounding feat of training, an amazing thing."

Another intriguing animal act in this year’s circus is a quartet of very light-colored dromedaries which were bred on a farm in Missouri and hand-weaned in order to make them very connected to human beings.

"It’s still not easy to teach them, because you have to have some kind of understanding about their nature," observed Binder. "These camels can be kind of laconic, so for a while the trainer was doing practices three times a day so they wouldn’t forget the routine."

Binder is also excited about the whole look of the show: "There’s lots of color in the costumes and the dance and music — everything about it is high energy." He noted that costume designer Merina Rada, in her fourth season with the Big Apple, also did the costumes for Avenue Q, the award-winning Broadway musical.

The Big Apple Circus has always included Binder’s wife Katja Schumann and her magnificent horses. Their children Katherine and Max have been part of the show for more than a dozen years. Max, now 17, will be on high stilts and working with the horses this year; Katherine, just completing her first year at Barnard, may or may not be in the show in Charlestown.

Binder says the whole cast and crew always look forward to the Big Apple gigs at Ninigret Park, so different from many of the urban spots where they raise their tent: "There’s a freshwater pond to swim in, sometimes someone invites you out on a boat, and the Rhode Island crowd is terrific." Even after more than two decades as a ringmaster, Binder said, "I love the response of the audience. It’s immediate gratification, and it feels good no matter how many times you’ve done it."

I can certainly say the same about watching the Big Apple Circus.

The Big Apple Circus is at Ninigret Park in Charlestown July 8 through 13. Go to www.bigapplecircus.org for details.