Circus Flora
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
The performers of Circus Flora were all making themselves at home in their little corner of Tom Nevers on Sunday evening. Even Dondi the elephant, fresh off the slow boat, was outside making friends with the neighbors, who had pushed their strollers and brought their cameras all the way to the grass lot where the elephant swung about cheerfully, it seemed. Nearby, Phil and Francine Schacht, the family that saved Dondi from a life of labor and certain death in a Thailand lumber camp, prepared her weeklong accommodations.

There was work to be done - the tent top waited like the tip of massive red ice hot air balloon to be raised by the staff of men working diligently on fittings that need to support everything from aerialists and acrobats to clowns, from horses to humans, and one elephant.

Still, the little neighborhood of trailers was at ease; its residents tending to their duties. Founder David Balding and his wife, Laura, were at the grocery store, as any island visitors would be.

Circus Flora is a one-ring, European-style circus stressing generational craftsmanship and artistry over spectacle. Its performers share more than a stage or even a way of life; they share a heritage of performing given to them by fathers and mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Outside her trailer, sixth-generation circus performer and "bareback ballerina" Tosca Zoppe cleans her horse's stables in a skirt that doesn't get even the slightest bit dirty. As the daughter from the respected Zoppe family, she has been working in the circus since she was a baby.

Inside her trailer, she makes us tea in the kitchen that still smells deliciously of the dinner she prepared the night before for herself and her husband, one of the men outside breathing life into the tent.

"Growing up in this business so amazing because as a child, I saw the world, but not in a dangerous way," Tosca said. "We have a community and our own traveling neighborhood, and your family is always around."

The closeness in the Circus Flora community supports every charmed notion you might have had about the circus. When the members of Circus Flora are done whizzing and flipping and flying and riding around the inside of the big red tent, the don't stop embracing the circus life. They care for their animals themselves, fraternize, sometimes fall in love and marry. In short, these guys are the real deal - committed to the circus as a decent, happy and artistic way of life, as well as a spectacle.

There's a knock on the trailer door. The power is not yet on, and equestrian artist Katja Schumann (of the famed Circus Schumann family in Denmark) asks if she can borrow Zoppe's generator-run stove and oven to bake a cake for her daughter, a recent Barnard graduate and rising equestrian master who is celebrating her 22nd birthday. She's also traveling with Circus Flora, as she's done so many summers before. Last year, Schumann iced her daughter's birthday cake on the slow boat to Nantucket.

Almost all of the children raised in the circus end up performing in the circus, Zoppe said. And that includes 33-year-old Dondi, who was bottle-fed by Phil and Francine Schacht when she came to the states at nine months old. Dondi is the first elephant to perform with the circus since Flora, the circus' namesake, was retired to an elephant sanctuary in 2000. In keeping with the European tradition, Circus Flora has a theatrical bent. This year, the show is entitled "Marrakesh" and is inspired by the Charlie Chan detective stories. Dondi stars as the famous globetrotting detective who spends the show investigating an international crime.

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The European-style circus (comparatively smaller than three-ring circuses) not only makes for more intimate relationships among performers, but also between the performers and the audience. "To be able to interact with the performers and see the sweat on our faces, you're reacting with us, you're a part of us. We give away a little part of ourselves every night when we perform, and in a big arena, you wouldn't have that connection," Zoppe said.

Circus-goers will be able to get close to plenty of their beloved characters from previous performances on island, including Nino The Clown, played by Giovanni Zoppe, as well as Yo-Yo, played by Cecil MacKinnon; the world-famous high wire act The Flying Wallendas; trapeze artists The Flying Pages and equestrian aerialist Sasha Alexandre Nevidonski.

New this year are Tosca, "The Human Slinky," Alesya Gulevich, who dances with 50 hula hoops, and aerialist acrobats Andrew Adams and Erika Gilfether.

Though the business of the circus is not lost on the performers, neither is the magic of it. "We want them to be carried away. The audience has to forget all about paying phone bills and how to pay the babysitter and this that or the other," Schumann said. "They

need to get away for a few hours." I

On Nantucket, Circus Flora performances include an Opening Night Gala Under The Big Top on Friday, July 27 with dinner, an auction and a circus performance followed by dessert and dancing with Entrain.

The Circus continues on Saturday, July 28 and Sunday, July 29 with 3 and 7 p.m. performances each day and a 5 p.m. seaside barbeque dinner available on Saturday, July 28th. Tickets go on sale at www.nantucketatheneum.org on June 1st and at the Atheneum's box office in the garden at 1 India Street on July 2. Ticket prices are: $15 for children, $35 for adults and $75 for box seats.