really great moments from being a performer

[Ivan Bellari]

some obvious moments come from huge crowds and great hats... which are few enough to still really make me grin ....
and then there are the brief times when a show just happens to be really great , if to no one but the person in the circle..


but more so , it's the chance to really look at something from the inside, if i hadn't decided to be a performer i would never have experienced...

a few hit's are:

the first time we ( ashCircle ) did a combo show with the New York Street boys... from denver.

watching the jebidiah experience have breakfast ( looking so very much like an old married couple ) in the gallery restaraunt in singapore.

sitting in the sun and listening to some conspiracy theory's

coffee with jim and melissa ( laylalala la la la )

ok the list gets really long ....

so i'll end with this one

i don't remember what festival it was , but we had packed up and were getting ready to roll out... but before i left i wandered the pitches and caught some of the performers who were doing the last of their shows ... and there was Lee Zimmerman .. falling on the noon day sword ... doing his act for a grand total of about 4 people ... but he was giving it all it's worth...

there is always something sad at the end of a festival, good, but sad.. and ... if i hadn't had the chance to perform i would never have met some great people , like lee, and the NySb's, Fasthorse, Richard of bongo bolero, Checkers...

oh hell the list of good people i have met performing goes on ...

it's a good life sometimes , even though in my experince it is a feast and famine existence...

but i don't think any other profession can give us what it gives us.. or take what it takes..

meh.. i'm rambling
merry whatever,and joyous thingies as well..

ivan,
ashCircle

[Butterfly Man]

at my age it's just decay management

Great moments … hmmm … uh, can’t remember much but …

… there was that cop in San Jose in ’86 who I fought onstage with the boffers (he was funny) … that was the beginning of “Renegade” shows.

… the prison show in Spain where Cotton came out with more hash than he went in with …

… Surfer’s Paradise when Nick, Pep and me all took on the Hare Krishna’s for control of Cavell Mall …

Edinburgh, when Chris the Piss stuck a banger (roman candle) up his ass and it short-fused …


Covent Garden, watching KeaneO for the first time ... '85


The “church” pitch in Halifax ‘88 … still my biggest hat.


Performing with Peter Petofsky @ the 1982 US Festival … (btw I also did some lines backstage with David Lee Roth … cool).

Spraying David Aiken (The Checkerboard Guy) with white fire retardant chemicals while he was juggling 3 torches on a freestanding ladder.

and pretty much every time I made a kid cry ...

[jester]

Unicycling through Salisbury in my Motley once a policeman stepped into the road ahead of me and signalled for me to pull over. I thought I was in trouble for using a monocycle on the busy road. He then walked up to me completely deapan, walked around me and said "Is this your vehicle Sir?"

I said "Yes Officer."

He then checked the tyre, rang every bell on my motley and found one that didn't work and wrote me out a ticket. While doing this he asked if I had insurance, a licence and all the other stuff they ask, where am I going etc etc.

I played along and he gave me a ticket marked "Void." and completely deadpan sent me on my way. A curious audience had build up on the sidewalk and he didn't crack even the slightest grin through his little act.

Everyone else cheered him as he gave me my ticket.

[Daniel Craig]

Ivan-

You said it perfectly:

"nothing can give what it gives or take what it takes"

Nothing can give me the same feeling of comaderie and community that I have experienced from being a entertainer. The most fantastic experiences for me in my short humble career have been...

#1 - Orchard Rd. shows. Seriously. Talk about feel good.

#2 - The late night show in Waterloo as Jesus.

#3 - Seeing the world (obviously)

And of course meeting all of the fantastic people... The list is phenomenal... Jimbo (who I consider one of my best friends), Rick and Ivan, Kelly, Sylvain, Nikki and Richard, Etienne, the New York Streeters, Checkers, Dynamike, the USA Breakers, Nimmo, blah blah blah I could go on for days.

I think about the shows I've done and really what the ultimate goal of being an entertainer is. The moments of revelation when I can toss aside the financial and business aspects and realize that I *entertain* makes me believe that, yes, we are all essential, irreplaceable parts of a world that needs our services and we are where we are today for a reason... The reasons that the universe (or insert deity of choice here) made us follow this path... Who knows? All I know is that I'm happy with my life and happy that I've met so many wonderful people. If you step aside from the money and think about it... It feels really really good.

(end ramble)

Happy holidays
Dan

[Kim]

Playing a gig in the rain at 2am to 11 people in a field more full of water than dirt...

Throwing my diabolo up and having it land on...
- my amp
- a baby
- a handicapped person
- a now unhandicapped person

Twisting my ankle trying to save a baby from a diabolo and being virtually unable to hobble out and recieve my "golden paving stone" which weighs 7kg and will cost me an extra $65.00 to fly back from Switzerland...

Being physically assaulted by a minister of the cloth during my show, and then having him lecture me about using sexual inuendo...

Signing a contract that resulted in me having to listen to the "Tweenies" and "Butt Ugly Martians" singalong shows no less than 87 times in 6 days...

Working when my friends are relaxing, and vice versa...

Never being able to relax and enjoy any event where there are more than 50 people in one place...


Good Times People!

[Famos Bramwells]

I am only writing this 'cos I am drunk as every time I have tried to think about it my life has slowed down, so many to remember.... on the reeperbahn watching a firework display with my audience, so many shows on the grassy bank in Edinburgh, having an entire audience shout REPENT!! REPENT!!! after twenty minutes playing with mad preacher, compering Chris the Piss at Glastonbury, the last 40 minutes compering the Outside Circus Stage there this year (hundreds of memories from that festival over the years) blah blah blah ...oh yes and watching Butterfly spraying Checkers with the fire extinguisher at Halifax ,running out of the tent with everybody else and then watching him begin to clean the chemicals off the bands instruments. Happy days

[Chris Griffith]

My best hat ever

Edmonton, 1992 -- still green around the ears, I was trying desperately to hold my own next to the likes of Butterfly Man, Gazzo, Christoff, etc. (None of whom remember me, I was so unmemorable).

By some strange twist of logic, the festival organizers decided to give the performers Friday night off & schedule a lame children's band for the frothing public instead.

Not needing any further encouragement, all the really good & talented performers immediately went off to various strip clubs and drinking establishments. I stayed in my lonely hotel room, wondering why I wasn't as cool as everyone else.

THEN-- a knock on the door, a festival organizer desperate to find a single street performer. Apparently, there was a HUGE crowd on the square very dissappointed and unhappy with the children's band, looking for a busker. I grabbed my stuff, they escorted me to the site.

I was supposed to wait 45 minutes to begin my show, until the band finished up their set, but as I set up and word started to get around that there was an actual (gasp!) street performer on the square (and he was sober!) I soon had a crowd of nearly 300 people around me, and nobody in front of the band.

Not wanting to lose the opportunity of the such a large crowd, but having promised not to actually start my show for another 45 minutes, I just started improvising, playing with people & doing whatever I could think of to keep their attention. I started to play around & have fun.

I was the only performer they managed to drag out, and people were hungry for a performance. I gave them one of the best I've ever done, nearly an hour and a half & they in turn gave me my biggest hat.

[Jimbo]

hmmm well first off Dan thanks for word I also consider you dear to my heart, and while I have you here...just a little whiff.

That would have to be the best part of the tours, screw performing for hundreds sometimes thousands of people making them laugh and smile. No No No, it would be the stuff between towns in good ole XEGEK. like the time Dan had to pee really bad but he didn't want to pee on the road, and would not go into a bar to use the toilets (unfortunatly he did not piss his pants dispite all our efforts). Dynamike spraying water all over my crotch. spitting tooth paste on the window of my van. Last minute desisions to leave a festival and see Hawksley Workman at the Ottowa Blues fest.

There is a very small number of people I can be in a van for 72 hours with, and Dan would have to be number one on the list.

CIRCUS INDESTRUCTABLE

[Stretch]

Happy memories!

My first Parade: Uncle Sam on stilts with the Colorado Clowns at the 1997 Denver St. Patrick's parade. It was 20F degrees, and I was sweating like a horse two blocks into the parade!

The nervouse sweat running down my ribs as I put on my make up in preperation for crashing the Denver People's Fair to learn my craft.

Stilt dancing in the rain at Aztec, NM to a "crowd" of the band, the C of C rep and two others!

Frustrating a youngster trying to pull my pants down halfway through the 1999 Dublin Marathon.

Stepping out of the loo at the start of the 2001 Dublin Marathon to the sight and sound of at least 20 flashbulbs going off !

Crossing the finish line at said marathons after 26 miles on stilts.

Getting my jumbo q-tip "stuck" in that kids ear at the Denver People's Fair. He played along, and we fed each other lines for what seemed like forever. Before it was over I discovered illegal alien mice living in his ears, discussed PETA- People for the Ethical Treatment of mice in your ears, John Ashcroft, the size of his bathroom door, and more. I actually cuffed him for "not" cooperating and he loved it. His parents loved it, and his brother thought I was a god.

Filming those kids, and their parents chasing giant bubbles from my solar powered bubble tower.

Sky dancing to a live band and spontaneous applause at the Lone Tree Independence Day celebration.

"Ushering" patrons to their seats at the Lone Tree concert in the park series. I was "most" helpful!

Meeting Martin at the Denver Buskerfest.
Taping Gleno at CHCH. It took three tries, I was laughing so hard!
Watching and laughing as my partner "volunteered" for MisBehave at Nelson. WHERE did she find a cucumber that big?!

There's more of course. Not bad for a second child hood that started at age 43!

[jester]

Walking out of an arena in the dark I tripped up and from the ground I looked up as fireworks exploded over our heads. Andy Stilts Walker was leading the guys in his long leather trench coat, I could see him and the entire troupe illuminated, and the theme to "Pulp Fiction" was rrrrumming through the PA.

Purposefully he strode towards me, held out his hand and pulled me back onto my feet. I momentarily forgot how busy we were, how much there was to do and looked at what we were doing, what we had just done and just what we were a part off.... then I was back on my feet and back to work.