PBS looks under the Big Top withSFlb‘Circus’

November 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Luaine Lee

McClatchy Newspapers

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

If you’ve always wanted to run away and join the circus, here’s your chance. The six-hour series “Circus,” about life inside the big top, rolls into a PBS station near you Wednesday.

Made up of relative newcomers and acts that go back as far as seven generations, “Circus” reveals what goes on behind the tent flaps of the Big Apple Circus, which began performing 33 years ago.

The filmmakers considered many circuses before they decided to train their lens on the Big Apple. “There aren’t that many wonderful, great circuses as you would think or imagine across the country, but we did look at a number, says Maro Chermayeff, executive producer, co-creator and director of the show.

“And we were very drawn to the Big Apple for a number of reasons. It was a traditional one-ring circus that was performing at a level of excellence that it was considered one of the top circuses in the world. We had people saying, ‘I would give my left leg to ... get a Big Apple gig.’

“We knew our story was not about the making of a show. It was about life behind the scenes. It was a character-driven series about a group of people coming together in this amazing high-stakes and exciting environment of the circus. So there were a lot of factors that were weighing in,” he says.

“We wanted to be with a traveling circus. We wanted to be with a group who lived together, ate together, performed together and traveled. And so I think those were the major factors, [and] the quality of the show itself.”

One of Big Apple’s top bananas is Alida Wallenda-Cortes, of the famous Flying Wallendas. “My family goes back over 200 years in the circus business, and my daughter is continuing on with our family tradition. She’s performing as well,” she says.

Wallenda-Cortes defies gravity with her husband and his brother in a world- renowned trapeze act called The Flying Cortes. She started working with her parents’ act when she was 3 and has mastered several disciplines.

She says she would rather not perform with companies such as Cirque du Soleil or Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. “It’s about the glitz and the showing smoke-and-mirrors kind of thing, where they think that the more action that’s going on in the rings, the better. But you really can’t focus on anything. So coming from a multigenerational circus family, I would rather be in the one-ring where I can focus on the people in the ring and performing to my best of abilities and, hopefully, bring some happiness into their lives,” she says.

Her family is known for not working with nets. She says that all started when the net was lost in transit. “We don’t work with a net. Way back when my family came to the United States, they used to perform with a net, but in their travels over here, the net was lost in shipping. So that’s when my family started not performing with a net, and it kind of has grown from that, that we don’t like to go up there doing something that we’re not 100 percent sure. If we don’t know how to do it good enough without the net, then we shouldn’t be doing it.

“That is applicable for high-wire, not applicable for flying trapeze because flying trapeze is such split-second timing that we have to have the net. So flying trapeze, I use a net; high-wire, I do not.”

The series proves there is something special about circus people, and Wallenda- Cortes agrees. “Circus is not just something we came to play one day and decided, ‘Oh, this looks like it might be fun for a day or so.’ It’s something that gets into your heart and that you have to live.”

Christian Stoinev, 19, is an acrobat and one of the youngest members of the circus. But he’s no beginner. He’s a fifth-generation circus performer.

“My situation is a little different because I’m in college now, and I’m lucky enough that at the university — I’m at Illinois State — there’s also a circus program there. There’s only two schools nationwide that have circus programs. It’s Illinois State and Florida State, and those are my last two choices, and I was like ‘Ooh, which one?’ I went to Illinois, got a lot of scholarships, which helped, and in my situation, I’m still staying in shape. So it works out perfect,” he says.

“Circus is in my heart. I grew up with that, but at the same time, you know, school was a priority always with my parents and myself. My parents really pushed for me to make sure I studied because most circus families — a lot of circus families don’t even ... since they have their acts and they have a future, they can kind of forget about school because they have a lifestyle, saying, ‘Well, why go when we already have something to do?’ In my case, it’s kind of the same, but it’s always good to have more options in life, and I’m still young.”