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The fun, energy, and hard work integral to the exciting world of the circus is lovingly captured in The Contemporary Circus: Art of the Spectacular, an in depth look at the creative process of today's circuses. Through numerous personal interviews with directors, designers, composers and performers, author Ernest Albrecht provides a unique inside view of the journey through which the most innovative and exciting modern circuses are produced, from the director and production team to the performers, and from designing the circus to setting it to music. Case studies of specific productions by the Big Apple Circus, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, and Cirque du Soleil illuminate the artistic give-and-take necessary in such a collaborative process, proving the circus a true art form, one as artistic as theatre or dance. A variety of performers such as animal trainers, dancers, and clowns discuss their approach to their individual specialties, and the text concludes with an examination of the world's circuses and schools and their methods for training circus artists. A full photo spread of 30 beautiful photos will help inspire and enlighten artists and fans alike.

The Pickle clowns have performed to great acclaim with Cirque du Soleil, Circus Flora, and the Pickle Family Circus in dance concerts, one-person shows, and plays by Beckett, Brecht, Fo, O’Casey, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Molière. For the first time outside a circus ring, the Pickle clowns reveal all about their popular comedy acts, their eccentric dances, and the state of the circus in the United States and abroad.

This volume offers conversations with the clowns themselves, Lorenzo Pickle (Larry Pisoni), Willy the Clown (Bill Irwin), Mr. Sniff (Geoff Hoyle), Queenie Moon (Joan Mankin), Ralph Deliberate (Donald Forrest), Ms. Wombat (Andrea Snow), Pino (Diane Wasnak), and Razz (Jeff Raz). Also interviewed are Ramona the Tap-Dancing Gorilla (circus choreographer Kimi Okada) and artistic director and choreographer Tandy Beal. Four clown acts are included to best demonstrate both the unique humor and craft of the Pickle clowns. [editor summary]

The Congress of Clowns is a new collection of essays on Russian circus satire. The book introduces American readers to some of the century's greatest political clowns, including Vladimir Durov, Vitaly Lazarenko, Yuri Nikulin, and Boris Yeltsin.

Russian clowns, Russian political satire, and Russian theatre are discussed in these essays by Joel Schechter. The author argues that clowns are the "intellectuals of the circus," and when freedom of expression is restricted in Russia, circus clowns are among the most outspoken intellectuals in the whole society, although their dissent takes comic and indirect forms.

In successive chapters, Schechter examines Yuri Nikulin's plan to set free all the animals in his circus; the threat laughter posed to the Russian revolution; Stalin's direction of the Moscow Circus; anarchist tendencies of clowns and satirists; and Schechter's own revival of Vladimir Durov's trained pig act in the United States.

In a plodding academic study, Albrecht, who teaches English at Middlesex County College in New Jersey, tells the story of four modern circuses that evolved after the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus abandoned the big top in 1956. They are the Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco, the Big Apple Circus in New York City, Cirque du Soleil in Montreal and Circus Flora in St. Louis. Each offers one-ring productions in the European style, and each operates from a different home base. Albrecht maintains that, combining elements of the counterculture of the 1960s like street performances with those of legitimate theater and dance, these four represent a new brand of circus. Describing their histories, he summarizes the trials brought by economic crises, battles with animal-rights activists and the founding of circus schools, no longer a rarity in the U.S. While Albrecht distinguishes the "alternative circus" from its ancestors, the presence of trapeze artists, jugglers and clowns suggests that it's the same old material wrapped in new diction.