A corner at Walls Off Washington, where a six-limbed dinosaur threatens a human with a torch. The beast seems to radiate like Godzilla. The St. Louis Big Top is in the right background, home of our own Circus Flora. The season is about to start and we're taking the grandkid on Saturday.
One of the nice things about The Lou is that we have our own resident circus company, Circus Flora, https://circusflora.org/ and that it has its own permanent big top tent. It has resumed live shows after a long period of Covid-enforced quiet. Of course, we took Ellie. She pretty much squealed for two hours.
Something I really appreciate is that they have no objection to photography, unlike most events. It was often tough to shoot under the dark blue canopy with spotlights and daylight from the sides, open for ventilation, creating wild dynamic range. Still, there are some cute images.
One of the nice things about this town is that we have a permanent big top tent. Its main purpose is the home of our resident circus company but other events take place there. Our summer opera company is putting on a burst of performance there this weekend. Difficult circumstances but better than sitting idle for another year.
We went to a matinee performance of The Tales of Hoffman yesterday. The tent is open-sided but not air conditioned and has no interior fans. It was 90 F / 32 C. The two male leads were, um, portly and portlier, wearing three piece suits. (The reed-thin soprano, who was fabulous, calls herself Brooklyn Snow, which I don't believe for a minute.) The whole company did a heroic job. (I started swooning in the third act.) However, we have tickets this afternoon for a performance of The Barber of Seville and the forecast is for 97 F / 36 C. We wonder if it will be canceled. If it's not, we wonder whether we will make it past intermission. We wonder if Almaviva will suffer heat stroke on stage.
Back to sunflowers tomorrow.
Circus Flora's performance this weekend was a scaled-down, late pandemic affair. There were no full trapeze acts like I saw the last time I took my granddaughter. A swing had to suffice but I could not have imagined how beautifully someone could dance on a bar in the air.
One of the nice things about this town is that we have a permanent circus company, Circus Flora, https://circusflora.org/, with a permanent big top tent for a home. It has been dark for a long time but it returned this weekend with a limited production. There was a reduced, well spaced audience and the sides of the tent were open for ventilation. The traditional ring was replaced by two smaller stages.
If you look carefully, you can see that this performer is hanging by her hair, or seems to be. Ellie couldn't believe it and I, too, find it hard to understand.
