Circus City Festival: Daredevil Kids Play With Fire, Walk on High Wires

In most cases, only highly irresponsible parents let their children walk on ledges and play with fire.

But before you call civil services, you might want to buy a ticket under the big top for Peru, Indiana’s Circus City Festival, one of the country’s premier amateur circuses – and most of the performers are in high school or younger.

In the years after the Civil War, Peru became the winter home of several circuses and traveling shows.

“We were centrally located, with good access to the railroads, and there was plenty of animal feed and farmland for all the animals,” says festival promoter Sandy Ploss.

A Circus Star Is Born

In 1958, Peru started the week-long Circus City Festival, and today, 250 kids from Miami County schools – ages 7 to 21 – train for the trapeze, high wire, juggling, tumbling and, of course, clowning.

“So many circus performers settled here, and so, we’re passing down a tradition,” says Debi Miser, a vice president of the festival and granddaughter of animal trainer Clyde Beatty of the Clyde Brothers, Cole Brothers’ Circus, which toured the East Coast and Midwest in the early part of the 20th Century.

In 1998, kid-performers set a Guinness record for an 8-person pyramid. Since it’s inception, 49 of the children have gone on to circus careers.

According to legend, Peru traces its circus roots back to local businessman Ben Wallace, who acquired a trained baboon, performing birds and other acts through defaulted loans to wintering carneys. By the late 1800, he was a circus powerhouse.

Today’s performers and volunteers are just as industrious. The Circus City festival, which begins July 12, will draw more than 100,000 people, and even more will attend the annual circus parade.

“Ticket sales cover about 50 percent of the cost for the program,” says Miser. “And a lot of the kids keep performing, even when they’re in college.”

Related:

• Photo Highlights of the Circus City Festival
• Tickets, Schedules, Showtimes

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Photo © Circus City Festival