Sarasota’s Joseph Bauer Jr. has at all times admired ringmasters.
It was their ability to capture the audience’s attention with just their voices.
He wondered if he fit the bill.
In 1991 in Saskatchewan, Canada, Bauer Jr. he got a probability to seek out out when the ringmaster wasn’t going to reach on time for the tour wherein his family was performing.
Bauer Jr. had at all times announced the ringmaster, so Bauer Jr.’s father, Joseph Bauer Sr., asked him to step in.
“I said, ‘Dad, there’s no way, I don’t know all these people’s announcements and introductions,’” Bauer Jr. says. “He said, ‘Hey, are you going to let the circus down?’”
Bauer Jr. went around to the several acts to get information on them to arrange his introductions.
He went on the market and did his best.
“I still don’t understand how I pulled that off,” he says. “I just thought, ‘Do it.’ And I did, and I loved it ever since. As soon as I got on the mic the primary time I knew it was something I used to be going to maintain doing.”
Now, 32 years later, Bauer Jr. will take center ring once more under the Big Top because the ringmaster for Circus Sarasota.
For Sarasota natives Bauer and Sylvia Zerbini, returning to the Big Top at Nathan Benderson Park means having one other opportunity to perform of their hometown.
“It’s a blessing,” Bauer says. “It’s something special that not many individuals can do, and consider me, it has its challenges. I feel gifted and thankful that I can still be on this industry and be here in Sarasota. What history is on this town. That is Circus City USA.”
Zerbini says performing in her hometown is an ideal pleasure.
“Each time you return, you simply feel the heat of the audience,” she says. “Sarasota is an ideal city that appreciates the circus arts. It’s an honor to be a component of a production that does a lot with the Sailor Circus Academy teaching newer generations the understanding of the discipline.”
Bauer says being under the Big Top in front of a sold out crowd during Circus Sarasota is electrical.
“The opening night is just at all times wow,” he says. “It gets you irrespective of how persistently you step foot within the ring. That night in that tent when it’s jam packed and so they’re waiting to see what they brought us this yr, it’s great.”
Family affair
The circus arts are a family legacy for Bauer and Zerbini.
Bauer’s family has been within the circus arts for greater than 250 years, spanning 15 generations. His parents, Elizabeth Bauer and Joseph Bauer Sr., each got here from circus families in Switzerland.
Zerbini’s family has been performing for nine generations.
Bauer learned every part he knows about aerial stunts from his father and grandfather.
“They taught me the fundamentals I needed to rise up within the air, and once I used to be up there, then the sky was the limit for me,” Bauer says.
Acting at Madison Square Garden as a family, Bauer remembers Lonnie Shrine, a reporter from the Latest York Times, interviewing the family of 4 daredevils. He says Shrine was in awe of seeing his family flying around and risking their lives.
“He said, ‘I assume you guys stay together, and the family that sways together, stays together,’” Bauer says. “That made the headlines of the best show on earth, and that was the reality. All of us weren’t scared. All of us learned from them. We carried on, and we were swaying and staying together so long as we could.”
Zerbini grew up watching her father, Tarzan Zerbini, work with wild animals like elephants, lions and tigers, while her mother, Jackie Zerbini, was a trapeze artist.
Their backyard was literally a circus, but to Zerbini, that was normal. She would get up every morning to do chores and take care of the animals before going to highschool. She traveled eight to nine months out of the yr, and the remaining of the yr she was back at college in Sarasota.
“Growing up on a flying trapeze and having animals around was normal — we didn’t know anything different,” Zerbini says. “It was quite an incredible strategy to grow up, learning how each animal had their very own language and learning how you can respect different animals. It was nothing out of the unusual for us.”
At 5 years old, Zerbini quickly took an interest in horses and in addition loved aerial work.
“Horses are super sensitive,” Zerbini says. “You possibly can have a look at a horse and he can literally inform you what he wants. It’s the emotion and a connection that a horse has with a human being that’s like no other. There have been all these subtle cues that as a baby I picked up on, and I take advantage of quite a lot of that body language and energy reference to the horses.”
It wasn’t until Zerbini was performing with the Ringling Bros. in 1998 when Kennedy Feld proposed she mix her trapeze act along with her horse act. She went on to descend from the air to satisfy her Liberty horses on the bottom.
Bauer remembers his first time acting on stage.
He was in Osaka, Japan at Toshimaya Park where his parents and sister were performing. At only 7 years old, Bauer was used to watching from the sidelines in awe of what his family could do.
The director of the park questioned why Bauer Jr. wasn’t performing. Bauer Sr. said he was too young; the park director insisted Bauer Jr. be within the show.
When it got here to the top of the Fearless Bauer’s performance, Bauer Sr. called his son onto the stage. Bauer Jr. ended up doing a handstand on his father’s forearm.
“I used to be a little bit nervous, but seeing my mom and pa and my sister on the stage, I felt form of protected,” Bauer says. “It was a really quick thing, after which I took my little bow on one knee.”
Bauer Jr. went on to have a small part within the show whether it was doing handstands or juggling. It was until he was 15 that he followed in his parents’ footsteps and began practicing to perform on the sway poles that were greater than 100 feet within the air.
Bauer continues to perform on the Wheel of Death, most recently in Fort Wayne, Indiana on the Shrine Circus. At 57 years old, Bauer says he has to remind himself of the risks of acting on the large wheel since it’s change into second nature to him.
“That you must still respect it,” he says. “My biggest concern is at all times things around me while I’m on that wheel since it is 50 feet to the highest. My job is to thrill audiences as much as I can on it and watch out at the identical time. It’s good to be that comfortable, but it may even be a little bit dangerous because you’re taking it as a right that it’ll be advantageous. That’s normally if you get hurt.”
As much as he loves acting on the large wheel, Bauer is contemplating retiring his daredevil act, possibly at Circus Sarasota in 2024.
“If that might occur, I believe it could be a really, very special and rewarding place to finish,” Bauer says.
Zerbini doesn’t travel to perform anymore because there aren’t many circuses that allow horses. When she’s not performing, she’s doing independent work at different facilities resembling the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Florida.
She will be able to’t wait to point out people the fantastic thing about her 11 Liberty horses in an “equine ballet.”
“It’s great to have an audience sit back, calm down and disappear into your world,” Zerbini says. “I even have amazing music, and I choreographed a routine the horses dance to. There’s a hoop filled with horses so there isn’t a room for mistakes. For those who’re sitting within the ringside seats, you’ll feel the wind and smell the horses just blowing by your face.”