The Circus was in town

This past weekend marked the second annual Leuven Circus, a charming, home-grown affair whose organizers mine the local Circus school for participants. There were performers who can balance expertly on stilts, women who can dance atop enormous moving balls, men who are masters at manipulating exceedingly large puppets. There were trapeze artists and gymnasts and even a little wagon with a bug circus, a queue snaking out its door with wiggling children and their smiling parents. There were fireworks, right above our heads, in time with the energetic sounds of a percussion band, De Shemayet, and night goblins who rode around lighting fires. We could not have had better weather for it. It was delightful.

For the opening, they brought in the professional Big Boy, a tight-rope walker who made it from one side of Ladeuzeplein to the other, over the heads of a buzzing crowd, ending at the University Library steeple. No less than 200 meters, and with, I’m sure, quite a wind, up there all alone. In the introductory announcement, they laid all his cards on the table – Michel Menin, in his mid-60’s. He had done tight-rope walks more than 500 times, a true veteran. H. leaned over later and commented - It makes it all a little more boring to say he’s an expert. They should have told us he was an accountan who just discovered this new hobby after his retirement, and after he learned to manage his severe tremors, less than a year ago! I did plenty of nail-biting anyway.

My sister, at some point, wondered aloud if New York had anything like this – fun and cute, community-grown and community-oriented. I smiled. I don’t know, but it seems a bit unreplicable, even (or maybe especially) in the Big Apple. Authentic to my small, charming home.