With high-wire walkers, trapeze artists and acrobats, the Big Apple Circus performs under a “Big Top” tent at Somerville’s Assembly Row through Sunday, May 6. Update: The show has been extended through May 13. (Tickets.)
This year marks the 40th anniversary year of the circus, which was founded in New York in 1977. It’s known for being modeled after the traditional European “one ring” circus, which keeps the audience close to the action. The current edition has an intimate feeling—and is centered on dazzling human skill.
The circus almost folded in 2016 due to financial problems that it says began with the Great Recession of 2008. But it resumed performances last fall after being purchased by Big Top Works early in 2017.
Among the headlining acts is high-wire walker Nik Wallenda, a ninth generation circus performer, who has “walked” over Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. His wife, Erendira Wallenda is on her mother’s side an eighth generation performer of the Ashtons of Australia, the third oldest circus family in the world. On her father’s side, she is the seventh generation of the Vazquez trapeze artists from Mexico, “known worldwide as the first to successfully complete the quadruple somersault.” Last summer, she broke her husband’s record for “iron jaw” by hanging from a helicopter, by her teeth, 300 feet above Niagara Falls.
The lineup is full of family acts with long traditions in the circus. The Anastasini Brothers—Guiliano, 27, and Fabio, 20—are the ninth generation of a circus family and have been performing professionally together for 10 years. They learned their Risley act—acrobatics in which one seemingly juggles the other with his feet—from their father. And three Garcia brothers perform in three different acts. Dandino, the oldest, is in the roller-skating act. Gamal, the middle brother, is a juggler. And Ammed is a flyer in the trapeze act.
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