By David J. Glenn
Many “children of all ages” dream of running away and joining the circus, but kids with hearing or vision impairments are happy just to be able to enjoy one.
In the first time in Queens, the not-for-profit Big Apple Circus hosted a “Circus of the Senses” in Cunningham Park Monday morning, and some 1,000 area children with visual or auditory disabilities were able to experience the circus.
Big Apple Circus founders Paul Binder, the artistic director, and Michael Christensen, the creative director, narrated the goings-on through headsets for visually impaired kids. For the hearing-impaired youngsters, American Sign Language interpreters were at ringside to narrate the clown antics, acrobats, jugglers, and animal acts.
After the show, several of the visually impaired kids were invited into the circus ring for a “touch session” to feel the sawdust, touch the fabrics of the costumes, and meet the performers – human as well as animal performers.
“Blind or deaf kids seldom have the chance to enjoy live performing arts,” said Binder, a self-described retired juggler who co-founded the Big apple Circus 23 years ago and started the Circus of the Senses 13 years ago. “This is a way for us to serve an underserved audience.”
To those who may worry about the treatment of animals at circuses, Big Apple spokesman Phil Thurston stressed that Big Apple uses only horses and dogs, species which “have been domesticated since the dawn of human history.” Animal-rights protesters, he said, usually complain about circuses' treatment of elephants and big cats, which are not accustomed to being controlled by humans.
Thurston added that the Big Apple Circus has an expressed policy of treating animals “with care and love.”
The Big Apple Circus runs through May 28 in Cunningham Park.
