The Start of my Circus Career - Kinoshita Circus Review
“You know, we probably wouldn’t even be going to the circus if it wasn’t for the fact that we know people in it,” my boyfriend said, as we walked away due to poor planning on our part, and the circus being a lot busier than expected.
He was right, I probably would have seen the sign for Kinoshita Circus and thought ‘huh, there’s a circus in town’ and continued on my merry way.
However, working in the nearest bar to the place the circus was located meant that I encountered a few of the circus members who eagerly invited us to come and watch them.
So it seemed natural that when it was mentioned the circus would be leaving in a couple of weeks, we decided to finally pop down.
Usually, I’d imagine the business would start dying off, the closer to the end we were but somehow, on a Monday afternoon, the circus was completely full, with myself, my boyfriend and a couple of dozen other people left to return another day, if we wanted.
And we couldn’t not go, after promising we would, so the next day we made plans to get there much earlier and bag ourselves some reserved seats.
At ¥3000 for an adult advance ticket, plus ¥1800 for reserved seats (thought there was a range of ¥1000 to ¥2500, depending on where you sat, or the option of queuing for a non-reserved seat), I was hoping for something pretty good (not that I know much about the cost of circuses), plus I’d heard so much about it already, both from circus staff and other customers at the bar I work.
Certainly, I’d say it was worth the effort of two attempts to go, made all the more exciting by the fact that we knew some of the people performing.
As we entered the area outside of the tent, we saw a good selection of gifts (I made plans to head back later) and made our way to get some popcorn (at my insistence of course). The popcorn, costing me ¥300 was a little overpriced for the amount, and wholly disappointing. No worries, I finished it before the show even began and thought no more about disappointing popcorn when a member of staff approached us and began speaking to my boyfriend.
Now I don’t speak Japanese at all, but, I recognised a name and a few words and gathered a pretty clear understanding of the conversation.
My boyfriend turned to me and started to say “She’s asking if...”. I already knew the answer, “yep! Awesome!”
See, the name was one of the guys that came to the bar more frequently, and I knew that he was one half of a skating duo act. I also knew that their act involved spinning around a member of the audience and I he’d already mentioned taking me if I decided to visit the circus.
From that point onwards, I sat in the circus seats incredibly nervous about being spun until the lights stared changing and the show began.
Kinoshita Circus markets itself as ‘The Greatest Circus in the World’, and while this is a huge claim to make, and while I don’t know a lot about circuses, I’d say that it wasn’t far off.
Certainly, the acts were enthralling and transitions between acts were impressively smooth. It was, of course, made more exciting by spotting people you’d only really seen quite inebriated in the past performing some pretty amazing acts.
Soon enough, my time to shine came. I nervously skipped on over to the ring and was greeted by my friends who gave me a quick overview on what I should do (hands and arms like ‘this’, legs straight, stay still), giving me barely enough time to consider how I was the clumsiest person in the world and if anything could go wrong, it would go wrong with me, before picking me up and spinning me.
I couldn’t really focus on the moment though, I was too busy wondering where I should look in order to avoid dizziness. The audience? Probably not, I was spinning to fast to fix my eyes on one point. At one of the people spinning me? No, that would be weird. Close my eyes? I’m not sure. And then it as over, I was set down, nearly fell over and hopped back to my seat in a dizzy, adrenaline filled haze.
The rest of the circus passed by with even more enthusiasm from me, now that I could focus, and I left with a toy lion in my bag, a pretty cool video of me and the satisfaction of having the experience of being part of the show, not to mention the overall enjoyment of sitting and watching what certainly could be one of the ‘Greatest Circuses in the World’.
He was right, I probably would have seen the sign for Kinoshita Circus and thought ‘huh, there’s a circus in town’ and continued on my merry way.
However, working in the nearest bar to the place the circus was located meant that I encountered a few of the circus members who eagerly invited us to come and watch them.
So it seemed natural that when it was mentioned the circus would be leaving in a couple of weeks, we decided to finally pop down.
Usually, I’d imagine the business would start dying off, the closer to the end we were but somehow, on a Monday afternoon, the circus was completely full, with myself, my boyfriend and a couple of dozen other people left to return another day, if we wanted.
And we couldn’t not go, after promising we would, so the next day we made plans to get there much earlier and bag ourselves some reserved seats.
At ¥3000 for an adult advance ticket, plus ¥1800 for reserved seats (thought there was a range of ¥1000 to ¥2500, depending on where you sat, or the option of queuing for a non-reserved seat), I was hoping for something pretty good (not that I know much about the cost of circuses), plus I’d heard so much about it already, both from circus staff and other customers at the bar I work.
Certainly, I’d say it was worth the effort of two attempts to go, made all the more exciting by the fact that we knew some of the people performing.
As we entered the area outside of the tent, we saw a good selection of gifts (I made plans to head back later) and made our way to get some popcorn (at my insistence of course). The popcorn, costing me ¥300 was a little overpriced for the amount, and wholly disappointing. No worries, I finished it before the show even began and thought no more about disappointing popcorn when a member of staff approached us and began speaking to my boyfriend.
Now I don’t speak Japanese at all, but, I recognised a name and a few words and gathered a pretty clear understanding of the conversation.
My boyfriend turned to me and started to say “She’s asking if...”. I already knew the answer, “yep! Awesome!”
See, the name was one of the guys that came to the bar more frequently, and I knew that he was one half of a skating duo act. I also knew that their act involved spinning around a member of the audience and I he’d already mentioned taking me if I decided to visit the circus.
From that point onwards, I sat in the circus seats incredibly nervous about being spun until the lights stared changing and the show began.
Kinoshita Circus markets itself as ‘The Greatest Circus in the World’, and while this is a huge claim to make, and while I don’t know a lot about circuses, I’d say that it wasn’t far off.
Certainly, the acts were enthralling and transitions between acts were impressively smooth. It was, of course, made more exciting by spotting people you’d only really seen quite inebriated in the past performing some pretty amazing acts.
Soon enough, my time to shine came. I nervously skipped on over to the ring and was greeted by my friends who gave me a quick overview on what I should do (hands and arms like ‘this’, legs straight, stay still), giving me barely enough time to consider how I was the clumsiest person in the world and if anything could go wrong, it would go wrong with me, before picking me up and spinning me.
I couldn’t really focus on the moment though, I was too busy wondering where I should look in order to avoid dizziness. The audience? Probably not, I was spinning to fast to fix my eyes on one point. At one of the people spinning me? No, that would be weird. Close my eyes? I’m not sure. And then it as over, I was set down, nearly fell over and hopped back to my seat in a dizzy, adrenaline filled haze.
The rest of the circus passed by with even more enthusiasm from me, now that I could focus, and I left with a toy lion in my bag, a pretty cool video of me and the satisfaction of having the experience of being part of the show, not to mention the overall enjoyment of sitting and watching what certainly could be one of the ‘Greatest Circuses in the World’.
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