May 20-26, 2004

city beat

Around the Big Top

the greatest cats on earth: Valeriy Tsoraev (bottom) trains cats to, among other things, show circus-goers the meaning of balance. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

When the circus comes to town, a cat-fancying writer meets some high-flying felines.

by Trish Boppert

On a hot and humid Friday afternoon behind the Fort Washington Expo Center, Cole Brothers Circus performers are holed up in their trailers, resting before the 4:30 p.m. show which will take place under what's billed as "the world's largest big top."

For now the tent, designed to hold more than 2,000 spectators, is empty. Well-worn high-heeled dance shoes lie in a forlorn heap near the performers' entrance. Weeds poke through the pavement and cables snake across the temporary living quarters behind the tent, connecting thrumming generators to the trailers that serve as home for the eight months per year the circus takes to the road.

Three tiger cubs frolic with trainer Cheryl Haddad under the watchful eyes of their caged elders. From somewhere out of sight, a horse nickers. The burnt, sugary smell of cotton candy mixed with stale popcorn hangs in the air. A couple of kids play tag, leaping over bales of hay, their cheeks flushed in the breathless heat.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Nearby, a satellite dish sits next to Valeriy Tsoraev and Silvania Ferreira's battered white trailer, where their 6-year old son, Valeriy Jr., perches on the flimsy aluminum steps, staring solemnly at the playing children. A white cat gazes from the rear window, disinterestedly swiping a paw across his face. He's one of 12 domestic felines caged inside, waiting their turn in the center-ring spotlight, where they perform as Valeriy Tsoraev's Acrobatic House Cats.

When Tsoraev enters the cats' quarters, they rise to their hind legs and mew loudly to capture his attention, behaving more like extremely elegant dogs than like cats. He pets them one by one. Most, he says, were rescued from animal shelters or found living as strays in the U.S. and Brazil, his wife's home country.

"These are good cats," he says in his thick Russian accent. It's possibly the understatement of the year especially if, like mine, your feline's tricks consist of eating, sleeping and occasionally shredding the hand that pets it just to show who's boss. These kitties put on a show that makes their big-cat counterparts look like torpid men in tiger costumes. Sure, the big cats stand on their hind legs and appear quite capable of killing their handler with one swipe of their massive paw. But do they jump on and off their trainer's shoulders, balance daintily on balls, scurry across tightropes, bust through miniature paper-covered hoops with acrobatic grace or wend snakelike between Tsoraev's legs in a choreographed Chaplin-esque stroll?

And when was the last time you saw a tiger leap from a swaying platform at the tippy top of a circus tent some five-stories high into the pillow-clenching arms of his trainer far below? (Movie trivia alert: This high-flying stunt earned Tsoraev's cat Ricon a signature role in the film Big Fish.)

When asked the secrets of training everyday cats to perform showstoppers like these, Tsoraev smiles enigmatically. He'll admit to rewarding them with treats for tricks well done, but won't say what they are. He prefers to start working with cats when they are 3 or 4 months old, and says that most will successfully learn several tricks. There's no difference, he says, between male and female when it comes to mastering stunts.

"All cats are smart. To do this with them, you must give good care and give love. Is not so hard," he says encouragingly, his words belying the fact that his arms are webbed with a patchwork of old and new scratches. His cats are neutered or spayed, he says, noting that "making kittens, having kittens is not good for cats who work."

It's showtime, and a slim crowd of around 300 ponies up $10 to $18 per ticket to enter the sweltering tent. In existence since 1884, Cole Brothers Circus is one of a handful of traveling circuses that remain. The advent of talking pictures, say historians, was the beginning of the end for bombastic live-entertainment venues like these.

"Are people jaded by all the other forms of entertainment out there? I don't know. But not all that long ago, circuses like this would draw big crowds for every performance, and that's no longer the case. It's sad," ponders marketing manager Jim Maresca, who's also a professional clown and a practicing chiropractor who frequently adjusts his co-workers' aching spines. The future of the circus, he opines, does not lie with the exotic animal acts that boosted Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey to dominance in the pre-WWI circus glory days. Less expensive to transport and feed, small animal acts like Tsoraev's are another story, and at least one other circus boasts domestic felines on its performance roster.

"The Shrine Circus has a housecat act, and it's cute, but it doesn't have the tricks or drama ours does. They have a cat that jumps from a platform, but there's no way it's as high as ours," says Maresca.

But under the big top, the show goes on. Rodrigo Fernandez skips rope atop a spinning metal gryro wheel. The Flying Neves summersault from trapezes. The Kim brothers juggle on horseback. And when the small cats strut, the audience oohs and aahs in all the right places.