Friday June 27th, 2008. Rehoboth, MA. 20 miles. Mowed Field, Hot, muggy, overcast.
Cat trainer Casey McCoy started the ’08 indoor season playing Shrine dates with a four cat act. That same act was booked on Kelly Miller for the tent show. A week before the circus opened in Hugo, OK, Casey’s “hind leg cat” died of a respiratory infection. The four cat act became a three cat act. A few weeks alter Casey found a new cat in a Texas sanctuary and named her Tora. Tora had no training at all, and in the months that have followed she has grown accustomed to her cage-mates and to the arena and learned to take her “seat” her safe place in the arena. Last night Tora sat on that seat in the arena through all of the cat act for the first time. Simple as that that sounds, it was a break-through. All else follows after a cat learns to find and take its seat and stay put until instructed to move. In a sense that has been The Year of the Cat, first working with the tigers on the Culpepper show, and now watching Tora’s evolution under Casey’s tutelage. Circus audiences in the 19th Century thrilled to the darling of Van Amberg entering a small cage with lions or with tigers. Van Amberg’s ability to train a lion to lay down with a lamb was enough to make him a circus celebrity. Today the sophistication of even the most basic cat acts far exceeds anything the 19th Century dreamed of. And a cat act, like a clown, or elephant, or the trapeze is a defining part of traditional circus.
Outstanding business. Full houses with turn-aways.
Cat trainer Casey McCoy started the ’08 indoor season playing Shrine dates with a four cat act. That same act was booked on Kelly Miller for the tent show. A week before the circus opened in Hugo, OK, Casey’s “hind leg cat” died of a respiratory infection. The four cat act became a three cat act. A few weeks alter Casey found a new cat in a Texas sanctuary and named her Tora. Tora had no training at all, and in the months that have followed she has grown accustomed to her cage-mates and to the arena and learned to take her “seat” her safe place in the arena. Last night Tora sat on that seat in the arena through all of the cat act for the first time. Simple as that that sounds, it was a break-through. All else follows after a cat learns to find and take its seat and stay put until instructed to move. In a sense that has been The Year of the Cat, first working with the tigers on the Culpepper show, and now watching Tora’s evolution under Casey’s tutelage. Circus audiences in the 19th Century thrilled to the darling of Van Amberg entering a small cage with lions or with tigers. Van Amberg’s ability to train a lion to lay down with a lamb was enough to make him a circus celebrity. Today the sophistication of even the most basic cat acts far exceeds anything the 19th Century dreamed of. And a cat act, like a clown, or elephant, or the trapeze is a defining part of traditional circus.
Outstanding business. Full houses with turn-aways.
